. Elements of transportation, a discussion of steam railroad electric railway, and ocean and inland water transportation . ve been built. In the United States, where population is relativelysparse, there are 27 miles of railroad for each 10,000 in-habitants. In Europe, as a whole, there are less than fivemiles. Measured by this standard, the people of the UnitedStates are much more adequately supplied with railwaysthan are the residents of Europe. Each person living inthe United States is served with a greater lengtli of railroadthan is the inhabitant of Europe. CHAPTER IVTRACK, CAR AND TRAIN—
. Elements of transportation, a discussion of steam railroad electric railway, and ocean and inland water transportation . ve been built. In the United States, where population is relativelysparse, there are 27 miles of railroad for each 10,000 in-habitants. In Europe, as a whole, there are less than fivemiles. Measured by this standard, the people of the UnitedStates are much more adequately supplied with railwaysthan are the residents of Europe. Each person living inthe United States is served with a greater lengtli of railroadthan is the inhabitant of Europe. CHAPTER IVTRACK, CAR AND TRAIN—THE RAILWAY MECHANISM The Parts of the Railway Mechanism.—The mechanismby which the railway service is performed includes thetracks, the cars, the locomotives and the trains. In the me-chanical development of railway facilities, mankind hasovercome great technical difficulties, and in no other field ofhuman endeavor have civil and mechanical engineers showngreater ability in using the forces of nature to performmans heavy work. In this chapter it will be possible todescribe but briefly what has been Track with Wooden Stringers, Surfaced with Straps of Iron. Early Track Construction.—At the beginning of railroadbuilding different kinds of track were experimented with,but the one most generally adopted consisted of strong 37 38 ELEMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION wooden beams surfaced with strap iron and placed uponwooden cross-ties. Some roads tried using granite sills in-stead of wooden ones, but it was found that such a trackwas so rigid as to be injurious to the locomotives and the same reason the practice of placing the rails upongranite blocks instead of upon wooden cross-ties did notbecome general. Improvements in the Rail.—Wooden rails were used firstfor two reasons: they were cheaper than iron, and the proc-
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjecttranspo, bookyear1920
