Stone bridges so rarely occur upon the roads of America, that they
hardly need remark. The Starucca Viaduct, by Mr. Adams, upon the New
York and Erie Railroad, and the viaduct over the Patapsco, near the
junction of the Washington branch with the main stem of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, show that our engineers are not at all
behind those of Europe in this branch of engineering. From the civil
let us pass to the mechanical department of railroad engineering.
This latter embraces all the machinery, both fixed and rolling;
locomotives and cars coming under the latter,--and the shop-machines,
lathes, planers, and boring-machines, forging, cutting, punching,
rolling, and shearing engines, pumps and pumping-engines for the
water-stations, turn-tables, and the like, under the former. Of this
branch, little, except the design and working of the locomotive power,
needs to be mentioned as affecting the prosperity of the road.
Machine-shops, engine-houses, and such apparatus, differ but
slightly upon different roads; but the form and dimensions of the
locomotive engines should depend upon the nature of the traffic, and
upon the physical character of the road, and that most intimately,
--so much, indeed, that the adjustment of the grades and curvatures
must determine the power, form, and whole construction of the engine.
This is a fact but little appreciated by the managers of our roads;
when the engineer has completed the road-bed proper, including the
bridging and masonry, he is considered as done with; and as the
succeeding superintendent of machinery is not at that time generally
appointed, the duty of obtaining the necessary locomotive power
devolves upon the president or contractor, or some other person who
knows nothing whatever of the requirements of the road; and as he
generally goes to some particular friend, perhaps even an associate,
he of course takes such a pattern of engine as the latter builds,