THERE are no features of the American railway system that have undergone more important changes and advances, on progressive lines, than those relating to way and terminal passenger and freight stations, and shops for repairing and sometimes for constructing locomotives and cars.

SUPPLIES OF WATER AND FUEL

There is one class of things a railway must have before it can be operated, at various points on its line, viz., water tanks, pipes or other appliances by which water supplies can be conveniently furnished to locomotives. As a prime necessity they are universally provided, but the particular methods used have like everything else connected with railways, undergone a variety of improvements. One of the most noticeable is a method used on the main line of the Pennsylvania, of having long tanks on the track, from which water can be drawn by locomotives while they are running rapidly, but a much more common practice is the substitution, at stations, of various devices for such tanks as formerly were often placed in the second story of a wood shed, from which supplies of locomotive fuel were drawn. Modern tendencies are indicated by the fact that the Chicago Exposition of Railway Appliances, held in 1883, offered premiums for the following articles under the head of pumps and water-station appliances: Steam pump for water station; hand pump; hydraulic ram; water column or stand pipe; water tank; water tank fixtures; windmill for water stations. Wood sheds on the ground floor, and water tanks above them, formed substantially all the structures of some of the old lines, during the wood-burning era, except a few buildings which contained limited shop facilities; and even at the present day some new lines are completed in accordance with such precedents, nothing being furnished except what is absolutely necessary; which consists at the outset of a provision for furnishing water and fuel for locomotives.

GRADUAL INCREASE OF STATION AND TERMINAL EXPENDITURES TO ENORMOUS SUMS

From this crude beginning many advances are soon found to be exceedingly desirable, and with the growth of traffic they rapidly became indispensable. On the degree of judgment and success with which these advances are made, the time and methods adopted, the extent and characteristics of improvements, the prosperity or adversity of many lines has largely depended. Some companies have done too much and some too little. Many have failed to do the right thing at the right time, and through procrastination lost golden opportunities for securing considerable quantities of land cheaply, which it afterwards became necessary to purchase at high figures. Some companies have paid large sums for terminal lands which they were not prepared to utilize, and thus created an interest account which has been a serious drain on their treasuries through a protracted period.

But whatever may be the special features of the policy, or good or ill fortune of any given company, it may usually be set down as an approximate estimate, with all important American lines, that after they have been in operation for some years the outlays made from time to time for stations, depots, shops, and various classes of terminal facilities, gradually grow to such proportions that they represent a sum larger than the entire cost of the original road.

It is often necessary and profitable to make the bulk of such additional outlays, and one of the most important sources of the prosperity of some lines is derived from the improvements they provide. It is comparatively easy to build a railway extending between two cities, but it is often found very difficult and expensive after the main portions of such a line have been finished to secure an effective entrance into or near the business centre of either of those cities, especially if they are old and populous, and without such approaches the railway almost inevitably becomes a failure.

EXTEXT AND COST OF TERMINAL FACILITIES AT VARIOUS POINTS.

Indications of the magnitude of outlays for terminal improvements at various places are furnished by the following statements, and at a number of other prominent traffic centres expenditures on a corresponding scale have long been progressing.

The report of the investigating committee of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, published in 1874, says, under the head of Terminal Facilities:

"We repeat the summary of the estimates of the real estate, buildings, and improvements as follows:

These investments of capital are mainly in the cities of Philadelphia, Columbia, Harrisburg, Altoona, and Pittsburgh. About $22,000,000 has been expended for terminal facilities, machine and repair shops, etc."

Since this statement was published important additions have been made to the terminal facilities of the company, especially the city of Philadelphia, including the purchase of the old Navy Yard and creation of extensive wharves, docks, and landings available for commercial purposes, and the construction of an elevated railroad leading to the new Broad Street Passenger station, located in the heart of the city, and one of the finest edifices of the kind in the country.

The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company has extensive terminal facilities in the city of Philadelphia. Its piers and wharves at Port Richmond were long famous as the leading work of the kind in the United States. A water front of about two miles is occupied with 23 piers and docks. There are 18,000 feet of dock room for coal alone, and about 5,000 feet for miscellaneous freight. By recent improvements facilities have been created for promptly and cheaply loading vessels of the largest class used in the coal trade. The depth of the water in some of the coal docks never falls below 23 feet. The piers are connected with the main road by 44 miles of railway track, 11 miles of which are used for the delivery of coal to vessels. The company also has many useful terminal facilities in other portions of the city.

The annual report of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company for the year ending September 30th, 1886, in its enumeration of the items of the cost of the road and equipment, amounting in the aggregate to $146,630,689.19, includes the following: Passenger and freight stations, buildings and fixtures, engine and car houses, machine shops, machinery, and fixtures, $14,740,303.71; land, land damages, and fences, $15,089,201.83. The report also states that the company has 58 engine houses, with 638 stalls; 12 machine shops, 7 car shops, and 5 elevators, with an aggregate capacity of 3,450,000 bushels.

A detailed estimate of the railway terminals used in connection with the traffic of New York, and located in that city and Jersey City, and other points contiguous, made a few years ago by Gratz Mordecai, civil engineer, is to the effect that they include 200 miles of track, which cost $2,000,000; 378 acres of yards, which cost $20,000,000; 22,000,000 square feet of piers, which cost $2,200,000; 2,000,000 square feet of covered floor tree, which cost $1,000,000; 890,000 square feet covered at New York city stations, which cost $5,400,000; 69 yard engines, which cost $600,000; 44 propellers, which cost $1,100,000; 230 lighters, which cost $2,100,000. The aggregate estimated cost was ,35,000,000. The cost of maintaining and operating, per annum, including investment charges, was $5,460,000. The number of employees was 4,700, and the number of tons of coal used per day was 450.

Specially extensive terminal facilities have also been established at Buffalo. They were largely increased since 1880. In Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, St. Paul, Pittsburgh, Kansas City and indeed all important progressive commercial cities additions of material consequence have been made during late years.

The money value of the railway terminal facilities in a number of cities is much greater than their cost, on account of the rapidity with which the price of real estate in their vicinity has advanced since they were purchased, and any attempt, at the present day, to obtain corresponding property would either be wholly unsuccessful or require enormous expenditures. This fact does much to restrain undue competition for traffic originating at important traffic centres.

SPECIAL ENDS SERVED

To describe the terminal facilities of even a single important company in detail would require more space than is available. Reference can only be made to their general characteristics. They are leading adjuncts of the great work involved in the process of alternately concentrating at, and distributing from, traffic centres, all the commercial products of industry. Some of the most prominent purposes they serve are the convenient delivery of live stock, at yards in the vicinity of abattoirs, a business that has of late years been supplemented or partly supplemented, to a considerable extent, by the transportation to eastern cities of large quantities of dressed meat from Chicago or elsewhere, and the erection of appropriate edifices for its reception; the creation of conveniences for steamship and other vessel business; the economical movement of grain, which includes the erection of numerous elevators in which it can be cheaply stored, unloaded from cars, and reloaded into wagons, cars, or ships; the handling of coal, whether it is intended for railway uses, local trade, or transshipment to vessels; the special movement of various products, including ice, petroleum, cotton, lumber, and sundry classes of merchandise. Aside from all other developments the extension of tracks to the warehouses, stores, or manufactories of various large shippers forms an important class of improvements, and another large class consists of facilities for the delivery of freight at numerous wharves and landings, from barges or floats owned or controlled by railroad companies. Competition has been a great incentive to the expansion of the scope of all kinds of terminal facilities, and each company that desires to keep pace with its rivals is compelled to make material additions from time to time to the capacity and descriptions of accommodations furnished to the shippers of large traffic centres.

The measure of the usefulness, and consequent ability to obtain patronage, of any railway depends upon the character of its terminal facilities. Stations must be placed at accessible and convenient points, even if large expenditures are necessary to attain that end. The economical movement of freight to foreign countries, or from one native city to another via water routes, requires that tracks should be laid down to wharves in which gigantic steamships can float, and in lake and river cities corresponding facilities must be supplied.

For passenger traffic, accommodations for arriving and departing trains, waiting and baggage rooms, ticket offices, and sundry other conveniences, should be erected in large centres and at numerous points along a line. These requirements are now met in a creditable way at a number of places, although there remain many others at which there are still deplorable deficiencies.

As the condition of locomotives and cars must be kept at a high standard, and the terrible wear and tear to which they are subjected constantly causes defects which must be promptly remedied, numerous shops are indispensable. Of the entire railway system it may be said, with respect to the matters discussed, that it is in a transition state, with a strongly-marked tendency, during prosperous years, towards a notable improvement.

In the eighth decade, and since that time, the necessities indicated received a more general recognition than at any previous period. In a few instances railways were built which at the outset, contained an unusually large proportion of the appurtenances experience had shown to be indispensable, and a considerable proportion of such new enterprises as are well backed by capital now commence providing extensive shop, station, and terminal facilities at a much earlier period in their history than was formerly common.

TERMINAL FACILITIES AS A GAUGE OF A ROAD'S CAPACITY

Particular importance was attached to arrangements for increasing terminal facilities during the early portion of the eighth decade, on account of the granger agitation and congressional investigation of transportation routes to the seaboard, because these facilities were properly considered an essential element of such an increase of the available capacity of railways as was required by the growing needs of great national interests. While traffic is confined to a few trains each way daily, the accommodations for loading and unloading and shifting cars are of comparatively small importance, and as this is the normal state of many new lines, they suffer comparatively little inconvenience from their lack of facilities. But when business grows to an extent represented by scores of freight trains and many passenger trains running at varying rates of speed each way, daily, a time arrives when the capacity of a line is gauged by the character of its terminal facilities. Without adequate provision for promptly dispatching different classes of freight on different tracks radiating from a common main line, and such conveniences for shifting cars and remaking up trains as are furnished by extensive yards, supplemented by distinct commodious places for discharging bulky products like live stock, lumber, petroleum, coal, and grain, together with appropriate warehouses for receiving and delivering miscellaneous merchandise, and adequate facilities for passenger movements, any attempt to perform the amount of work now performed daily at the terminal points of great lines would result in inextricable confusion, and establish chronic chaos of the distressing kind represented by a practical blockade.

We are told by a veracious historian that, "the army swore terribly in Flanders," and if railway managers and employees ever imitated this bad example in chorus, such a deplorable occurrence is most likely to happen when their road is "blocked" through inability to promptly load, unload, distribute, and move arriving and departing trains.

There are terminal points in the country where more a hundred passenger trains arrive and depart daily from a station, and on the adjacent lines more than a hundred trains are frequently moved daily in each of two different directions. Where proper facilities exist such complicated and extensive transactions can be conducted without disorder or serious difficulty. If a sufficient number of tracks are provided, and adequate interlocking systems are supplemented with appropriate special provisions for each important class of traffic, it would be hard to assign limits to the capacity of a railway. There is said to be a point on an English road where seven hundred trains pass daily, and this statement indicates the magnitude of the movements that may be performed within a comparatively limited space, if adequate safeguards, tracks, and terminal facilities are supplied.

REDUCTIONS OF COST AND TIME FOR LOCAL MOVEMENTS

It would be a comparatively cheap and simple matter for a railway company to provide such facilities as are necessary to handle all the traffic offered or received at terminal points if there was not a strong desire to increase traffic by cheapening the cost of local freight movements, and the time require travelers to reach passenger stations; but provisions are o made for receiving and delivering freight at numerous points which are comparatively distant from the original end of the line, and for establishing central passenger stations at points most convenient to the bulk of the persons served, even when these objects can only be attained by enormous expenditures. The economy of modern rail movements, as compared with the ordinary service of drays and wagons, is so great that sums paid for moving a ton for a few miles through a city have frequently exceeded the amount paid for making a similar movement over hundreds of miles on steam roads, and there are many transactions which would be rendered practically impossible by diminutions or annihilations of profits, if convenient terminal facilities did not furnish opportunities for avoiding such damaging outlays. Step by step, and year after year, so much has been done in the directions indicated, in increasing the conveniences for transferring the contents of cars into ships, and the contents of ships into cars, that these labors form a very notable feature of the transportation development of the country, and go far to explain the extraordinary cheapness with which gigantic commercial movements are now conducted.

RAILWAY YARDS

Indications have already been given of the important part which railway yards play in the handling and distribution of traffic at leading terminal points, but their full significance is often underestimated. The multiplicity of tracks, frequently extending over a considerable distance, affords facilities for promptly assorting the cars conveying different classes of merchandise or destined to different points, and thus separating and remaking up trains. This work requires an immense amount of space, a great deal of switching, or moving cars from one train or place to another. An idea of the magnitude of yards and yard room and the length of the tracks they contain is furnished by the statement that in 1884 there were in the yards of the railways radiating from Buffalo 436.10 miles of track. A tabular statement of the uses to which it was applied, published in A. M. Wellington's work on the Economic theory of Railway Location, divides it as follows, in miles: Main track, 155.09; passenger stations, 6.08; freight trains from the west, 12.81; from the east, 29.90; from Canada, 8.75; to Canada, 17.84; distributing for west-bound freight, 17.22; transfer, 15.81; lake freight, 13.27; coal, 29.27; stock yards, 9.38 ,storage for empty cars, 13.00; local city freight, 20.72; shops and coaling, 39.05; miscellaneous, 47.91; freight side track only 274.93; grand total, 436.10. Very large additions have since been made to this mileage, and although the aggregate amount of space and length of track devoted to railway yards in Buffalo is unusually great, it is typical of corresponding provisions in a number of other places. The practice of different companies varies considerably in the extent to which reliance is placed upon yards chiefly, or almost exclusively, for the reassorting and distribution of freight, in contradistinction to completeness of supplementary arrangements for different classes of traffic,-but all important companies use yards very extensively; and labors in them form such an important portion of railway transportation that it has been referred to as a work divided into two general heads, one of which consists of work on the road and the other of work at division and station yards.

Different portions of yards or distinct yards are set apart for special purposes, indicated by such titles as oil yard, coal yard, east-bound yard, west-bound yard, grain yard, empty yard, passenger yard, fast freight yard, receiving yard, etc.

It is in the yards, mainly, that trains are broken up, and arrangements made for sending each car to an appropriate destination, and that trains are made up of the particular cars which form them.

PASSENGER STATIONS

Improvements in the station accommodations for travelers attract much attention because they fall under the immediate notice of millions who utilize passenger trains. The advances at many places are marvelous. At numerous points it may be said that railway stations have been transformed from the meanest and most despicable to the most elegant and commodious structures intended for extensive public use. There have and still are innumerable Mugby Junctions, but there are also many marvels of architectural elegance, and there are few periods when notable additions to their number are not being made. Much remains to be done, however, before complete changes will be effected in the situation of affairs described by English writer in the last half of the eighth decade, when he said that "the stations upon American railroads are as a rule conspicuous by the absence of the accommodation and convenience which characterize the stations on English or Continental railways. There are, of course, exceptions to this general rule, which are found at the terminals of trunk lines in great cities, and at a few special points, chiefly summer resorts or centres for suburban residences. As for the stations serving small outlying towns, they consist of little more than rough sheds, giving shelter, but nothing more, while the absence of platforms and of railway officials tends still further to mark the characteristics of these stopping places. Upon second-class lines, especially in the Southern states, the popular criticism upon a slow train, that 'it stops at every wood pile,' has in it not much of exaggeration. The reason for this disregard of appearances, and of the comfort and convenience of passengers, is a simple and obvious one. The railway company cannot afford to spend large sums in station accommodation, and the absence, or rather reduction in this item of expenditure, is one of the causes why railroads in the United States are built so cheaply. Travelers habituated only to the necessities of station accommodation see no reason for complaint if they have to commence their journey from a rough timber shed, devoid of furniture except for a few wooden benches and the universal stove, and complete it on the narrow platform of a dark and dirty terminus, or they might console themselves with the reflection that had greater things been attempted in this direction the railway would never have been built at all."

On a number of lines great improvements have been made during late years. Terminal stations have been brilliantly illuminated with electric lights; all their accommodations and characteristics have been much improved, and even in the matter of absence of railway officials at stations little or no cause for complaint has been left, in view of the activity and courteous attentions and assistance rendered by brakemen and conductors.

GRAIN ELEVATORS

ONE of the most striking objects connected with terminal facilities is grain elevators. Small ones have been constructed at many places, and large ones at all the prominent north Atlantic seaboard and lake cities. At Chicago they are most numerous. An account of the elevators of that city, published in June, 1887, says:

"The grain elevators in Chicago represent a capital invested $10,000,000, and a capacity of 27,000,000 bushels of grain. They give regular employment to 600 men, whose average wages are $2.50 per day. Following is a list of the elevators the storage capacity of each:

In addition to the elevators named above the St. Paul railroad is now engaged in driving piles on Goose Island for the foundation of the largest elevator in the world; it will have a capacity of 4,000,000 bushels, and will cost, it is estimated, over $600,000. Besides the grain received by rail, lake vessels brought to Chicago during 1886, 8,379 barrels of flour, 29,361 bushels of wheat, 3,000 bushels of barley, and 3,980 bushels of oats, and during the same period there was shipped by lake 1,319,235 barrels of flour, 10,513,126 bushels of wheat, 40,956,177 bushels of corn 3,219,833 bushels of oats, 114,025 bushels of rye, and 282,946 bushels of barley."

The use of elevators is not confined to the transfer of grain, either from cars to vessels, or from vessels to cars, or from one class of water craft to another. They also furnish facilities for storing and weighing.

AN ERIE ELEVATOR

A good brief description of the character of the work performed in them, and of the appliances used, is furnished in the following account of one of the Erie elevators of the Empire Transportation Company, contained in the pamphlet it issued, describing its exhibit at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876:

Elevator B, erected in 1870, is a frame structure 96 feet long by 72 feet wide, enclosed by substantial brick fire walls, and has a slate roof. The main building is 109 feet, and the tower 124 feet in height. The stone foundations of the building stand on nests of 9 to 15 piles each, that were driven to and rest the solid rock at an average depth of 17 feet. Surrounding the piling is a sunken crib filled solid with lake sand. Forty-seven separate bins furnish an aggregate storage capacity of 250,000 bushels, and the transfer capacity direct from lake to rail may he estimated at 100,000 bushels per each 24 hours. A steam engine of the most approved construction furnishes the power requisite to do the work of the building. The plan of operating the elevator is as follows:

A movable ship leg, containing an endless 5-ply rubber belt 157 feet long and 7 inches wide, on which 154 metal buckets of 9 quarts' capacity each are secured, is lowered from the house into the hold of an adjacent grain-loaded vessel. The belt is then started, and elevates the grain to the hopper of a 100-bushel receiving scale, located in the elevator tower, where it is weighed. After weighing, the grain is dropped by gravity into an iron receiver, located below the floor of the building. From this receiver it is elevated on another similar bucket belt to a large distributing bin at the top of the house. From this bin the grain is spouted by gravity into any one of the numbered storage bins, from which it is again spouted (direct into cars), when ready for shipment by rail. Two railroad tracks, accommodating six cars at a time, are located in the building below the storage bins. On each railroad track there is a track scale of the most approved pattern, which is frequently tested by sealed weights, and kept in perfect repair. The light weight of each car is taken on entering the building, and the loaded weight as it passes out-the difference giving the weight of the grain. Each lot of grain is kept entirely separate and distinct from every other, no mixing or grading of grain being allowed. A small sample is taken from each lot of grain handled, and is preserved for reference if desired. Great attention has been paid to making the most perfect provision against fire losses."

DOWS' STORES, IN BROOKLYN,

There are notable variations in the capacity and details of the appliances used in elevators, numerous improvements being made from time to time, and much mechanical skill being displayed in construction. The following brief description of Dows' stores, which, although they appear to be used only for water movements, also represent railway advancements, is printed on the backs of photographs illustrating them:

"Dows' stores, situated in Brooklyn, at the foot of Pacific street, are used exclusively as a grain elevator. Storage capacity, 2,500,000 bushels. Elevating capacity, 60,000 bushels per hour.

The main building consists of nine compartments, separated by heavy brick walls, extending above the roof, with no communication between compartments. The engine and boiler houses are separate from the building, and made as nearly fireproof as possible.

Dimensions of main building: Length, outside, 600 feet; height of lower story, 21 feet; number of bins in each department, 40 feet width, outside, 100 feet; depth of bins, 52 feet; number of bins in all compartments, 360. These are sub-divided and used for special purposes.

Height from wharf to top of front of main building, 82 feet; length of wharf from end of building, 600 feet; length of wharf room for vessels, south side, 580 feet; height of three elevating towers on stores, 176 feet; length of wharf room for vessels, north side, 850 feet; total length of building, 1,200 feet.

Six vessels may be loaded and two barges unloaded at the same time. Steam is supplied by ten boilers to a pair of 28X48-inch condensing engines, making 90 revolutions per minute. Power is distributed from four driving pulleys, 18 feet diameter, by 40 inch belts to four counter shafts, and from these sent to different parts of the house by belts and seven sets of wire ropes.

All grain is received by two elevators, on dock, weighed, cleaned, and conveyed to store No. 1, dropped to other conveyer belts on lower floor, and elevated to the top of most convenient tower above stores, and thence sprouted to storage bins.

There are six cleansing machines, each using about 40,000 cubic feet of air per minute, and having 10,000 bushels city per hour. All parts of the house are well ventilated. A hydraulic elevator goes to the top of engine house and roof. Nearly all machinery is driven by paper friction. Two powerful compound duplex fire pumps connect with the water pipes which extend to all parts of the house. One pump is constantly working. Electric fire signals, call bells, and telephone connect the different parts of the house. There is nearly one mile of wire rope for the transmission of power and five miles of vulcanized rubber belting in the house, 14,000 feet of which are for conveyers.

The drawings for nearly every part of the house and machinery were made in the engineer's office.

Work was begun May 1st, 1879, and the first grain received May 17th, 1881. These stores were designed and the construction superintended by George B. Mallory, engineer."

FACILITIES FOR HANDLING COAL, LIVE STOCK, ETC.

COAL HANDLING

As more tons of coal are transported than of any other single article, and as its price requires that the expense of movement from cars to vessels should be kept down to the lowest possible point, places and contrivances devoted to the handling, cleaning, weighing, loading, unloading, and storage and stocking of coal formed the first extensive terminal facilities in the country, and they continue to hold a leading place. Delivering points are numerous, and devices adapted to the wants of different branches of the trade, varying from an annual demand of hundreds to millions of tons per annum, have been adopted.

At the present time (1888) about two millions of tons per annum are transshipped from cars to vessels at Port Richmond and its terminal facilities include eleven miles of track used in the delivery of coal to vessels. The Philadelphia and Reading has a number of other places for delivering coal. Many other companies have extensive corresponding facilities. The Pennsylvania Railroad devotes a number of piers to transshipments to vessels from cars in the southern part of Philadelphia, and has in operation in connection with its extensive system and its enormous coal traffic, many arrangements, at numerous points, for the delivery of coal. All the roads extensively engaged in anthracite or bituminous coal transportation have created special terminal facilities of considerable importance for this important traffic. The Lehigh Valley has made notable improvements of this kind at Perth Amboy, Buffalo, and elsewhere. The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western has specially advantageous arrangements for delivery in operation at Hoboken. Coal is frequently dumped by opening hinged the bottom of cars, and in some instances this species of unloading is done direct into vessels, while in others the coal is first unloaded into enormous bins, from which it is subsequently taken, in wheelbarrow loads of 224 pounds each, to vessels. At Buffalo special devices for very quickly loading vessels with coal, from enormous pockets, are in use.

LIVE-STOCK YARDS AND ABATTOIRS

An important feature of the structures of most of the trunk lines at their eastern terminal points is their stock yards or Pens for cattle, sheep, and hogs, and adjacent abattoirs in which stock can be slaughtered. During the eighth decade great advances were made in the facilities for the transaction of this branch of business, especially in New York, Philadelphia, and Jersey City. Their character is indicated by the following description of what was done by the Pennsylvania Railroad on the west bank of the Schuylkill river, a few hundred feet north of Market street, in Philadelphia, work being commenced in 1875 and finished in the early part of 1876: On a site which occupied an area of 21 acres, traversed by branches of the main line the ground was prepared in a thorough manner and paved with granite blocks for pens to hold 7,000 cattle; sheep pens accommodating 10,000 animals; hog pens of about the same capacity; covered sheds for 500 cows and calves; a main office and exchange building, in which sales are conveniently conducted; stable for storing and selling horses; an abattoir, which is an extensive structure, and one of the most complete in the world; a fat and refuse reducing department. The enclosure is laid out in blocks and streets, which are carefully drained and well lighted. The cattle pens are framed and roofed to the extent necessary to protect the animals from rain and sunshine without preventing free ventilation. There are 172 pens, and all assigned for the use of cattle in approaching trains are provided with water and food before the cattle arrive. There are two sheep enclosures 350X130 feet. and hog pens adjacent. Great efforts were made to prevent obnoxious colors from the stock yards or the operations of the abattoir, which were attended with at remarkable degree of success. Of the abattoir the following account is given in Dredge's work on the Pennsylvania Railroad:

"The roof of the building is supported on light iron columns, and the pens, etc., are divided off with iron railings. The floors of the pens are laid with Belgian blocks grouted in cement, and they are formed with sides sloping to a central gutter, falling in the other direction to a transverse drain. A stream of water flows constantly along the gutter, and carries off all impurities. Two rows of wrought-iron columns carry the roof, and divide the building into a central aisle 50 feet wide, and two side aisles 30 feet wide each. The middle portion of the building is covered with an arched roof springing 40 feet above the ground. The side aisles are 20 feet in height to springing, and have also a central roof . Along the sides of the building are a number of doors 6 feet wide, and placed 15 feet apart, which are used to admit wagons for the purpose of loading the meat. Ventilators are placed over each door. Large windows are placed at each end of the central aisle, and further ventilation is secured by louvres running along the roof. The floor of the building is supported on cast-iron columns, and the space below forms a basement 11 feet in depth. Both the main floor and the basement are covered with an asphalt pavement 4 inches thick, having a sufficient slope to insure perfect drainage. The work of slaughtering the cattle is carried on entirely on the main floor, that portion set aside for this purpose being divided off into pens, the floor of which is laid with heavy yellow pine planking, carefully caulked. The cattle are admitted through doors in the ends of the building, through which they pass into the middle aisle, and thence through gates into the slaughtering pens, the centre space being fenced off from the sides by iron-pipe railings. Each slaughtering pen is provided with the requisite apparatus, and with appliances for hanging up the carcass and dressed meat. The blood and refuse are removed to that part of the building set apart for their utilization, and an ample supply of hot and cold water is provided. In the winter the building is warmed by coils of steam pipes running around the walls. The place has a capacity for killing and dressing 1,200 beasts a day. The sheep are slaughtered in the basement at the west end of the building. Here is a row of raised pens, enclosed by a wire fence and iron posts, and paved with stone. In front of these pens is a stone table with a gutter running round it for catching the blood of the slaughtered animals. Three thousand sheep can be slaughtered and dressed in this department. In the basement at the east end of the building facing the river (the basement here is on the ground level) is the engine and boiler house, the former being 60 horsepower and the latter equal to 100 horse-power. Here also is placed the plant for reducing the tallow, and treating the blood and refuse from the animals."

There are live-stock yards of great capacity at various places, notably in Chicago; and the business of transporting live stock from Chicago and other western cities to eastern cities has attained great magnitude. Of late years, the east-bound transportation of dressed meat, or cattle slaughtered in the west, has rapidly increased and caused a corresponding diminution of live-stock movements. Material changes have also occurred in the respective quantities of cattle and dressed meat exported to Great Britain and elsewhere. At some eastern points large structures for the storage of dressed meat have been erected.

MISCELLANEOUS FREIGHT

Aside from special facilities for handling exceptionally bulky articles, such as petroleum, for the movement of which a number of ingenious labor-saving devices are used, and lumber, one of the greatest tasks is to make adequate provision for handling miscellaneous freight. This includes articles of all classes not particularly mentioned elsewhere, and many complications arise from variations in quantities, differences in characteristics, necessity of furnishing many points of final delivery or original loading in each important city, making up car loads of sufficient size to avoid much waste of space without endangering the condition of things subject to injury by contact with other freight, great diversity in points to which merchandise is to be forwarded, and sundry other causes. Various labor-saving machines have been devised to accomplish desired ends, but there are so many kinds of work to be done quickly, under conditions that are constantly varying, that a large force of men is employed, at important traffic centres to load and unload, or move from place to place. The movements to and from New York are exceptionally numerous and varied, partly on account of their great magnitude, and partly because a large proportion of them are made over lines which do not directly enter that city, but terminate on the opposite bank of the Hudson, and which are, therefore, obliged to forward freight to and from New York in floats, lighters, or other vessels. A considerable quantity of freight is moved across the river in cars, which are either loaded or unloaded in New York city, and many articles are moved in packages. Deliveries can be made from Jersey City at any available point on either commercial river front of the city of New York, and the work of transferring railway passengers and freight is of such magnitude that it employs a large number of vessels, and their movements usually form a very large proportion of all those that are being made at any given period in the busiest of American harbors. Ample pier and dock accommodations are, of course, required, and they form an important item in terminal expenses.

RAILWAY SHOPS

INTERWOVEN with the subject of terminal facilities, and yet distinct from it in some respects, are the shops, which form exceedingly important railway structures. They are divided into several classes, one based on distinctions between car work and locomotive work, and another on the extent to which new construction of cars or locomotives is attempted.

Most of the railway shops of the country are exclusively repair shops, and it is only in a few of them that new locomotives are made. In some, however, excellent locomotives are constructed; in others, many cars have been manufactured; and the most extensive railway combinations for construction embrace facilities for making many of the distinct parts of rolling stock, portions of the permanent way, such as frogs and switches and sundry other things needed in railway service.

As a general rule, shops are used exclusively for repairing, and repair shops differ widely in the relative magnitude of their capacity, or importance of the sort of work they undertake and in the kind of repairs conducted, some being devoted to repairs or classes of repairs of locomotives, and others to repairs of cars. There are also round-houses for locomotives, in which minor repairs are frequently made, and they usually contain a turn-table. Scales, on which cars, freight, or fuel can be weighed, frequently form part of the appliances provided in or near shops, and turn-tables are occasionally erected at points where shops have not been established.

Like everything else connected with the American railway system, the shops have gradually been developed into their present position through a series of progressive changes, a number of which occurred during the eighth decade, additions being frequently made to the machine tools, and other aids to effectiveness provided, the number of men employed, and the character of the work undertaken. There have also been important modifications of methods at some places, such as the introduction of templets and standards of various kinds, the establishment of rules relating to the extent to which repairs should be carried before a locomotive or car is finally condemned and broken up, and similar subjects. Many new shops have been erected, not only by new companies, but to some extent by old organizations, which have frequently felt a pressing necessity for an increase of shop facilities, on account of the rapid increase of rolling stock.

Much depends upon the completeness of provisions for insuring prompt, effective, and economical repairs of cars and engines, and for protection against disastrous mistakes in the selection of parts of equipment and numerous articles required for current use or consumption. The fortunes of a company may be made by successes or marred by failures in its shops.

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LABORS IN SHOPS

is partly indicated by the relatively high percentage shop expenditures usually bear to the total outlays for operating expenses, and this percentage would be materially increased if a rapid growth of business did not generally lead to numerous additions to equipment, or new locomotives and cars which commonly require, during the early periods of their service, much less than the average outlays for repairs.

The census statistics of 1880 show that the aggregate number of railway employee was 418,957, subdivided as follows: General officers, 3,375; general office clerks, 8,655; stationmen, 63,380; trainmen, 79,659; shopmen, 89,714; trackmen, 122,489; all other employees, 51,694. It will be seen that the shopmen formed more than one-fifth, or about 21.1 per cent. of the entire number. The character of their labors is imperfectly indicated by the census statement that of the 89,714 shopmen, 22,766 were classified as machinists, 23,202 as carpenters, and 43,746 as all other classes. The cost of the repair work performed in all the railway shops of the United States in the census year is shown by the statement that the sum expended for repairs of locomotives was $21,830,963.43; for repairs of passenger, baggage, and mail cars, $10,558,823.99; for repairs of freight cars, $22,595,553.09; total for repairs of machinery and cars, $54,985,340.51. A number of companies made relating to locomotives and cars they had manufactured in their shops during the census year, but from many companies no such reports were received.

The general public sees comparatively little of railway but observant travelers who make daylight journeys over important lines, cannot fail to notice the magnitude of these structures, and from time to time many interesting details relating to them are published. Nothing is more powerless than a gigantic locomotive when it is disabled by a defect in a vital portion of machinery; and few things a dangerous than cars in active motion on a line at a time when axles or wheels are in a defective condition. The shops provide safeguards against such disasters.

They are also, to a great extent, practical schools of instruction for many important features of railway operation. It was in the brains of men familiar with such surroundings as they furnish, and proficient in such arts as they represent, idea of the modern railway was first conceived, and it is largely through the continuous efforts of a long line of worthy successors, who are connected with railway shops or manufacturing establishments devoted chiefly to the production of railway machinery or supplies that numerous improvements have been rapidly made. As difficulty after difficulty has arisen, and one new requirement has succeeded another, many of the most intricate problems involved, and especially such as relate to rolling stock, have been worked out in the shops.

The world has been benefited to an immense extent by the labors that have increased the powers and improved the machinery of locomotives and cars, and a large proportion of such improvements have directly or indirectly either originated or been advanced to a state of practical utility in railway shops while substantially all the labors required to keep rolling stock in working order have been performed in them.

Labor-saving machinery means a great deal in the United States, and there are no departments of industry in which it has a deeper significance than in matters connected with railways, railway shops, and the manufacture of articles intended for railway use. In the last-named category an immense number and variety of things are embraced, as they include not only prime necessities such as are used by railways, but substantially everything needed in the construction, ornamentation furnishing of dwellings, offices, and restaurants.

COMBINATIONS OF FACILITIES FOR CONSTRUCTION AND REPAIRS

The most extensive shops, which embrace facilities for construction as well as repairs, sometimes include, in addition to other departments, the following, viz..
1. A machine shop containing tools for all classes of machine work.
2. A boiler shop containing all desirable facilities for manufacturing or repairing locomotive boilers.
3. An erecting shop, for putting together all the different parts of a locomotive.
4. A foundry in which castings of locomotives, cars, and general castings are produced.
5. A vise shop, used for the finishing work :. of parts of locomotives, and various forgings and castings.
6. A tube shop, in which tubes used in locomotives are tested or repaired.
7. A blacksmith shop, in which there are a number of forges and heavy steam hammers, and a large amount of heavy forging is done.
8. A wheel shop, in which locomotive and tender wheels, and sometimes car wheels, are furnished and mounted.
9. A pattern shop, in which patterns are manufactured and stored.
10. A paint shop, in which locomotives are painted.
11. An oil house, in which waste, oils, tallow, etc., used for lubricating or illuminating purposes are prepared, stored, and arranged for future delivery.
12. Round-houses, provided with turn-tables radiating tracks, hydraulic jacks, and various heavy and light tools used in making speedy repairs of locomotives at times when their condition is not impaired to an extent necessary to require a general overhauling.
13. A tin shop, for manufacturing or repairing such light sheet iron and tin work as forms part of a locomotive, or oil cans used in oiling cars and locomotives.
14. A steam transfer table, which provides facilities for the convenient movement of locomotives or cars from one shop to another adjacent shop.
15. A testing department, in which the strength and other qualities of rails, boiler-plate iron, car axles, lubricants, and various supplies and materials are tested.
16. A shop used for repairing and constructing freight cars.
17. A passenger car erecting and repairing shop.
18. A planing mill, containing a number of wood-working machines.
19. Extensive blacksmith shops, for making or repairing iron work of freight or passenger cars.
20. Cabinet shop, in which the fine wood work of passenger cars is made.
21. A machine shop, in which heavy metallic work, connected with cars, such as wheels, axles, etc., is made, fitted, arranged, or repaired.
22. Car-painting and upholstery shops.
23. Sand house.
24. A shop for air brakes.

The above list embraces a mere enumeration of a number of the leading kinds of shops or departments at Altoona. There are besides general offices and extensive drafting rooms in which the details of new work are carefully designed and working plans are prepared; and several important departments not named in the list given above, including a car-wheel in which many wheels are made daily, and a shop for manufacturing and repairing telegraphic instruments and appliances used along the line, extensive lumber sheds and houses for drying and storing lumber.

There is no single combination of railway shop facilities in country covering so wide a range and extensive capacity as the works at Altoona, which, a few years ago, extended over an area of 123 acres, and furnished employment to 4,500 men, but there are counterparts of some of their principal characteristics at a number of other places. A few railway shops made things not made at Altoona; and on the other hand, each of any one of many shops contains only a small proportion of the machinery and departments combined there. As a rule there are shops of considerable importance, in which repairs of cars and locomotives are made, at or near the headquarters of each division of each railway, and the average length of such divisions on some lines is but little more than one hundred miles. There are also some shops for making minor repairs at points which are not located near headquarters of divisions, and the aggregate number of railway shops of all grades runs well up into thousands.

MACHINE TOOLS AND APPLIANCES

Few, if any, industrial pursuits combine in a set of concerned shops a larger number of skilled workmen, a wider range of mechanical proficiency, and a more extensive variety of powerful machines and appliances, than leading construction and repairing railway shops. Discussions have arisen time to time in regard to the extent to which new construction should be attempted in them, but the necessity of great capacity for repairs is universally admitted, as it would be practically impossible for any important railway company to conduct transportation in a satisfactory or successful manner if adequate provision was not made for the speedy and skillful air of cars and engines. They are subject to many mishaps injuries; attempts to keep them running when they are in a seriously defective condition are either impracticable or dangerous; and any considerable loss of time in making repairs materially diminishes revenue.

To repair defective rolling stock as speedily as possible, and to keep it in good running order at all times, are objects of supreme importance, and the problems involved have received so much intelligent consideration that modern methods represent great advances. One of the most notable is the introduction in progressive shops of templet systems, so arranged that exact duplicates of a number of the particular parts of an engine subject to injury are kept in stock, and when a disaster happens comparatively little delay occurs; and there is an extension of the range of repairs that can be made in a roundhouse, by night or by day, without materially diminishing the amount of service performed by a locomotive. The effectiveness of the labors of a given number of shopmen has been materially increased by improvements in tools and additions to their number. Much of the work formerly done by files, for instance, is now done by emery shapers, wheels, or grinders, and year after year new inventions or improvements are perfected which make similar changes in various departments, or reduce the amount of manual dexterity necessary to accomplish given results.

The men and machinery employed must deal with many ponderous substances, and adequate agencies are provided for lifting, moving, handling, shaping, cutting, shearing, drilling, fitting, boring, pressing, punching, sawing, taking wheels off axles, putting wheels on axles, and modifying in all desirable ways bulky masses of wood, iron, steel, brass, and other metals. The hardest of these must be as completely subject to manipulations as wood.

In arranging large railway shops and providing them with desirable facilities, the forces pressed into service embrace air, water, fire, steam, electricity, and many classes of powerful machinery. Air is a vital force in connection with blowers used to increase draughts in blacksmiths' forges. One large blower properly arranged is sufficient to provide all the currents of air needed in a considerable number of forges. The blacksmith is one of the most indispensable of the employees, as much of the iron work must be heated, but the amount of labor he is able to perform in a given period, in comparison with old-fashioned methods, has been greatly increased by the blower, which, driven by machinery, does away with the hand bellows. He is also greatly helped by steam hammers of various sizes and dimensions, a weight of several tons being not unusual, adding immensely to the force of blows made upon heated iron; shaping tools or models which render effective assistance in giving desired shapes; shears or combined shearing and punching machines, and various other devices. Air and water combined furnish the motive power for a number of hydraulic machines and tools, used extensively in putting on and off wheels, in lifting upper portions of locomotives or cars while they are undergoing repairs, in lifting or sustaining heavy weights in foundries or other shops, and in several important classes of riveting operations. Hydraulic machinery is one of the few things more extensively and successfully utilized in railway operations in England than in the United States. The machines used in machine shops and other departments are usually driven by steam power, and much ingenuity has been displayed during late years in improving the devices for increasing the amount of available power taken to each desired point or machine, and also in transmitting steam power to tools which can be freely moved from place to place by flexible shafts. Systems of electric lighting have been extensively adopted in railway shops. Cranes are provided for readily moving heavy masses from point to point, some of which have a capacity for lifting from twenty-five to thirty tons. Few or none of the important modern improvements, relating to methods for applying any of the standard forces to machinery, or to improvements in machines, which could be rendered useful in railway shops, have failed to secure, in them, an extensive representation.

Railway machine shops, in which cold iron, steel, or other metals are manipulated, have been supplied with numerous varieties of machines and tools, including lathes of various sizes and styles, bolt and nut screwing machines, drills, presses, drilling and boring machines, milling machines, planing machines, punching and shearing machines, shaping machines, and slotting machines, in many of which improvements are frequently made, and great advances have been achieved in the wood-working machinery of car shops.

A large proportion of railway-shop repairs relate to running gear, and as wheels are sure to wear out or become defective after a comparatively limited amount of service, they must be taken off or put on axles, an operation that requires an exercise of hydraulic force supplied by hydraulic or hydrostatic wheel presses, which commonly apply to car wheels a pressure of about 30 tons, and to locomotive wheels a much greater pressure, or about 80 tons. It is claimed that some of the wheel presses are capable of exerting a pressure of 150 tons.

While many of the machines, tools, and appliances used in railway shops are also used in shops of various other classes, a considerable number are used exclusively in manufacturing or repairing rolling stock. In brief, it may be said that extensive railway shops contain, in addition to such aids as are peculiar to their own requirements, nearly all important classes of machines and tools used by workers in metals and wood. In addition to appliances to which brief reference has already been made, there are stationary steam-boiler riveting machines, and stationary and portable boiler-riveting machines, which not only greatly increase the amount of work done, but improve the quality of the riveting. There are machines or apparatus for bending, setting, removing, and facilitating the heating of tires, and one of the most striking operations frequently performed is the fastening of the thick steel tires of locomotives to the wheels, to which they are applied by shrinking without any mechanical attachment whatever. The method of performing this operation, which represents a notable advance, has been described as follows: "The tire is bored out smaller than the periphery of the cast-iron centre is turned, the difference being always one-ninetieth of an inch per foot of diameter of tire. The tire is expanded in a heating furnace, and when placed on the wheel it is cooled by water." There are raildrilling machines, intended specially for making the holes for the joint bolts near the ends of steel rails. In addition to carwheel-boring mills, there are wheel-quartering machines, on which important labors are performed on locomotive wheels of all sizes, including the largest, and axle lathes in which iron or steel axles can rapidly be reduced to desired dimensions. There are machines and bars for boring locomotive cylinders, flue-cleaning machines, car-box-boring attachments, portable drilling machines for drilling holes in locomotive smoke boxes and cylinder flanges, and machines for turning off crank pins in position, and while wheels are under an engine. In addition to numerous turn-tables at many points on railway lines or in round-houses, railway transfer tables, intended to facilitate the transfer of cars or locomotives from one shop to another, are used at extensive shops.

Each class of important shops is a centre of mechanical labors, progress, and improvements, embracing a mechanical world in itself. In the machine tools and other appliances used the United States lends the world, and it is largely on account of this superiority that American cars and locomotives and the best native methods of manufacturing and repairing them have gained a corresponding supremacy.

An illustration of the classes of machine tools and woodworking machinery used extensively in railway shops is furnished by the following lists of articles for which premiums were offered by the Chicago Exposition of Railway Appliances, held in 1883:

Iron Working Machinery.-Display of iron-working power tools, not less than six in number; axle turning machinery; carwheel-boring and turning machine; six-spindle drilling machine; hydraulic-wheel press; wheel grinding or trueing machine; iron-planing machine; iron-crank shaping machine; screw-cutting-engine lathe; upright-drilling machine; radial-drilling machine; milling machine; bolt-heading machine; bolt-forging machine; bolt- and screw-cutting machine; set-screw machine; gear-cutting machine; power hammer; power punch and shears; planer chucks; universal and independent chuck over 12 inches in diameter; universal-lathe chuck, 12 inches and under; assortment of lathe chucks; assortment of planer chucks; expanding mandrel; flexible mandrel for bending pipe adjustable lathe mandrel; differential pulley blocks; machine for testing quality of metals; machine for testing strength of metals drop press for stamping and forging; display of emery grinding machinery; display of machinists' hand tools; display of machinists' vises; displays of taps and dies; nut-tapping machine.

Wood-Working Machinery.-Display of wood-working machines (not less than six); timber-dressing machine with capacity of reducing 16 inches wide and 14 inches thick, on all four sides at one cut; planing and matching machine, to plane 24 inches wide and under, and not match less than 12 inches; flooring and beading machine; dimension planing machine, with carriage and roll feed for dressing out of rind and surfacing; Daniels or Traverse planing machine; double-surfacing machine to dress on one or both sides, 26 inches, and 8 inches thick, and under; surfacing machine for smoothing purposes; band-saw machine for general work; band saw for resawing, to resaw 24 inches wide and under; cutting-off saw machine traversing arbor for timbers; bracket cutting-off saw machine with traversing arbor for timbers; railway cutting-off saw machine, with traversing arbor for timbers; carriage cutting-off saw for cabinet work; ripping saw with elevating arbor; ripping saw with stationary arbor; edging-saw machine; reciprocating saw for scroll work; rotary-car morticing and recasting machine; reciprocating morticing and boring machine; cabinet morticing and boring machine; reciprocating blind-morticing machine; one-spindle horizontal boring machine; two spindle horizontal boring machine; three-spindle horizontal boring machine, radial horizontal machine; one-spindle vertical boring machine; two-spindle vertical boring machine; three spindle vertical boring machine; automatic car-gaining machine; vertical car-tenoning machine; universal tenoning machine with movable carriage for timber work; tenoning machine copes for cabinet and general work; universal sill and cutting-off and boring machine; vertical spindle-shaping and edge-moulding machine; single spindle and edge-moulding and carving machine; universal wood-worker and mouldler; straight moulding machine to work four sides; surface polishing machine; surface scraping and finishing machine; automatic grinding machine; wood-turning machine for pattern makers' use.

In addition to these iron-working and wood-working tools, premiums for sundry other things used in railway shops, or which form part of their equipment, were offered by the Chicago Railway Exposition, aside from the wide range of woods, metals, furnishings, materials, and articles wholly or partly furnished which form parts of cars and locomotives, or are used in making and repairing them. In this class may be included systems for lighting depots and shops by electricity, leather belting, rubber belting, fire-clay brick, cranes, hydraulic jacks, lever jacks, portable forges, tire heaters, turn-tables, power blowers, hand blowers, etc.

WORK DONE IN REPAIR SHOPS

It is the business of railway repair shops to keep to keep rolling stock in sufficiently good order to render it improbable that accidents, delays, or damages to property will occur on account of defects. Accidents attributed to bad condition of equipment resent a considerable percentage of those reported, and the causes specified include the following: Broken wheel, broken axle, broken truck, failure of coupling or draw-bar, broken parallel or connecting rod, broken car, loose wheel, fall of brake or brake beam, broken tire, boiler explosion, cylinder explosion, miscellaneous breakages of rolling stock. Such classes of accidents would be much more numerous if inspections of cars and examinations of locomotives were not frequently made, and necessary repairs completed, as quickly as possible.

Repairs of Cars.

The code of rules governing the condition of and repairs to freight cars, used in the interchange of traffic between connecting roads, specifies in detail the defects of cars. They are divided into two classes, viz., first, those which render the car unsafe to run or unsafe to trainmen, and which, on, account of such defects, may be refused by a connecting road, and second, defects which are sufficiently serious to render desirable speedy repairs, that may be made by the company receiving the cars at the expense of the owners, but which are not of a character to render movement necessarily unsafe.

The defects which justify a refusal to receive cars under the rules adopted by the Master Car-Builders' Association, in June 1887, are as follows:

Defects of Wheels.

a. Worn or slid flat, exceeding 2 1/2 inches in length, or diameter.
b. Worn flange, flanges less than 1 inch thick, or having flat vertical surfaces, extending more than 1 inch from tread.
c. Wheels cracked or broken in any manner.
d. Shelled out; wheels with treads defective on account of circular pieces shelling out, leaving round, flat spots, deepest at the edge, with raised centre. Wheels must not be condemned from this cause, unless the spots are over 2½ inches in length, or diameter, or are so numerous as to endanger the safety of the wheels.
e. Wheels with longitudinal seams on treads 3 inches long or more.
f. Wheels clipped on the rim, leaving tread less than 3 3/4 inches in width when measured from the flange at a point 5/8 inches above tread.
g. Wheels with flanges chipped, so that they are unsafe to run.
h. The determination of flat spots, sharp flanges, thin flanges, and chipped treads shall be made by a gauge of the following form:_

In this gauge the 7/8-inch dimensions are changed to one inch.

Defects of Axles.

Defects of Mounting Wheels on Axles.

k. Loose wheel.
l. Out of gauge, or wheels that measure less than 4 feet 5 inches or more than 4 feet 53/4 inches between flanges, or less than 5 feet 4 inches over treads.

Cars may be refused if their wheels measure less than 4 feet 5 inches or more than 4 feet 53/4 inches, or less than 5 feet 4 inches on the lower line.

Other Defects

m. Brakes in bad order.
n. Brake wheels, steps, ladders, or running boards in bad order or insecurely fastened.
o. Draw-bars or attachments in bad order.
p. Draft sills or draft timbers spliced.
q. Intermediate or outside sills recently spliced in a manner not prescribed by the rules.
r. Leaky roofs on merchandise or grain cars.
s. Doors which are not sufficient protection against fire or storms.
t. Special or general defects of bodies or trucks, which render cars unsafe to run.

The percentage of the cost of various classes of repairs to cars differs materially on different roads, and varies materially with the classes of cars. From a variety of information the conclusion is drawn by A. M. Wellington, in his work on the Economic Theory of the Location of Railways, that on freight cars the average percentage is very nearly as follows: Wheels, 30 per cent.; axles, brasses, and axle boxes, 30 per cent.; springs, 10 per cent.; truck frames and fittings, 5 per cent.; total truck, 70 per cent.; brakes, 5 per cent.; draw-bars, 10 per cent.; sills and attachments, 5 per cent.; car body, painting, etc., 5 per cent.; total, 100 per cent.

The cost of repairs of passenger cars, in proportion to mileage run, differs from charges for freight-car repairs chiefly in the expense of decorations, interior fittings, and painting.

Repairs of Locomotives.

Of the repairs of locomotives and tenders, A. M. Wellington in the work referred to above, concludes from a variety of data that "the total cost chargeable to repairs of engines, including removals, may be distributed about as follows:

Defects of Wheels.

a. Worn or slid flat, exceeding 2 1/2 inches in length, or diameter.
b. Worn flange, flanges less than 1 inch thick, or having flat vertical surfaces, extending more than 1 inch from tread.
c. Wheels cracked or broken in any manner.
d. Shelled out; wheels with treads defective on account of circular pieces shelling out, leaving round, flat spots, deepest at the edge, with raised centre. Wheels must not be condemned from this cause, unless the spots are over 2½ inches in length, or diameter, or are so numerous as to endanger the safety of the wheels.
e. Wheels with longitudinal seams on treads 3 inches long or more.
f. Wheels clipped on the rim, leaving tread less than 3 3/4 inches in width when measured from the flange at a point 5/8 inches above tread.
g. Wheels with flanges chipped, so that they are unsafe to run.
h. The determination of flat spots, sharp flanges, thin flanges, and chipped treads shall be made by a gauge of the following form:_

In this gauge the 7/8-inch dimensions are changed to one inch.

Defects of Axles.

Defects of Mounting Wheels on Axles.

k. Loose wheel.
l. Out of gauge, or wheels that measure less than 4 feet 5 inches or more than 4 feet 5 3/4 inches between flanges, or less than 5 feet 4 inches over treads.

Cars may be refused if their wheels measure less than 4 feet 5 inches or more than 4 feet 5 3/4 inches, or less than 5 feet 4 inches on the lower line.

Other Defects

m. Brakes in bad order.
n. Brake wheels, steps, ladders, or running boards in bad order or insecurely fastened.
o. Draw-bars or attachments in bad order.
p. Draft sills or draft timbers spliced.
q. Intermediate or outside sills recently spliced in a manner not prescribed by the rules.
r. Leaky roofs on merchandise or grain cars.
s. Doors which are not sufficient protection against fire or storms.
t. Special or general defects of bodies or trucks, which render cars unsafe to run.

The percentage of the cost of various classes of repairs to cars differs materially on different roads, and varies materially with the classes of cars. From a variety of information the conclusion is drawn by A. M. Wellington, in his work on the Economic Theory of the Location of Railways, that on freight cars the average percentage is very nearly as follows: Wheels, 30 per cent.; axles, brasses, and axle boxes, 30 per cent.; springs, 10 per cent.; truck frames and fittings, 5 per cent.; total truck, 70 per cent.; brakes, 5 per cent.; draw-bars, 10 per cent.; sills and attachments, 5 per cent.; car body, painting, etc., 5 per cent.; total, 100 per cent.

The cost of repairs of passenger cars, in proportion to mileage run, differs from charges for freight-car repairs chiefly in the expense of decorations, interior fittings, and painting.

Repairs of Locomotives.

Of the repairs of locomotives and tenders, A. M. Wellington in the work referred to above, concludes from a variety of data that "the total cost chargeable to repairs of engines, including removals, may be distributed about as follows:

There are so many things about a locomotive liable to derangement, that repairs are frequently necessary, especially after they have been in service for a few years. Of the locomotives of companies engaged in extensive operations, a considerable percentage, usually not far from 17 per cent., are in the shops for repairs, and the average cost of such repairs per mile run has varied on different lines, from five to eight cents.

DEPARTMENTS FOR TESTING MATERIALS

The disposition to establish departments, connected with central shops, in which various materials, parts of rolling stock, steel rails, etc., could be subjected to sundry tests, including a chemical analysis in some instances, has been to a moderate extent increasing during late years. The general practice continues to be to rely chiefly upon the reputation or representations of the manufacturer, or tests and inspections made at the place of manufacture, which are frequently but not universally elaborate and satisfactory. Of the physical tests and machinery used at Altoona, comparatively soon after its department of physical tests was organized, Dredge's History of the Pennsylvania Railroad, published in 1877, says: "It contains two testing machines, one of which is supplied by Messrs. Fairbanks & Co. This machine is designed to test material to a strain of 50,000 pounds, and is adapted only for tensile and transverse strains. The machine has a scale for reading absolute deflections or extensions to .01 inch, and is supplemented by a vernier which gives readings to .001 inch. Measurements are taken between the shoulders at the ends of the test pieces, which are almost of uniform size, and a percentage of elongation is thus obtained on a definite length. The diameters in widths of samples are calipered to .001 inch. When determined, the load producing permanent set, and the ultimate strength, are stamped upon the sample, which is indexed and placed in store. The principal materials tested for tensile strength are iron and steel bars, cast iron from the shop foundries, steel boiler plates, sheet iron, phosphor bronze, brass, and brake chains. The tests for transverse strains are principally confined to cast iron, from the general and the wheel foundries; usually four samples from the former and two from the latter are tested daily. The pieces are all 15 inches long and 2 inches square, and are put into the machine just as they come from the sand. These test pieces are run from different parts of the same cupola charges, and they are broken by the application of a load in the centre, the bearings being 12 inches apart. The average breaking weights of the wheel mixtures, containing 10 per cent. of steel, is 21,000 pounds per square inch, and the tensile strength is about the same. The strength of the samples taken from engine cylinders, wheel centres, etc., is generally about 14,000 pounds per square inch in samples first taken from the cupola; about the middle of the charge this increases to 16,000 pounds, and rises to 18,000 pounds at the end, where the metal is much harder from the mixture used. These stronger irons are employed for special purposes, such as brake blocks, etc. The tensile strength of all samples is bout the same as the transverse strengths given above.

The second testing machine is for recording torsional strains, and was designed by Professor R. H. Thurston. This machine produces during its operation a diagram indicating the value of the test. An ordinate to the curve, perpendicular to the datum line, measured at any point, represents the moment of torsion at that point, while its distance on the datum from O indicates the angle of torsion at that point. The point of decided change in the direction of the course, a short distance from the commencement, marks the elastic limits of the test piece, and various other results can be deduced from the diagram; thus the degree of toughness is indicated, the resilience is shown by the area of the diagram, the homogeneity of the test piece from the form of the curve, and elasticity by occasionally relieving the sample of strain, and noting the deviation of the pencil.

Belonging to the same department, but in another part of the works, is the testing machine for car axles. These are laced under a drop, supported on bearings of cast iron, 3 feet apart from centre to centre. The drop, which weighs 1,640 pounds, strikes the axle in the middle of its length, and is raised in vertical guides by a wire rope passing around a sheave at the top. An old locomotive is employed upon this work. In testing axles one is selected at random out of every hundred, and if it stands the test the lot is accepted; if not, they are all rejected. For the steel passenger-car axles the required test is that they shall withstand 5 blows from the 1,640-pound drop falling through 25 feet, the axle to be turned half round after every blow. A similar percentage of the steel freight-car axles is also placed under the test, the requirement being 5 blows from a height of 20 feet, and for iron freight-car axles, 3 blows at 10 feet, and 2 at 15 feet.

Lubricants are also tested in this department. For this purpose a journal 1 3/16 inches in diameter, and running at a speed of 2,200 revolutions per minute is employed. The journal is placed horizontally, and from it depends a pendulum with an adjustable weight. This pendulum is supported on the journal by brass boxes, which can be weighted so as to bear upon the journal with a pressure varying from the weight of the pendulum to 210 pounds by means of a spiral spring. The bearing above mentioned has set in it a thermometer, and in testing the lubricant a given quantity of oil is placed in the journal, and the pressure is adjusted as desired."

From time to time other articles than those named above have been added to the lists of things tested, including coal, paints, the zinc and sulphate of copper used in telegraphic service, and also the air taken from passenger cars.

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