An English engine and cars
would be battered to pieces in a few months on our rough roads, on account
of their rigidity and concentration of weight; while those of America, by
yielding to shocks both vertically and horizontally, escape injury.
American cars and engines are as much superior in design to the English as
their roads excel ours in solidity and finish.
But it will be asked, Shall we imitate the notorious extravagance of
British railways built at a cost of one hundred and seventy-three thousand
dollars per mile?
The answer is plain. The only thing about them to be imitated is their
thorough and permanent construction. That this need not involve
extravagance is evident from the fact that the actual cost of construction
has been only eighty-eight thousand dollars per mile of double-track
railway, including all the costly viaducts, tunnels, and bridges, which in
many cases a more judicious location or a bolder use of gradients would
have avoided. The remainder of their cost is made up of law and
Parliamentary expenses, engineering and management, land and damages,
interest on stock, bonuses, dividends paid from capital, etc., etc.,
amounting to eighty-five thousand dollars per mile. The folly of all this
has been seen, and neither the financial nor the engineering errors of that
day are now repeated. To show that a better system prevails, it is only
necessary to state that between 1848 and 1858, 390 miles of first-class
single-track railway have been opened at an average cost of $46.
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