Produced by Cornell University
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
VOL. II.—NOVEMBER, 1858.—NO. XIII.
RAILWAY-ENGINEERING IN THE UNITED STATES.[1]
Though our country can boast of no Watt, Brindley, Smeaton, Rennie,Telford, Brunel, Stephenson, or Fairbairn, and lacks suchexperimenters as Tredgold, Barlow, Hodgkinson, and Clark, yet wehave our Evans and Fulton, our Whistler, Latrobe, Roebling, Haupt,Ellet, Adams, and Morris,—engineers who yield to none inprofessional skill, and whose work will bear comparison with thebest of that of Great Britain or the Continent; and if America doesnot show a Thames Tunnel, a Conway or Menai Tubular Bridge, or amonster steamer, yet she has a railroad-bridge of eight hundred feetclear span, hung two hundred and fifty feet above one of the wildestrivers in the world,—locomotive engines climbing the Alleghanies atan ascent of five hundred feet per mile,—and twenty-five thousandmiles of railroad, employing upwards of five thousand locomotivesand eighty thousand cars, costing over a thousand millions of dollars,and transporting annually one hundred and thirty millions ofpassengers and thirty million tons of freight,—and all this in amanner peculiarly adapted to our country, both financially andmechanically.
In England the amount of money bears a high proportion to the amountof territory; in America the reverse is the case; and the engineersof the two countries quickly recognized the fact: for we find ourrailroads costing from thirty thousand to forty thousand dollars permile,—while in England, to surmount much easier natural obstacles,the cost varies from seventy-five to one hundred thousand dollarsper mile.
The cost of railroad transport will probably never be so low ascarriage by water,—that is, natural water-communication; becausethe river or ocean is given to man complete and ready for use,needing no repairs, and with no interest to pay upon constructioncapital. Indeed, it is just beginning to be seen all over thecountry that the public have both expected and received too muchaccommodation from the companies. Men are perfectly willing to payfive dollars for riding a hundred miles in a stage-coach; but givethem a nicely warmed, ventilated, cushioned, and furnished car, andcarry them four or five times faster, with double the comfort, andthey expect to pay only half-price,—as a friend of the writer onceremarked, "Why, of course we ought not to pay so much when we a'n'thalf so long going,"—as if, when they paid their fare, they notonly bargained for transport from one place to another, but for theluxury of sitting in a crowded coach a certain number of hours. Itwould be hard to show a satisfactory basis for such an establishmentof tolls. We need not wonder at the unprofitableness of many of ourroads when we consider that the relative cost of transport is,—
By Stage, one cent,
By Railroad, two and seven-twelfths;
and the relative charge,—
By Stage, five cents,
By Railroad, three cents;
and the comparative profit, as five less one to three less two andseven-twelfths, or as four to five-twelfths, or as nine andsix-tenths to one.
America has, it is true, a grander system of naturalwater-communication than any other land except Brazil; but, for allthat, there is really but a small part of the area, either of theAlleghany coal and iron fields, or of the granaries of theMississippi valley, reached even by our matchless rivers. A certainstri