Rambles on Railways

by Sir Cusack P. Roney

In India, owing to the dense forests and jungles, swarming with birds and animals, it is necessary to make the wires very much stronger than they are made in Europe. They are, in fact, small bars of iron three-eighths of an inch in thickness. An amount of rigidity is thus obtained, which is necessary to meet the requirements of the country. The bars of iron are placed on the top of bamboos at a sufficient height to allow the country carts to pass underneath them, and even to give passage to loaded elephants. The size of these conducting bars is necessitated by the heavy rains of India. Even in England, the rain dripping in a stream from the telegraphic wire to the post is sufficient to stop the working of the wire, inasmuch as the electric current escapes directly to the earth, and is then dispersed. Notwithstanding the difficulties that the construction and maintenance of the telegraph system have to contend against in India, there were 13,400 miles of lines of communication open in the three Presidencies on the 30th of April, 1867. The first cost of their erection and of furnishing the necessary instruments, batteries, &c., was £1,345,328. As regards rainfall, taking the Registrar-General’s return for the first six months of 1867 and doubling it, it would appear that the highest annual rainfall in the United Kingdom is, at Bristol, 41·0; at Glasgow it is 40·2; Sheffield, 36·4; Birmingham, 31·0; Manchester (including Salford), 29·5; Edinburgh, 28·0; Dublin, 26·2; Leeds, 26·0; London, 25·2; Liverpool, 20·2; and Newcastle, only 16·2.

[101] In the report of the Directors of the Madras Company for the half-year ending the 30th June, 1867, it is stated, as regards the South-West Line and Bangalore Branch—“The maintenance of a great part of this line and branch is still enhanced in cost by the replacement of wooden sleepers, as they decayed, by iron sleepers and by the greater expense of maintaining the wooden road in the western district, though wooden sleepers were good and cheap there. It has been found impossible to bring down the cost of maintaining a line with wooden sleepers to anything like an equality with the iron sleeper line.” On the North-Western section of the line, where iron sleepers only are used, the cost of maintenance for the past half year had been at the rate of only £66. 18s. per mile per annum, whereas on the South-Western Line and Bangalore Branch it had been at the rate of £159 per mile per annum.

[102] Coal in India.—The chief part of the following information is taken from Engineering, one of the best “Class” papers ever published in any country. The article is compiled from all the Government reports and statistical statements that the editor could avail himself of.

“Viewed as a coal-producing country, it may fairly be asserted that the British territories in India cannot be considered as either largely or widely supplied with this essential source of motive power. Extensive fields do occur, but these are not distributed generally over the districts of the Indian empire, but are almost entirely concentrated in one and that a double band of coal-yielding deposits, which, with large interruptions, extends more than half across India from near Calcutta towards Bombay. This band extends throughout about 5° of latitude, that is, between the 20° and 25° parallels of latitude. All the country lying to the south of the 20° parallel, and all the country lying to the north of the 25° parallel up to the foot of the Himalayas, with the exception of the widely detached coal-beds of Eastern Bengal, Assam, and the Khasia hills, and the poor coals of Tenasserim, presents, so far as those portions of the country are known geologically, either no probability whatever of any deposits of coal being found within their limits, or if coal does exist, it can only be expected to be found at such a depth below the surface that it could not be profitably worked or economised. As British India stretches from 8° north latitude to 35° or 36°, or through some 28°, the very local disposition of its deposits of coal becomes evident; and it would seem that they are so far removed from several of the railway systems of India as to preclude the hope that such lines could ever profitably employ the extracts from those beds as fuel, for they could be more cheaply supplied from England, the cost of land carriage on the one hand being so much more expensive than the freight by sea on the other.

“Up to the present time it may be said that little more than surface workings have been carried on in India. The deepest pits there scarcely exceed seventy-five yards, while certainly one-half of the Indian coal used up to the present date has been produced from open workings or quarries, in which the coal has been worked like any ordinary stone. In parts of the Raneegunge field these open workings are of marvellous extent and size, covering hundreds of acres.

“Many causes have combined to lead to this mode of working. Cropping out at the surface with a very small dip, and, in most cases, with a very limited covering of clay or rocks, the valuable mineral could be removed at a very small cost. No expense was incurred for lights; drainage was easily and cheaply effected; all the coal was obtained, and the heavy waste incurred in cutting or hewing brittle coals, such as are most of the Indian coals, was avoided. But even more than all these considerations, the facility of obtaining labourers who would work in the daylight, and the difficulty, or even impossibility, of procuring those who would work in a pit, combined with the ease of inspection and measurement in the one case, and the cost and difficulty in the other, all led to the vast extension of open-work quarrying of coal, and, consequently, to the economy with which the mineral could be obtained and sold. This system is, however, now rapidly disappearing. Much of the coal accessible in this way has been removed, while at the same time the managers and proprietors are daily becoming more alive to the injudiciousness of exposing valuable seams by these diggings towards the outcrop. Every year is also adding to the number of labourers, and also of the tribes or castes to which they belong, who will work underground.

“Even in the only Indian coal-field which has as yet been worked to any extent, namely, Raneegunge field, very much more must yet be done before safe and satisfactory conclusions can be reached as to the amount of coal and its position. Up to the last year or two, in no single instance was a survey of the underground workings made or plans kept. The memory of the ‘old men’ was the only source from which information could be obtained as to the extent of the workings, the mode of occurrence of the seams, the disturbances to which they had been subjected, &c. This system, however, or rather want of system, has been changed in some cases, and plans are now kept. On this subject Professor Oldham justly remarks, ‘Considering the many ways in which danger to public safety (putting aside altogether the serious risks to private property and to individual life) results from abandoned mines and excavations, and from an ignorance of their true limits, I am compelled to think that the keeping and recording of such plans ought to be rendered compulsory. The cost to the colliery proprietors would be slight, while the advantages, even to them, would be inestimable. In hundreds of cases the safety, nay, the very possibility, of working certain mines, or parts of mines, will depend upon the accuracy of the knowledge of the limits of adjoining excavations, or upon sacrificing much valuable material by leaving unwrought greatly larger barriers than may be necessary. Such plans ought, I think, to be therefore insisted on, under penalties for neglect of this precaution.’

“The following list gives the names of the several coal-fields of India in the order of their successive geographical distribution, commencing with those nearest to Calcutta and proceeding westwards, taking first those which occur in the great band of coal-fields stretching from Calcutta towards Bombay, and then those which are comparatively distant or isolated:—

1. Rajmahal Hills.
2. Raneegunge.
3. Kurhurbali.
4. Jherria.
5. Bokaro.
6. Ramghur.
7. Karunpoora, North and South.
8. Eetcoora.
9. Palamow.
10. Sirgoojah, Singrowlie.
11. Upper Sone.
12. Koorba, or Belaspore.
13. Talcheer.
14. Nerbudda, and Pench River.
15. Chanda.
16. Kota.
17. Cutch.
18. Sind.
19. Salt Range.
20. Murree, and other places.
21. Darjeeling.
22. Assam.
23. Khasia Hills.
24. Garrow Hills, Cachar.
25. Cheduba, Sandoway.
26. Burmah.
27. Tenasserim Provinces.

“The Raneegunge coal-field is at a distance of 120 to 160 miles north-west of Calcutta. It extends from a few miles to the east of the village of Raneegunge to several miles west of the Barakur, the greatest length being, near east and west, about 30 miles, and the greatest breadth about 18 miles. The area included by the coal-bearing rocks is about 500 square miles. The coal of this field, like most Indian coals, is a non-coking bituminous coal, composed of distinct laminæ of a bright jetty coal, and of a dull more earthy rock. The average amount of ash is some 14 to 15 per cent., varying from 8 to 25 per cent. The Raneegunge field has the advantages of two branches of the East Indian Railway, which traverse its richest portions, and afford great facilities for the removal of coals.