Railroad Gazette Volume 3 (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. 1871-04 edition. Excerpt: ...as is shown by the actual trafilc done over the double-track line of the New York Central & Hudson River road, in the last year reported. On this road, with a main line 442 miles long, and 400 miles of branches, chiefly singletrack; trains ran about 11,500,000 miles in one year; whereas on the Fort Wayne road, with 468 miles of main line and 32 miles of branches, the train mileage was 5,400,000 miles; and on the Lake Shore road, with 540 miles of main line and 473 miles of branches, 8,219,893 train miles were made. At the same time the Pennsylvania Railroad, with a double-track main line 355 miles long and 245 miles of single-track branches, made 10,185,233 train miles. However, it may be very well said that the capacity of a line between New York and Chicago will be equal only to that of its most imperfect part: and if a second track should double the capacities of the lines west of Pittsburgh and Buffalo, it would not at all improve the roads east of these cities. The limit of their capacity is the limit of capacity for traffic by rail through between Chicago and New York. That limit is not yet reached, but even a double-track railroad may be blocked with trains. The remedy for this is the addition ofa third track solely for passenger trafilc, by which the capacity of a line may be increased enormously. Freight trains maybe run within fifteen or twenty minutes of each other, on a double-track road, day and night, if the working of the line is not complicated by the running of fast passenger trains on the same tracks. The delays occasioned by waiting for such trains, the waste and wear due to runningheavy freight trains at high speed, in order to keep out of the way of passenger trains, are not easily exaggerated. With a third...