Railway Construction

by William Hemingway Mills

CHAPTER VIII.

Railways of different ranks—Progressive improvements—Growing tendency for increased speeds, with corresponding increase in weight of permanent way and rolling-stock—Electricity as a motive-power.

Looking at railways in their present stage of development, they appear to be divided into three ranks, each one distinct from the other as regards its importance, capability, and prospects.

In the first rank are the great trunk lines, which, at home or abroad, pass through thickly populated districts, rich in manufactures, minerals, or shipping industries, with their enormous movement of materials and people, and consequently requiring the most ample works, equipment, and appliances for security.

In the second rank may be classed those railways which run through ranges of country where the population is moderate, or where the manufacturing industries are few in number and of minor importance. Although of the utmost value to the community of the long series of small towns and agricultural districts through which they pass, and forming the only great commercial highway, or connecting link, with some distant seaport, or leading business centre, the traffic returns upon such lines are too small to permit of the introduction of the more complete appliances and luxuries to be met with on the richer railways. In newly opened-out countries, and in distant colonies, such lines have often to struggle on for years against financial returns so small as to barely enable them to maintain a condition of efficiency; but where there are natural advantages in soil and climate, combined with a judicious development of all the available resources, the result will be the raising of the standard of the railway itself, and the enrichment of the entire district through which it passes. When laying out lines of this description, it may be necessary to curtail as much as possible the expenditure on works and equipment, but there should be no hesitation in obtaining liberal quantities of land for future

enlargement of stations, or for constructing additional stations on promising sites. The value of the land may be small in the outset, but will be enhanced enormously as the benefits of the undertaking become appreciated.

In the third rank may be grouped those branch lines which, starting from a main passenger or goods line, are laid down to some outlying town, seaport, or mining centre, which, although small, is considered of sufficient importance to be brought into railway communication. In general, these lines are laid to the same gauge as the line with which they connect, and the transfer of merchandise waggons is readily effected at the point of junction. Others, from motives of economy, have been laid down to a narrow gauge, involving the transhipment of all goods and cattle at the station where the break of gauge takes place. Most of these branch lines are laid out through the open country, like an ordinary standard railway, but with a minimum of works and appliances. Others are laid down partly on level public roads, and partly through the fields, and are in consequence subject to a statutory low rate of speed when travelling over those portions on the public roads.

In many cases the construction of second and third rank railways, both at home and abroad, has been largely assisted by state or provincial aid. Such assistance must always be valuable to poor or undeveloped districts, but judgment should be exercised so as not to encourage the introduction of any scheme which would interfere or become competitive with any existing undertaking constructed by public enterprise. So long as capitalists invest their money more from commercial motives than from feelings of philanthropy, it would, to say the least, be unjust and impolitic for any country to adopt a course of competition by national funds, and so check the flow of public money into public undertakings. Ordinary public commercial competition may be business, as each party can value and compare their own prospects; but the competition of a scheme enjoying national aid and free money grants is very apt to become one-sided.

There is every indication that even what may be termed a fourth-rank type of railway is destined to play a very important part in the industrial enterprises of many countries, and that in the form of little lines, made to any convenient gauge, and laid either along public roads or open country, or both, the produce from isolated manufactories, forests, quarries, and large farms will be

conveyed to the nearest railway stations with greater facility and at much less expense than by carting along the public highway. Such little lines are available in places where the most sanguine promoter would hesitate to suggest an ordinary railway, and may be found to supply what is felt to be the missing link in the economical transport of a long list of materials of everyday use. As they would be almost exclusively intended for merchandise purposes, the statutory requirements would be on the most moderate scale, and as they would be generally constructed at the cost of the parties who had to operate them, the outlay would be restricted to the actual works necessary for convenience and efficiency. Similar little lines have been in use for many years in the busy yards of large ironworks, shipbuilders, and many other localities, where weighty masses of materials have to be moved from place to place in the course of manufacture, and it would be merely carrying out the same idea to a more extended range. The principal inducement for their introduction is the great advantage, both in convenience and cost, that is obtained by hauling a ton of materials over a pair of rails as compared with carting the same weight along an ordinary road; and as the fact becomes more and more proved by experience, these little fourth-rank lines will become more general. Numbers of them are in use at the present time, and some of them, even of only 2-feet gauge, are doing good service, the little trucks conveying manufactured goods to the nearest railway station and returning loaded with coals and other materials. By making suitable arrangements for passing places and junctions, the system could be carried out to considerable distances in thinly populated districts, and be made available by means of local sidings, to several places along the route. With a narrow-gauge type there would, of course, always be the time and expense of transhipment to or from the ordinary railway trucks in the same way as with the road carts, but the time and expense may be lessened by so constructing the little narrow-gauge trucks that the bodies may be readily lifted off the frames and wheels, and be placed like packing-cases in the railway waggons.