Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1909 — Curiosities or Railroading. [ARTICLE]

Curiosities or Railroading.

The... driving wheel pf an. engine traveling sixty mi as an hour 280, revolutions a and' often has behind it a train weighing 5i(H) tons.-* Yet the axle of the wheel upon which, this gigami.-c strain is placed cannot bp m»jde straight, true, like the axle of a carriage wheel. If must be, In the nature A things, a crank axle; and it may be Imagined by any cyclist how greatly the massive cranks add to the strain. The didculty of keeping an express up' to time is enormous. Given a perfect engine and a good driver, he must also b<> provided with the best of coal and a fireman who knows how to use it. On a run of, say, 500 miles, he will use at least 3,000 gallons of water. If he carelessly usee more he will exhaust his supply. Wind has to be allowed for, and wet lines always mean delay. There are two or three hundred signal men to be p~esed; each of them has his share in the punctuality .of the traip- Ope, careless platelayer among nearly 1,100 who look after th line between Eng.-nd’s and Scot land’s capital may delay the train by bis failu.-'e to sci vw up a fish boltThe wbo.e train msy be brought to { g standstill by a greaser having allowed a pinch rs dirt to ;et into one of the many gr ase boxe». As may be imagined, o lly the most rigid discipline can run a fifty pal l 6 .an hour train on time. Hie taunt is often hurled at British railways that they are expensive. French and German fares are held up as contracts to be -'opled. The public forgets that in B.italn a reasonable amount of luggage is carried free, abroad, r.one. It fails to remember that mos. foreign railways Delong to the government, while British ones are forced to pay from two to five per cent, of all their earnings into tne national axchequer.