Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/194

 182 RAILROAD cars to railroad companies for a period of 15 years, giving each company the option, if ex- ercised within a reasonable time, of purchasing a half interest in the cars assigned to its road, and of sharing equally with the Pullman com- pany in the results of the business. The Pull- man company furnishes the various kinds of cars required for the business, employs the ser- vants and attendants, and maintains all the in- terior equipment pertaining to the sleeping ac- commodations. The railroad companies con- trol the movements of the cars, carrying their passengers in them, receive the whole of the railroad 'fares, and maintain the outside and running gear of the cars, exactly as they do their own. Upward of 60 railroads in the United States, Canada, England, and Italy have entered into contracts with the Pullman com- pany. Some of them are participants in the entire business, while others are joint owners with the Pullman company in the cars assigned to their respective lines. The present standard sleeping car exceeds the weight of the ordinary 12-wheeled first class passenger car used on the leading railroads by about 2$ tons, the excess being due to the bedding and partitions essen- tial to the sleeping arrangements. These cars are now used on more than 30,000 m. of rail- road in America, and the advantages of the system have so recommended them that they have recently been adopted with favor in Eng- land and Italy, and will probably make their way at an early day to the railroads of the rest of Europe. The Pullman company has adopt- ed a number of ingenious devices which very greatly increase the comfort, safety, and health- fulness, and decrease the fatigue, anxiety, and loss of time of railroad travelling. The freight cars or carriages used upon railroads are con- structed according to two distinct systems, the English and American, which like the passen- ger cars differ especially in reference to the trucks, the former using the rigid four-wheel system, and the latter the bogie truck sys- tem. The American railroads use wheels of cast iron or low steel almost exclusively, the surfaces of which are hardened by chilling them in cooling; while all European roads use wheels of wrought iron, steel, and wood. The former are much cheaper, bat said to be more liable to accident. In treating upon rail- roads numerous important considerations pre- sent themselves besides those already noticed, each of which should receive particular atten- tion. Such especially are the viaducts, bridges, and tunnels, and the immense cuts or excava- tions and embankments ; also the processes employed by the engineers in laying out the road, their seeking for the most level and the straightest line while restricted by the amount of means provided, and planning the excava- tions and embankments, so that the material supplied by the former shall amount as near as may be to that required by the latter. The station houses, which in themselves are an im- portant class of structures peculiar to this new improvement, are generally constructed of brick or stone in Europe, of iron in tropi- cal countries, and in America at first of wood, for which brick, stone, or iron is nearly al- ways substituted as soon as the change can be afforded. Railroad bridges are generally built of iron and placed upon stone or iron supports in all countries except the United States, where engineers in the first construc- tion of railroads more commonly use timber owing to its great abundance, lightness, and cheapness. Tunnels constitute a remarkable feature in the construction of railroads. In Great Britain, where it is considered to be more economical to tunnel through rock than to make open cuts deeper than 60 ft., many tunnels have been constructed, several of them over 3 m. long. The Mont Cenis tunnel through the Alps is nearly 8 m. long ; the Hoosac tun- nel in Massachusetts is nearly 4f m. long ; and it is now proposed to construct one under the straits of Dover, 21 m. long, to connect the English and French railway systems. (See TUNNEL.) Cost of Railway Construction and Management. The comparative economy in the construction and operation of railroads has re- ceived particular attention from many compe- tent engineers and railroad managers. It is well known that the English roads have been built at an extraordinary amount of first cost, but it does not appear that the expenditures for actual construction have been much larger than in the United States for works of similar char- acter. The practice in the two countries has been entirely different. In England the plan has been to build them in the most solid and substantial manner from the start, and to sup- ply them with every appliance necessary for their operation ; while in America the general rule has been to build upon the cheapest possi- ble plans, with light rails, narrow banks, heavy gradients, wooden bridges, and less expensive care, buildings, and machinery, and to depend upon future earnings for the means with which to bring the works up to the standard required by the increasing business of the line. Among the large items of cost upon English lines is that of land damage or right of way, the aver- age of which has been rated at about $45,000 a mile, or about the average cost of American railroads. The "parliamentary expenses," in- curred in obtaining charters, are also very great, amounting in several instances to an average of $7,345 a mile, and in the case of the Great Northern railway to an average of $16,000 a mile. The several items of interest, discount on loans, bonuses, and commissions, also add greatly to the aggregate cost of rail- roads in all countries. Larger expenditures than are usual in the United States are in- volved from the more unfavorable physical features of the country, the topography pre- senting no long lines of watercourses nor wide table lands, both which are common in this country. Boggy districts are also more fre- quent in England, and the construction of a