"In an economical view,"
says Mr. Colburn, "the damage occasioned by water is far greater than the
utmost cost of its removal. The track is disturbed, the iron bruised, the
fastenings strained, the chairs broken, the ties rotted, the resistance and
thereby the consumption of fuel increased, and the whole wear and tear
greatly enhanced."
Next to drainage in importance is plenty of good ballast. The New-England
roads are well ballasted, as a general thing; but in the West, where gravel
is scarce, they do not trouble themselves to find a substitute. Even the
great New York and Erie road, after ten years' use, is only half ballasted,
which accounts for its being more than half worn out.
Much has been said and written on the necessity of a good joint for the
rails, and many are the inventions for securing this object,--"compound
rails," "fished joints," "bracket chairs," "sleeve joints," etc., etc. But
without better road-beds no form of superstructure will last, and with
road-beds as good as they ought to be almost any simple and easily adjusted
arrangement will answer well enough.
But a more important matter than all these, so far as the economy of
maintenance is concerned, is the quality and shape of the iron rails,
forming one-eighth of the whole cost of our railways. Where companies,
instead of buying rails, are selling bonds, they have no right to complain,
if the iron turn out as worthless as the debentures. But where they pay
cash, they can insist on good iron, and will get it, if they will pay the
price, which will rule from eighteen to twenty dollars per ton over that of
the poorest article.
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