Handbook of Railroad Construction; For the use of American engineers. / Containing the necessary rules, tables, and formulæ for the location, construction, equipment, and management of railroads, as built in the United States.

by George L. Vose

NEW YORK AND ERIE RAILROAD.

422. As a fine specimen of American railroad engineering, and American railroad management, stands the above-named line, extending from Jersey City to Lake Erie, at Dunkirk; embracing with its branches 496 miles of road, employing over 1,000,000 dollars worth of labor per annum, upwards of 200 locomotive engines, and about 3,000 cars; earning annually over 5,000,000, and expending 2,680,000 dollars.

The whole cost of the road up to September 30, 1855, was, with the equipment, nearly $33,750,000. There are 129 truss bridges, amounting in all to 15,692 feet in length; 64 trestle, stringer, and pile bridges, of 5,489 feet total length; 3 viaducts, of length 1,274 feet in all; 167 arch culverts, of from 3 to 30 feet span; 527 box culverts, from 1 to 12 feet span; 92 wood sheds, 14,200 feet total length; 435 buildings; 433 switches, of 387,914 feet available length, and 504,205 feet total length.

Notwithstanding the immense amount of business transacted by such a road, so complete is the organization and management of employees, that the general superintendent, sitting in his New York office, can at any moment tell, within one mile, where each car or engine is, what it is doing, with what loaded, the consignor and consignee, and the time of arriving and departing the several stations, and other trains; and thus at any moment may perceive and correct faults and remissness, and in reality control the whole road.