Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIV.djvu/195

 EAILROAD 183 permanent road across these has often cost immense sums. Even when the embankments through them have been apparently completed, as much more material has in some cases been required for their maintenance in consequence of their subsidence. The bridges, viaducts, tunnels, &c., are much more numerous and ex- pensive structures upon English than Ameri- can roads. The superior equipment of engines and carriages adds a considerable amount to cost per mile, some of the roads having even more than a locomotive for every mile, the cost of which averages about $12,000 each. Among the heavier items of expense are the approaches to the cities, London particularly, where the roads for several miles are frequent- ly constructed upon arched viaducts of brick. The London and Greenwich line, 3f m. long, thus built, cost $1,299,651 a mile ; the London and Blackwall, of the same character, $1,406,- 804. From such causes the total cost of Eng- lish roads has amounted to about $170,000 a mile. The French double-track roads in 1857 were estimated to have cost $101,877 a mile ; about one fourth of the whole was for earth- work and " works of art," as bridges, viaducts, and tunnels ; one quarter for rails, chairs, ties, and keys ; and $6,039 for ballast, much more even than upon the English roads. Few roads in the United States have reached an expendi- ture for construction equal to that of the least expensive roads of Great Britain ; and the av- erage cost of all those of the United States is estimated at little more than $60,000 a mile. The effect of the superior character of English railways is shown in a remarkable manner by the low rate per mile at which the permanent way is kept in order, and by the cheapness with which they are operated as compared with the same items for equal traffic on American lines. In Great Britain the distance run to a ton of bituminous coal or of coke varies from 75 to 118 m., the latter having been obtained with coke for a full year on the Cork and Bandon railway ; 75 m. is considered to be a fair aver- age. In America the number of miles run per ton of bituminous coal varies with the quality of the coal, weight of the trains, and gradients of the roads, from 35 to 60 m. ; 45 m. may be considered as about a fair average. The rate at which trains are run upon the English roads is not so high as it was formerly. Passenger trains run from 18 to 40 m. an hour, the latter being the speed of some of the express trains ; the average rate is about 27 m. Freight trains average about 15 m., including all stops. The highest rate for a passenger train attained for a few miles together has been 73 m. an hour. A speed of 60 m. is made daily for short dis- tances, and sometimes even of 78 m. an hour. The average speed is considerably greater than on the French roads, and also exceeds that on the American, where it is not over 25 m. an hour, though 35 and even 40 m. are made upon some of the principal lines by the fastest trains. According to the report of the Massa- chusetts board of railroad commissioners for the year 1874, it appears that one passenger was killed and seven were wounded during the year by causes over which they had no control. The whole number of persons carried by rail during the year was reported at 42,480,000, and the average journey at 16 m. ; it conse- quently follows "that the average journey by rail, resulting in death, during the last year, has been 679,000,000 m., and that resulting either in death or injury has been 85,000,000 m, ; in other words, in estimating the chances of danger in travelling by rail in Massachusetts for any given person, the returns of the last year show that he will probably travel 85 mil- lions of miles before sustaining any injury from an accident from causes beyond his con- trol. The ordinary average of accidents of this description in Massachusetts, in years past, has been about one passenger to each 1,400,000 carried ; during the past year it has been one only to each 5,300,000 carried, and for the pre- vious year one to 42,400,000 carried." In con- trast with this it is added that " through a pe- riod of ten years, 1859-'69, one passenger was killed or injured on the French railroads to each 674,000 carried, and in England the average has been about one in every 430,000 ; or, in the first case, twice the proportion of Massachu- setts casualties, and in the last, three times the proportion." The foregoing is a more favor- able statement than can be made by the aver- age of the American railroads, and yet it is believed that they in turn can show a greater degree of safety in the transportation of their passengers than obtains in either England or France. Narrow-gauge Railroads. As before stated, the standard railway gauge of the world is now 4 ft. 8 in. In 1832 a horse tramway, since known as the Festiniog railway, was built in Wales for the purpose of carrying slate from the quarries to Port Madoc. It was nominally of 2 ft. gauge, and was used as originally de- signed till 1863, when 0. E. Spooner, the engi- neer of the line, recommended the use of loco- motives. Seven of these were built, two weigh- ing eight tons and five weighing ten tons each. In 1869 Mr. Fairlie built an engine for this road known as the Little Wonder. It is mount- ed on two trucks or bogies, each having four coupled wheels 2 ft. 4 in. in diameter with a wheel base of 5 ft., making the total wheel base of the engine 19 ft. The cylinders are 8y in. in diameter and 13 in. stroke, and the entire engine weighs 19 tons. The success of the Festiniog railway and the Fairlie en- gines became widely known ; and the wri- tings of Mr. Fairlie, published in 1870 and 1871, on "The Gauge for the Railways of the Future," again attracted the attention of en- gineers throughout the world to the question of the gauges. The advocates of Fairlie's sys- tem claim : 1, that the cost of constructing, taking the average expense, will be found to vary as the gauge ; 2, that every inch added to the width of the gauge beyond what is ab-