From Plateways to Wooden Ties, Rails and Spikes

As you'll see, the best rail design to use in North American conditions was not always obvious.

This post follows two earlier pieces looking at the earliest development of plateways and railways.

The Advent of Guided Ground Transport

1832 American Rail-Road Journal, Vol 1, No 1

Most of the images in this post are from: 

The Science of Railways, Volume III, Financing, Constructing and Maintaining; Marshall M Kirkman; 1900; World Railway Publishing Company. 

There is at least one set of these available at archive.org if you are interested. 

For many years I have wanted to 'do something' with all the interesting illustrations of rail and track systems depicted along the margins of this volume. In the text, most of these historic images are not discussed in any meaningful way because these were not intended to be history books. They were intended to be an encyclopedia of current technologies and practices that a railway professional would use and display with pride.

I think all the marginal images are there to provide some relief from the less popular (i.e. 'dull') aspects of railroading. 

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They Skipped the Boring Stuff.

... Other volumes ... on locomotives, air brakes, firing, other rolling stock, express business, rules and other railway systems ... drew the professional attention of many readers and some of this interest was probably shared by members of the general public. 

However, in the early 1900s, the details of simple track systems did not stir the imaginations of most people. 

The most common maintenance of way activities involved the use of simple tools and physical strength to perform routine functions so the track would remain reliable. Most people (in Canada and the US) grew up on farms in this era. Unless it led to a more steady income or professional advancement in the railway company ... there was little about maintaining track which would seem attractive to anyone.

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1900: The Same Old Piece of Railway

In the coming decades, the mainline track might command some level of steam- or gasoline-powered technology for its maintenance. 

However, before the rural road network was developed for use by automobiles ... the extensive system of light-rail secondary and tertiary lines was the essential transportation system in North America. It was maintained by 'sectionmen' - who always worked on the same few miles of track under the leadership of their section foreman. 

Generally, a section was about 5 to 6 miles. More challenging areas having steep grades or troublesome rock cuts could be divided into 4 or 5 mile sections. Gently rolling areas of the Prairies might have sections up to 8 miles in length. 

... The sectionmen wielded shovels, lining and tamping bars, spike mauls, wrenches and track jacks. Transportation for inspection or work along a section was accomplished either on foot, with a velocipede, or using a handcar loaded down with enough heavy steel tools to solve most track problems encountered during an inspection. Therefore, the sectionman had to have the endurance to perform the heavy work and to help transport himself and the gang's tools to and from the job site.

In addition to having considerable experience with track repairs, the foreman was also responsible for the gang's compliance with the rulebook. Changing a few rails without regard for the times of scheduled passenger trains, or failing to protect against lowly extra trains ... could result in career-altering outcomes.

I once had the opportunity to do a little trackwork as a volunteer and an old hand cautioned me that the sectionmen were 'kind of slow moving people'. After an hour or two, I understood that he was right ... and was reminded of this throughout the following week. 

On a railroad which is now part of the CNR system - YouTube link.

Vicksburg section crew: calling and lining track (1978)

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Uphill, both ways, always in knee-deep snow, winter and summer.

By way of adding to the social picture of people with farm backgrounds taking up work on 'the section' ... 

Rural kids walked to their schools which were often miles away. They attended school when they were not needed for farm work during the peak periods of activity in the spring and fall. The school teacher might be someone who had basic literacy and numeracy to pass on to their 10-15 students of various ages in the one-room schoolhouse.

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As you can conclude, sectionmen circa 1900 would not be buying this expensive encyclopedia so their wives and kids could better understand track systems or their development through history.

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In recent posts, we have looked at systems which improved on having a horse dragging a wagon over a dirt road. This included primitive Canadian wood-paved roads, and it progressed to the development of plateways and tramways - providing 'metals' or rails on which special wagons could be drawn by horses. 

This invention of smooth metal 'ways' was of particular importance in the transportation of coal from mine to staith in northern England - particularly around Newcastle-on-Tyne. The technology below would be typical of that level of development.

As you've probably already concluded, the convex shape along the top of the cast iron plateway rail is designed to strengthen it between the stone blocks which anchor it in the ground.

Chairs were added to provide a more durable structure where the rails met each other and the stone blocks.

While this rail seems to suggest a step back in technology, the metallurgy behind rolling iron rail makes it less brittle. Chaldrons of coal did not hammer the track as they were drawn by horses. However, steam locomotives would produce these forces causing the more brittle cast iron rails to break.

This was a design used by Stephenson as he applied his ideas to many aspects of railway technology development. You can see the convex design of the first image is reversed to provide additional support at the underside of the rail. 

Depending on the reference, there may be some contention about who did what. As best I can determine ...

Robert L Stevens (1787-1856) was an American inventor and designer with a family heritage of steamboat design. He became president of the Camden & Amboy Railroad and he invented a 'flat bottom' rail circa 1831. The use of a 'strap iron' rail on a wood stringer had been the primary system used in the US up to that point. 

With historical hindsight, this innovation is obvious to us today. 

Apparently, the US mills did not have the capacity to roll rails so they were rolled in England.

Meanwhile, Charles B Vignoles (1793-1875) was an Irish engineer who had a family heritage of military service. After ending his military career, he did civil engineering work in the US. Vignoles returned to Britain to perform some of the survey work on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway and then continued with many other civil engineering jobs there.

Vignoles recommended the use of Stevens' flat-bottomed rail (with his modifications to its design) on the London & Croydon Railway circa 1836. As he introduced the use of this type of rail in Britain - which could only be rolled in Britain - it is often referred to as Vignoles rail. 

Stevens worked to rid an American railroad of strap rail on wood stringers.

Vignoles worked to address the wear between cast iron rail, cast iron chairs and the stone blocks to which they were attached.

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The images which follow, document the existing technology used in the US. 

Methods of laying flat-bottomed rail are using some sophisticated casting and shaping designs.

With historical hindsight, we could have saved them a lot of 'inventing' !

Wedges, which were hammered into place, were a common method of providing a solid fixture to hold the rail. If you have seen the great 1964 railroading movie The Train, you will remember having seen wedges in use.

Many different track designs were invented and subsequently discarded.

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I think they had tremendous difficulty with broken rails on the Great Western of Canada.

Even when rolled, iron rails were not compatible with the effects of extreme cold in Canada.

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Frogs

As soon as you have more than one train-set of cars, or more than one locomotive, you need switches.

Frogless stub switches were fine for low speed operations in pioneer North America.

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Looking at Practices in Canada

With great persistence, I looked through every book on Canadian operations I could, to find examples of early track systems ... before their conversion to the North American 'standard'. 

from: Canada's Five Centuries; W Kaye Lamb; 1971; McGraw-Hill.

Built about 25 miles south of Newcastle-on-Tyne by Timothy Hackworth in 1838, the Samson worked for about 30 years on a six-mile railroad serving coal mines near New Glasgow. 

Chairs and fish-belly rail suggest that this photograph documents the 'original equipment' shipped from Britain for use with the railway's first engines.

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from: Iron Roads, Railways of Nova Scotia; David E Stephens; 1972; Lancelot Press, Windsor NS.

Built circa 1868. This book states the engine operated between Low Point colliery to the shipping pier at South Bar, North Sydney. Here we can see another isolated colliery railway using what is apparently British motive power on a British-style track - employing chairs and wedges.

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Other Early Canadian Track Systems

In the examples I could find, it seems railways which were originally built using British track systems did not hesitate to change their track hardware. In fact, the British railways, themselves, had begun their own transition to wooden sleepers in the 1830s. 

The use of rigid stone blocks and chairs resulted in damage to rail metal from the pounding of locomotives and train loads. Track was easily hammered out of alignment when using such a rigid system.

Rolled steel rails were not as brittle as those made of iron. As we have seen, the Canadian temperature extremes quickly made the iron rails unusable.

Many lightly-built Canadian railways often took full advantage of the strong, flexible and forgiving characteristics of light steel rails and wooden ties. Pioneer railways were often built through the Canadian Shield's inconveniently-placed granite outcroppings. 

... And the ability to lay tight curves or grade-defying construction shoo-fly tracks over rock obstacles requiring prolonged blasting or tunneling (and even temporarily over snow in some cases) was beneficial. This flexibility to temporarily lay sub-standard track often made a critical financial difference as new pioneer lines struggled to survive in areas where traffic was likely to be sparse during a line's first years of operation.

from: Canada, A History in Photographs; Hall & Dodds; 1981; Hurtig.

The Great Western Railway opened its line through Woodstock (in today's Ontario) in 1853. It was built to Provincial Gauge, 5 feet 6 inches. Photographed here circa 1865, the original rolled iron rails (shown in the rail examples illustrated farther above) have been replaced by flat-bottomed rails, spiked to ties with bolted splice bars.

from: Canada Railways in Pictures; Robert F Legget; 1977; Douglas & McIntyre. 

Here is the Great Western Railway at Paris Junction where it is crossed by the Buffalo & Lake Huron Railway. Both railways use the Provincial Gauge of 5 feet 6 inches. The date is before the general conversion to Standard Gauge circa 1870. Both railways are apparently using the standard track system.

In the photo, you can see an older design of stock cars, a turntable, some fairly tight curves, a telegraph-equipped shanty for the employee protecting the railway crossing at grade and the absolute signals they used ... and probably a stub switch in the centre-left distance. Wood seems to be the fuel used in this locomotive with its deep narrow firebox.

from: Van Horne's Road; Omer Lavallee; 1974; Railfare.

Finally: 

This wonderful diagram illustrates the standard to be used by contractors building the Canadian Pacific Railway.