human
A great deal of information on the subject of Rail Roads has been disseminated by public spirited individuals in the course of the past two or three years. A number of such works have been projected in the United States and some of them completed within that period. The Baltimore and Ohio is first and most important in every point of view. To the efforts of the enterprising Directors and Stockholders of that Company, we shall be indebted for the creation in a short period of time of a greater extent of Railway communication between the several parts of the Union than Centuries have produced of artificial or canal navigation. We firmly believe that the digging of canals in all parts of the country will cease and that many now in use will be abandoned and railroads substituted in place of them. * * * * * As to the mode of construction--the route is selected upon a minute survey, with as little elevation as possible, with a view to economy--the line is then graded by excavating the earth to near a level, say 50 feet slope to the mile. The excavation for a single line of rails need not be more than one-third the width of a turnpike and, of course, this part of the work is proportionately cheaper than grading for a turnpike. Large pieces of limestone, two feet or more in length and from 3 to 12 inches thick, made straight on the upper edge, are then firmly imbedded along the graduated road in two lines, 4 feet 3 inches apart. On these lines of stone sills are laid iron bars or rails, 2 inches wide, 1-1/2 inches thick, fastened with iron bolts. Bridges to pass water courses and drains to carry off the water are to be made in the common way. * * * The work is now done. As to its cost--Unless the route be through hills and vallies and, of course, a very unfavorable one, the necessary grading of a narrow line for a railway will not cost more than the like work for a wide turnpike. * * * The next item of expense is stone work. The stone sills will cost 20 cents per foot, or $2,112 per mile for two rows. The iron rails and bolts will cost $57 per ton, or $969 per mile, allowing 17 tons which will do, fastening the same from 1 to $200 a mile. * * * No greater difficulty exists in fixing the precise cost of a railway than of a house of given dimensions or of a brick wall. In reference to the Lexington and Ohio Railroad the requisite data to form true estimates of the cost of each separate mile will soon be in possession of the Company. The Engineers are of the opinion that it is throughout an eligible cheap line. The whole cost then is less than $8,000 a mile.
gpt
In speaking in our last of the iron rails, we should have described them as _half an inch_ thick instead of an inch and a half. The engineers have run the experimental line on a grade thirty feet to the mile instead of fifty feet as we supposed. A locomotive engine will act advantageously upon a grade of forty feet or more, but the country between Lexington and Louisville will admit of as low a grade as thirty feet without expensive excavations or embankments, there being no natural obstacle on the whole line except at Frankfort where an inclined plane and stationary power will be required to reach the Kentucky River.
human
It appears by a statement of the performance on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway that an engine has transported 142 tons of freight 180 miles in one day, making six trips between the two towns, and that on the next day, the steam engine travelled 120 miles with similar loads. The transportation of 142 tons in 180 miles is equivalent to the conveyance of one ton 4620 miles. Now, if as it is stated, the cost of fuel, oil, attendance and all other charges requisite to the operations of a Locomotive Engine be only $5 a day, it follows that when once a Rail Road is completed and all its machinery prepared for operations 4620 tons may be transported one mile for $5.00, or 100 tons one mile for 12-3/4 cents. When these results are applied to our own road it will be seen that estimating ten barrels of flour for a ton, the transportation of 100 barrels 100 miles would cost 106-1/4 cents. It is true that no one can suppose that this full result can ever be reduced to continued practice but the simple fact of its having once been accomplished will be sufficient to place Rail Roads far above all other artificial means of transportation. At the same time it should not be forgotten that the wagons on the Liverpool and Manchester Rail Road are of the old construction and are known to require double the power to draw them that the wagons do on our Rail Road.