The greatest engineering work of the nineteenth century was the
development of the railway system which has changed the face of the
world. Beginning in 1829 with the locomotive of George Stephenson, it
has extended with such strides that, after seventy years, there are
466,000 miles of railways in the world, of which 190,000 miles are in
the United States. Their cost is estimated at forty thousand millions
of dollars, of which ten thousand millions belong to the United States.
The rapidity with which railways are built in the United States and
Canada contrasts strongly with what has been done in other countries.
Much has been written of the energy of Russia in building 3000 miles of
Siberian railway in five or six years. In the United States an average
of 6147 miles was completed every year during ten successive years,
and in 1887 there were built 12,982 miles. The physical difficulties
overcome in Siberia are no greater than have been overcome here.
This rapid construction is due to several causes, the most potent of
which has been the need of extending railways over great distances
with little money. Hence they were built economically, and at first
in not as solid a manner as those of Europe. Steeper gradients,
sharper curves, and lighter rails were used. This rendered necessary
a different kind of rolling-stock suitable to such construction. The
swivelling-truck and equalizing-beam enabled our engines to run safely
on tracks where the rigid European engines would soon have been in the
ditch.
Our cars were made longer, and by the use of longitudinal framing much
stronger. A great economy came from the use of annealed cast-iron
wheels, with hardened tires, all in one piece, instead of being
built up of spokes, hubs, and tires in separate parts. These wheels
now seldom break, and cost much less than European wheels. As there
are some eleven million car-wheels in use in the United States the
resulting economy is great.
It was soon seen that longer cars would carry a greater proportion of
paying load, and the more cars that one engine could draw in a train,
the less would be the cost. It was not until the invention by Bessemer
in 1864 of a steel of quality and cost that made it available for rails
that much heavier cars and locomotives could be used. Then came a rapid
increase. As soon as Bessemer rails were made in this country, the cost
fell from $175 per ton to $50, and now to $26.
Before that time a wooden car weighed sixteen tons, and could carry a
paying load of fifteen tons. The thirty-ton engines of those days could
not draw on a level over thirty cars weighing 900 tons.
The pressed steel car of to-day weighs no more than the wooden car,
but carries a paying load of fifty tons. The heaviest engines have now
drawn on a level fifty steel cars, weighing 3750 tons. In the one case
the paying load of an engine was 450 tons; now it is 2500 tons.
Steep grades soon developed a better brake system, and these heavier
trains have led to the invention of the automatic brake worked from
the engine, and also automatic couplers, saving time and many lives.
The capacity of our railways has been greatly increased by the use of
electric block-signals.
The perfecting of both the railway and its rolling-stock has led to
remarkable results.
We have no accurate statistics of the early operation of American
railways. In 1867 Poor’s Manual estimated their total freight tonnage
at 75,000,000 and the total freight receipts at $400,000,000. This was
an average rate per ton of $5.33.
In 1899 Poor gives the total freight tonnage at 975,789,941 tons, and
the freight receipts at $922,436,314, or an average rate per ton of
ninety-five cents. Had the rates of 1867 prevailed, the additional
yearly cost to the public would have been $4,275,000,000, or sufficient
to replace the whole railway system in two and a half years.
This is an illustration only, but a very striking one. Everybody knows
that such high rates of freight as those of 1867 would have checked
traffic. This much can surely be said: the reduction in cost of
operating our railways, and the consequent fall in freight rates, have
been potent factors in enabling the United States to send abroad last
year $1,456,000,000 worth of exports and flood the world with our food
and manufactured products.