Railroad Engineering -- a book on railroad building - 1908

[JCitron]

http://books.google.com/books?id=r9...=PP1#v=onepage&q=railroad engineering&f=false


This is an interesting book on the engineering practices behind route planning and track surveying. There are some interesting photos of famous lines such as the Georgetown Loop in Colorado. While we use laser sights and guides today, the engineers used barometric and aneroid altimeters to measure the grade a 106 years ago. There are also other aspects discussed here including curve radii with all the math that go into that too.

 

[kws4000]

Was doing a bit more poking around, and found the first book of economics for industry: The Economics of Railroad Construction. Great place if you also want intimate calculations of train loading and tractive effort, pretty hairy stuff.

 

[viesturs]

There is one historical book called Latvijas dzelzceļi 1918-1938 about railways in my country in this side of the Pond. Contains 433 pages of everything - information about rebuilding the railways after WWI, technical advances, railway worker healthcare, station beautification, new railway line projects including cost, math, diagrams, profiles, pictures, etc. etc.

Pics from the e-book version.

By this point you probably already noticed the problem of not-English-language which sadly can't be fixed without a proper, human translator since there are words and letters no longer used, technical words, etc. which won't be recognized by any Internet translator

 

[JCitron]

Was doing a bit more poking around, and found the first book of economics for industry: The Economics of Railroad Construction. Great place if you also want intimate calculations of train loading and tractive effort, pretty hairy stuff.

Yeah... As I've gotten more in to the book, it sure did get more hairy with the math. Lucky for us we have computers to assist with the math and engineering. We can use CAD programs to measure the radii and create curves using Bezier tools. In those days it was a lot of paper, pencils and manual measurements.

John

 

[klambert]

Yeah... As I've gotten more in to the book, it sure did get more hairy with the math. Lucky for us we have computers to assist with the math and engineering. We can use CAD programs to measure the radii and create curves using Bezier tools. In those days it was a lot of paper, pencils and manual measurements.

John

I'm currently studying engineering, a major part of it is learning the old fashioned way of how things like forces where figured out, it really is difficult stuff and very time intensive, it really makes you appreciate the technology we have. Maths has that rather annoying nature about it that if you get something seemingly small wrong at the beginning stages of working out the formula, the problem then snowballs until the final result is wildly wrong. I think it's remarkable how quickly Victorian infrastructure was built and how long it lasts considering the methods they used, were prone to human error.

 

[JCitron]

I'm currently studying engineering, a major part of it is learning the old fashioned way of how things like forces where figured out, it really is difficult stuff and very time intensive, it really makes you appreciate the technology we have. Maths has that rather annoying nature about it that if you get something seemingly small wrong at the beginning stages of working out the formula, the problem then snowballs until the final result is wildly wrong. I think it's remarkable how quickly Victorian infrastructure was built and how long it lasts considering the methods they used, were prone to human error.

Indeed. It is amazing how many miles of track, bridges, and tunnels built using these methods, and the tools we take for granted today. It's good to know the basics behind the workings though. When I studied electrical engineering, we had to figure out the values for current, voltage, and power manually and then confirm our measurements in the lab. The snowballing... Yup I remember that happening a few times on my exams. Off by a decimal point and I ended up way off in the end, and this was only for a tiny circuit. Imagine something like this for a rail line or tunnel!

This is one of the reasons why it pains my when I see an abandoned rail line. I think of all the lives lost and hard work that went into building the route and we come along and rip it up in some cases for no reason at all.

John

 

[PortlandBill]

This is one of the reasons why it pains my when I see an abandoned rail line. I think of all the lives lost and hard work that went into building the route and we come along and rip it up in some cases for no reason at all.

I believe that this is a service that Trainz can do for history in providing a view of the not so recent past that is all to easy to loose sight of with our current rate of technological progress. So much is lost and forgotten about why things are as they are. A well researched route with accurate traffic patterns, good models of rolling stock and scenery should, I think, provide a valuable resource for future historians as well as providing a sense of achievement and satisfaction to the model builder.

 

[JCitron]

I believe that this is a service that Trainz can do for history in providing a view of the not so recent past that is all to easy to loose sight of with our current rate of technological progress. So much is lost and forgotten about why things are as they are. A well researched route with accurate traffic patterns, good models of rolling stock and scenery should, I think, provide a valuable resource for future historians as well as providing a sense of achievement and satisfaction to the model builder.

Indeed. I am working on such a project with another Trainz user for a local heritage museum. I can't say much about the details here, but if you're interested send me a PM. The project shows the importance of a railway on the growth and development of a large city in my area. This route was part of the western gateway for Massachusetts and southern New England, and is still in existence today. I'm currently laying the track, but there will be a ton of custom buildings too which the other person is working on.

John

 

[viesturs]

This is one of the reasons why it pains my when I see an abandoned rail line. I think of all the lives lost and hard work that went into building the route and we come along and rip it up in some cases for no reason at all.

John

Our railways had reasons. Quite terrible ones, but they did have them. "There was a landslide" (which didn't disturb the railway traffic in any way!); "Most of the wooden sleepers had rotten" (because in the 21st century one of the few things that is still impossible is to do, is to replace one piece of wood with an other... especially on a railway line which was mostly used by trains carrying timber); "A train hit a lorry" (Because the train was so beyond repairs that it's still used today and there was absolutely not a single other piece of rolling stock available to service that route except all the ones they did have)

PS - There was much sarcasm used.

 

[JCitron]

Our railways had reasons. Quite terrible ones, but they did have them. "There was a landslide" (which didn't disturb the railway traffic in any way!); "Most of the wooden sleepers had rotten" (because in the 21st century one of the few things that is still impossible is to do, is to replace one piece of wood with an other... especially on a railway line which was mostly used by trains carrying timber); "A train hit a lorry" (Because the train was so beyond repairs that it's still used today and there was absolutely not a single other piece of rolling stock available to service that route except all the ones they did have)

PS - There was much sarcasm used.

*Much" sarcasm??

Where I live a regional company took over the former B&M and MEC railroads, both considered Class 1 railroads at one time. The first thing they did was to defer maintenance on various lines and equipment. They still do this today and when it comes time to discourage service to customers, they let the line slip so far below maintenance that trees will grow through the tracks. It only got better as time went on because various companies tried to get the service back and the railroad refused even after going to court. Yet, short line railroads tried to take over the abandoned lines, and the railroad company cut the track in the middle and refused to sell that part. Nice company, you think!

John