Earth Mover and Road Builder Volume 6 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1919 edition. Excerpt: ...Ditcher, leaned out of his cab window and spat, thoughtfully. They sure did something when they made those dump cars, H he volunteered. H/Vhen you ditch with flatcars and cableplows, hell is to pay.H Thus in two short sentences this experienced ditcher engineer set forth the superiority of the new method of ditching to that of the old, which still is in use on many railroads. Railroad ditching is a frittering, although important, form of earth-moving. Ditches along the track accomplishing the important maintenance work known as ditching air dump cars are as far superior to flat cars and cable plows as that equipment in its day was to hand-shoveling. This particular Wheeling & Lake Erie ditching outfit, with IVI. McConnell of Massillon as engineer, was working out of Kent, not far from Brimfield, Ohio. Ditching certainly is not what it used to be and the methods of this outfit well illustrate the tendency among railroad men and contractors alike to let machines do the work, as the only possible solution of the labor problem. The ditching machine on its flat have to be widened and kept open for the sake of drainage. A ditching machine in reality is a small, revolving shovel which moves back and forth on a track laid on top of a flat car, and the engineer is the shovelrunner.H But instead of scooping up close to a cubic yard of earth with one movement of the dipper, like a shovel working against a bank, the ditcher has to pick and scratch around for a load. It has come to be understood by the most up-to-date railroad men that in SCENE 0N TIIE WIIEELING 9 LAKE ERIE RAILROAD IIELOW CLEVELAND. ALoNo A TRACK 0N A FLAT CAI As IT LOADS Two WEIITERN 20'YARD AIR DUMP CARS COUPLED ONE 0N EACH SInE. TIIE...