Chapter II: Introduction: By Thomas M. Cooley

The railroads of the United States, now aggregating a hundred and fifty thousand miles and having several hundred different managements, are frequently spoken of comprehensively as the railroad system of the country, as though they constituted a unity in fact, and might be regarded and dealt with as an entirety, by their patrons and by the public authorities, whenever the conveniences they are expected to supply, or the conduct of managers and agents, come in question. So far, however, is this from being the case, that it would be impossible to name any other industrial interest where the diversities are so obvious and the want of unity so conspicuous and so important. The diversities date from the very origin of the roads; they have not come into existence under the same laws nor subject to the same control. It was accepted as an undoubted truth in constitutional law from the first that the authority for the construction of railroads within a State must come from the State itself, which alone could empower the promoters to appropriate lands by adversary proceedings for the purpose. The grant of corporate power must also come from the State, or, at least, have State recognition and sanction; and where the proposed road was to cross a State boundary, the necessary corporate authority must be given by every State through or into which the road was to run. It was conceded that the delegated powers of the General Government did not comprehend the granting of charters for the construction of these roads within the States, and even in the Territories charters were granted by the local legislatures. The case of the transcontinental roads was clearly exceptional; they were to be constructed in large part over the public domain, and subsidies were to be granted by Congress for the purpose. They were also, in part at least, to be constructed for governmental reasons as national agencies; and invoking State authority for the purpose seemed to be as inconsistent as it would be inadequate. But, though these were exceptional cases, the magnitude and importance of the Pacific roads are so immense that the agency of the General Government in making provision for this method of transportation must always have prominence in railroad history and railroad statistics.

Not only have the roads been diverse in origin, but the corporations which have constructed them have differed very greatly in respect to their powers and rights, and also to the obligations imposed by law upon them. The early grants of power were charter-contracts, freely given, with very liberal provisions; the public being more anxious that they be accepted and acted upon than distrustful of their abuse afterward. Many of them were not subject to alteration or repeal, except with the consent of the corporators; and some of them contained provisions intended to exclude or limit competition, so that, within a limited territory, something in the nature of a monopoly in transportation would be created. The later grants give evidence of popular apprehension of corporate abuses; the legislature reserves a control over them, and the right to multiply railroads indefinitely is made as free as possible, under the supposition that in this multiplication is to be found the best protection against any one of them abusing its powers. In very many cases the motive to the building of a new road has been antagonism to one already in existence, and municipalities have voted subsidies to the one in the hope that, when constructed, it would draw business away from the other. The anomaly has thus been witnessed of distrust of corporate power being the motive for increasing it; and the multiplication of roads has gone on, without any general supervision or any previous determination by competent public authority that they were needed, until the increase has quite outrun in some sections any proper demand for their facilities.

Roads thus brought into existence, without system and under diverse managements, it was soon seen were capable of being so operated that the antagonism of managers, instead of finding expression in legitimate competition, would be given to the sort of strife that can only be properly characterized by calling it, as it commonly is called, a war. From such a war the public inevitably suffers. The best service upon the roads is only performed when they are operated as if they constituted in fact parts of one harmonious system; the rates being made by agreement, and traffic exchanged with as little disturbance as possible, and without abrupt break at the terminals. But when every management might act independently, it sometimes happened that a company made its method of doing business an impediment instead of a help to the business done over other roads, recognizing no public duty which should preclude its doing so, provided a gain to itself, however indirect or illegitimate, was probable. Many consolidations of roads have had for their motive the getting rid of this power to do mischief on the part of roads absorbed.

In nothing is the want of unity so distinctly and mischievously obvious as in the power of each corporation to make rates independently. It may not only make its own local rates at discretion, but it may join or refuse to join with others in making through rates; so that an inconsiderable and otherwise insignificant road may be capable of being so used as to throw rates for a large section of the country into confusion, and to render the making of profit by other roads impossible. It is frequently said in railroad circles that roads are sometimes constructed for no other reason than because, through this power of mischief, it will be possible to levy contributions upon others, or to compel others, in self-protection, to buy them up at extravagant prices. Cases are named in which this sort of scheming is supposed to have succeeded, and others in which it is now being tried.

Evils springing from the diversities mentioned have been cured, or greatly mitigated, by such devices as the formation of fast-freight lines to operate over many roads; by allowing express companies to come upon the roads with semi-independence in the transportation of articles, where, for special reasons, the public is content to pay an extra price for extra care or speed; and by arrangements with sleeping-car companies for special accommodations in luxurious cars to those desiring them. These collateral arrangements, however, have not been wholly beneficial; and had all the roads been constructed as parts of one system and under one management, some of them would neither have been necessary nor defensible. They exist now, however, with more or less reason for their existence; and they tend to increase the diversities in railroad work.

The want of unity which has been pointed out tended to breed abuses specially injurious to the public, and governmental regulation was entered upon for their correction. Naturally the first attempts in this direction were made by separate States, each undertaking to regulate for itself the transportation within its own limits. Such regulation would have been perfectly logical, and perhaps effectual, had the roads within each State formed a system by themselves; but when State boundaries had very little importance, either to the roads themselves or to the traffic done over them, unless made important by restrictive and obstructive legislation, the regulation by any State must necessarily be fragmentary and imperfect, and diverse regulation in different States might be harmful rather than beneficial. It must be said for State regulation that it has in general been exercised in a prudent and conservative way, but it is liable to be influenced by a sensitive and excitable public opinion; and as nothing is more common than to find gross abuses in the matter of railroad transportation selfishly defended in localities, and even in considerable sections, which are supposed to receive benefits from them, it would not be strange if the like selfishness should sometimes succeed in influencing the exercise of power by one State in a manner that a neighboring State would regard as unfriendly and injurious.

The Federal Government recently undertook the work of regulation, and in doing so accepted the view upon which the States had acted, and so worded its statute that the transportation which does not cross State lines is supposed to be excluded. The United States thus undertakes to regulate interstate commerce by rail, and the States regulate, or may regulate, that which is not interstate. It was perhaps overlooked at first that, inasmuch as Government control may embrace the making of classifications, prescribing safety and other appliances, and naming rates, any considerable regulation of State traffic and interstate traffic separately must necessarily to some extent cause interference. The two classes of traffic flow on together over the same lines in the same vehicles under the management of the same agencies, with little or no distinction based on State lines; the rates and the management influenced by considerations which necessarily are of general force, so that separate regulation may without much extravagance be compared to an attempt in the case of one of our great rivers to regulate the flow of the waters in general, but without, in doing so, interfering with an independent regulation of such portion thereof as may have come from the springs and streams of some particular section. This is one of many reasons for looking upon all existing legislation as merely tentative.

No doubt the time will come when the railroads of the country will constitute, as they do not now, a system. There are those who think this may, sufficiently for practical purposes, be accomplished by the legalization of some scheme of pooling; but this is a crude device, against which there is an existing prejudice not easily to be removed. Others look for unity through gradual consolidations, the tendency to which is manifest, or through something in the nature of a trust, or by means of more comprehensive and stringent national control. Beyond all these is not infrequently suggested a Government ownership.

Of the theories that might be advanced in this direction, or the arguments in their support, nothing further will be said here; the immediate purpose being accomplished when it is shown how misleading may be the term _system_, when applied to the railroads of the country as an aggregate, as now owned, managed, and controlled.

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Every man in the land is interested daily and constantly in railroads and the transportation of persons and property over them. The price of whatever he eats, or wears, or uses, the cost and comfort of travel, the speed and convenience with which he shall receive his mail and the current intelligence of the day, and even the intimacy and extent of his social relations, are all largely affected thereby. The business employs great numbers of persons, and the wages paid them affect largely the wages paid in other lines of occupation. The management of the business in some of its departments is attended by serious dangers, and thousands annually lose their lives in the service. Other thousands annually are either killed or injured in being transported; the aggregate being somewhat startling, though unquestionably this method of travel is safer than any other. The ingenuity which has been expended in devices to make the transportation rapid, cheap, and safe may well be characterized as marvellous, and some feats in railroad engineering are the wonder of the world. With all these facts and many others to create a public interest in the general subject, the editor of _Scribner's Magazine_, some little time ago, applied to writers of well-known ability and competency to prepare papers for publication therein upon the various topics of principal interest in the life and use of railroads, beginning with the construction, and embracing the salient facts of management and service. He was successful in securing a series of papers of high value, the appearance of which has been welcomed from month to month, beginning with June, 1888, with constant and increasing interest. These papers have a permanent value; and, in obedience to a demand for their separate publication in convenient form for frequent reference, the publishers now reproduce them with expansions and additions. A reference to the several titles will convince anyone at all familiar with the general subject that the particular topic is treated in every instance by an expert, entitled as such to speak with authority.

THE BUILDING OF A RAILWAY.

BY THOMAS CURTIS CLARKE.

Roman Tramways of Stone--First Use of Iron Rails--The Modern
Railway created by Stephenson's "Rocket" in 1830--Early
American Locomotives--Key to the Evolution of the American
Railway--Invention of the Swivelling Truck, Equalizing Beams,
and the Switchback--Locating a Road--Work of the Surveying
Party--Making the Road-bed--How Tunnels are Avoided--More
than Three Thousand Bridges in the United States--Old Wooden
Structures--The Howe Truss--The Use of Iron--Viaducts of
Steel--The American System of Laying Bridge Foundations
under Water--Origin of the Cantilever--Laying the Track--How
it is Kept in Repair--Premiums for Section Bosses--Number
of Railway Employees in the United States--Rapid Railway
Construction--Radical Changes which the Railway will Effect.

The world of to-day differs from that of Napoleon Bonaparte more than his world differed from that of Julius Cæsar; and this change has chiefly been made by railways.

Railways have been known since the days of the Romans. Their tracks were made of two lines of cut stones. Iron rails took their place about one hundred and fifty years ago, when the use of that metal became extended. These roads were called tram-roads, and were used to carry coal from the mines to the places of shipment. They were few in number and attracted little attention.

The modern railway was created by the Stephensons in 1830, when they built the locomotive "Rocket." The development of the railway since is due to the development of the locomotive. Civil engineering has done much, but mechanical engineering has done more.

The invention of the steam-engine by James Watt, in 1773, attracted the attention of advanced thinkers to a possible steam locomotive. Erasmus Darwin, in a poem published in 1781, made this remarkable prediction:

"Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car."

The first locomotive of which we have any certain record was invented, and put in operation on a model circular railway in London, in 1804, by Richard Trevithick, an erratic genius, who invented many things but perfected few. His locomotive could not make steam, and therefore could neither go fast nor draw a heavy load. This was the fault of all its successors, until the competitive trial of locomotives on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, in 1829. The Stephensons, father and son, had invented the steam blast, which, by constantly blowing the fire, enabled the "Rocket," with its tubular boiler, to make steam enough to draw ten passenger cars, at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour.

Then was born the modern giant, and so recent is the date of his birth that one of the unsuccessful competitors at that memorable trial, Captain John Ericsson, was until the present year (1889) living and actively working in New York. Another engineer, Horatio Allen, who drove the first locomotive on the first trip ever made in the United States, in 1831, still lives, a hale and hearty old man, near New York.

The earlier locomotives of this country, modelled after the "Rocket," weighed five or six tons, and could draw, on a level, about 40 tons. After the American improvements, which we shall describe, were made, our engines weighed 25 tons, and could draw, on a level, some sixty loaded freight cars, weighing 1,200 tons. This was a wonderful advance, but now we have the "Consolidation" locomotive, weighing 50 tons, and able to draw, on a level, a little over 2,400 tons.

And this is not the end. Still heavier and more powerful engines are being designed and built, but the limit of the strength of the track, according to its present forms, has nearly been reached. It is very certain we have not reached the limit of the size and power of engines, or the strength of the track that can be devised.

After the success of the "Rocket," and of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the authority of George Stephenson and his son Robert became absolute and unquestioned upon all subjects of railway engineering. Their locomotives had very little side play to their wheels, and could not go around sharp curves. They accordingly preferred to make their lines as straight as possible, and were willing to spend vast sums to get easy grades. Their lines were taken as models and imitated by other engineers. All lines in England were made with easy grades and gentle curves. Monumental bridges, lofty stone viaducts, and deep cuts or tunnels at every hill marked this stage of railway construction in England, which was imitated on the European lines.

As it was with the railway, so it was with the locomotive. The Stephenson type, once fixed, has remained unchanged (in Europe), except in detail, to the present day. European locomotives have increased in weight and power, and in perfection of material and workmanship, but the general features are those of the locomotives built by the great firm of George Stephenson & Son, before 1840.

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When we come to the United States we find an entirely different state of things. The key to the evolution of the American railway is the contempt for authority displayed by our engineers, and the untrammelled way in which they invented and applied whatever they thought would answer the best purpose, regardless of precedent. When we began to build our railways, in 1831, we followed English patterns for a short time. Our engineers soon saw that unless vital changes were made our money would not hold out, and our railway system would be very short. Necessity truly became the mother of invention.

The first, and most far-reaching, invention was that of the swivelling truck, which, placed under the front end of an engine, enables it to run around curves of almost any radius. This enabled us to build much less expensive lines than those of England, for we could now curve around and avoid hills and other obstacles at will. The illustration opposite shows a railroad curving around a mountain and supported by a retaining wall, instead of piercing through the mountain with a tunnel, as would have been necessary but for the swivelling truck. The swivelling truck was first suggested by Horatio Allen, for the South Carolina Railway, in 1831; but the first practical use of it was made on the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, in the same year. It is said to have been invented by John B. Jervis, Chief Engineer of that road.

The next improvement was the invention of the equalizing beams or levers, by which the weight of the engine is always borne by three out of four or more driving-wheels. They act like a three-legged stool, which can always be set level on any irregular spot. The original imported English locomotives could not be kept on the rails of rough tracks. The same experience obtained in Canada when the Grand Trunk Railway was opened, in 1854-55. The locomotives of English pattern constantly ran off the track; those of American pattern hardly ever did so. Finally, all their locomotives were changed by having swivelling trucks put under their forward ends, and no more trouble occurred. The equalizing levers were patented in 1838, by Joseph Harrison, Jr., of Philadelphia.

These two improvements, which are absolutely essential to the success of railways in new countries, and have been adopted in Canada, Australia, Mexico, and South America,[1] to the exclusion of English patterns, are also of great value on the smoothest and best possible tracks. The flexibility of the American machine increases its adhesion and enables it to draw greater loads than its English rival. The same flexibility equalizes its pressure on the track, prevents shocks and blows, and enables it to keep out of the hospital and run more miles in a year than an English locomotive.[2]

Equally valuable improvements were made in cars, both for passengers and freight. Instead of the four-wheeled English car, which on a rough track dances along on three wheels, we owe to Ross Winans, of Baltimore, the application of a pair of four-wheeled swivelling trucks, one under each end of the car, thus enabling it to accommodate itself to the inequalities of a rough track and to follow its locomotive around the sharpest curves. There are, on our main lines, curves of less than 300 feet radius, while, on the Manhattan Elevated, the largest passenger traffic in the world is conducted around curves of less than 100 feet radius. There are few curves of less than 1,000 feet radius on European railways.

The climbing capabilities of a locomotive upon smooth rails were not known until, in 1852, Mr. B. H. Latrobe, Chief Engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, tried a temporary zigzag gradient of 10 per cent.--that is 10 feet rise in 100 feet length, or 528 feet per mile--over a hill about two miles long, through which the Kingwood Tunnel was being excavated. A locomotive weighing 28 tons on its drivers took one car weighing 15 tons over this line in safety. It was worked for passenger traffic for six months. This daring feat has never been equalled. Trains go over 4 per cent. gradients on the Colorado system, and there is one short line, used to bring ore to the Pueblo furnaces, which is worked by locomotives over a 7 per cent. grade. These are believed to be the steepest grades worked by ordinary locomotives on smooth rails.

Another American invention is the switchback. By this plan the length of line required to ease the gradient is obtained by running backward and forward in a zigzag course, instead of going straight up the mountain. As a full stop has to be made at the end of every piece of line, there is no danger of the train running away from its brakes. This device was first used among the hills of Pennsylvania over forty years ago, to lower coal cars down into the Nesquehoning Valley. It was afterwards used on the Callao, Lima, and Oroya Railroad in Peru, by American engineers, with extraordinary daring and skill. It was employed to carry the temporary tracks of the Cascade Division of the Northern Pacific Railroad over the "Stampede" Pass, with grades of 297 feet per mile, while a tunnel 9,850 feet long was being driven through the mountains.

With the improvement of brakes and more reliable means of stopping trains upon steep grades, came a farther development of the above device, which was first applied on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in Colorado, and has since been applied on a grand scale on the Saint Gothard road, the Black Forest railways of Germany, and the Semmering line in the Tyrol. This device is to connect the two lines of the zigzag by a curve at the point where they come together, so that the train, instead of going alternately backward and forward, now runs continuously on. It becomes possible for the line to return above itself in spiral form, sometimes crossing over the lower level by a tunnel, and sometimes by a bridge. A notable instance of this kind of location is seen on the Tehachapi Pass of the Southern Pacific, where the line ascends 2,674 feet in 25 miles, with eleven tunnels, and a spiral 3,800 feet long.

The "Big Loop," as it is called, on the Georgetown branch of the Union Pacific, in Colorado, between Georgetown and a mining camp called Silver Plume, has been chosen to illustrate this point. The direct distance up the valley is 1¼ miles and the elevation 600 feet, requiring a gradient of 480 feet per mile. But by curving the line around in a spiral, the length of the line is increased to 4 miles and the gradient reduced to 150 feet per mile. Zigzags were used first for foot-paths, then for common roads, lastly for railways. Their natural sequence, spirals, was a railway device entirely, and confirms the saying of one of our engineers: "Where a mule can go, I can make a locomotive go." This may be called the poetry of engineering, as it requires both imagination to conceive and skill to execute.

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There is one thing more which distinguishes the American railway from its English parent, and that is the almost uniform practice of getting the road open for traffic in the cheapest manner and in the least possible time, and then completing it and enlarging its capacity out of its surplus earnings, and from the credit which these earnings give it.

The Pennsylvania Railroad between Philadelphia and Harrisburg is a notable example of this. Within the past few years it has been rebuilt on a grand scale, and in many places relocated, and miles of sharp curves and heavy gradients, originally put in to save expense, have been taken out. This system has been followed everywhere, except on a few branch lines, and upon one monumental example of failure--the West Shore Railroad, of New York. The projectors of that line attempted in three years to build a double-track railroad up to the standard of the Pennsylvania road, which had been forty years in reaching its present excellence. Their money gave out, and they came to grief.