The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century. by Edward W. Byrn
1826. The Pacific Railway, the first of our half a dozen
582 words | Chapter 50
transcontinental railways, was completed in 1869. The great
Trans-Siberian Railway is nearing completion, and in the Twentieth
Century a Trans-Sahara Railway will probably relieve the burdens of the
camel, as it has already done those of the horse.
At the end of the year 1898 there were in use in the United States
36,746 locomotives, 1,318,700 cars, and the mileage in tracks, including
second track and sidings, was 245,238.87, which, if extended in a
straight line, would build a railway to the moon. The money investment
represented in capital stock and bonds was $11,216,886,452. The gross
earnings for the year 1898 were $1,249,558,724. The net earnings were
$389,666,474. Tons of freight moved were 912,973,853. Receipts from
freight were $868,924,526. Number of passengers carried was 514,982,288.
Receipts from passengers were $272,589,591, and dividends paid were
$94,937,526. Add to the above the elevated railroads and street
railroads, which are not included, and the immensity of the railroad
business in the United States becomes apparent. In 1898 the United
States exported 468 locomotives, worth $3,883,719. Mulhall estimates
that the steam horse power of railroads in the world amounted in 1896 to
40,420,000, of which the United States had more than one-third. He also
states that the railways in the United States carry _every day_, in
merchandise, a weight equal to that of the whole of the seventy millions
of persons constituting its population; that the total railway traffic
of the world in 1894 averaged ten million passengers and six million
tons of merchandise _daily_; and that the total railway capital of the
world reached in that year, 6,745 million sterling, or about
thirty-three billion dollars.
It is said that the highest railway speed ever attained by steam prior
to 1900 was by locomotive No. 564 of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern
Railroad, made during part of a run from Chicago to Buffalo. In this run
86 miles were made at an average rate of 72.92 miles an hour. The train
load was 304,500 pounds, and the 86 mile run included one mile at 92.3
miles an hour, eight miles at 85.44 miles an hour, and thirty-three
miles at 80.6 miles an hour. On May 26, 1900, however, an experiment on
the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, made by Mr. F. U. Adams between Baltimore
and Washington, demonstrated that by sheathing the train to prevent
retardation by the air, an average speed of 78.6 miles an hour was
obtained, and for five miles on a down grade a speed of 102.8 miles an
hour was reached.
The largest and most powerful locomotives in the world are those being
built for the Pittsburg, Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad for hauling long
trains of iron and ore, one of which has just been completed. Its
cylinders are 24 × 32 inches; drive wheels, 54 inches diameter; weight,
125 tons; draw bar pull 56,300 pounds, and hauling capacity 7,847 tons.
One of these mammoth engines is capable of drawing a train of box cars,
loaded with wheat, and more than a mile long, at a speed of ten miles an
hour. This load of wheat would represent the yield of 14 square miles of
land. No doubt it would greatly astonish our forefathers to know that at
the end of the century we would have iron horses capable of carting
away, at a single load, the products of 14 square miles of the country
side, and do it at a gait faster than that of their local mail coach.
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