Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1858-04-20
DIFFICULTIES OF RAILROAD ENGI-
NEERING.

Those who know and have Travelled the route
oil the Erie Railroad, can appreciate the diff
cultles over which the genius and enterprise Of
railway engineers have tfiumphed in carrying
the IRON way through portions of the country
which seemed to lie almost impassable But
great as were tho difficulties encountered in
the construction Of our railroads, greater difti
cultleS have been encountered and overcome
| In England. Of the 8 635 miles of railway now
constructed in Britain. about ~ miles pass
through tunnels, and more than 80 miles over
viaduets, whilst Of railway bridges there have
been built some ~, 900.
In the last number of the London Quarterly
Review, we have an interesting statement of
the manner In which George Stephenson car
! rled the railroad over Char Moss, On the Liver
pool and Manchester line. Before Stephenson
undertook the work, it was declared by the
best engineers, to be impossible. The Moss is
thus described:
Chat Moss is an immense Peat bog Of about
twelve square miles in extent. In most places
1t Is 20 soft that it IL incap Ible OF supporting
man or "a horse and il an iron rod bc placed
Perpendicular on its surface, it sinks by its
own weight to depth of some thirty feet. The
ophaSni, or bog moses, cover the entire area.
one years growth rises over anOther,-the
elder growths not entirely decaying, hut re-
manning partially preserved by the antiseptic
properties peculiar to peat. Hence the re-
| mdrkable fact that, although a sem-fuid mass,
the surface OF Chat Moss rises above the level
OF the surrounding country. Like = turtle s
back, 1t declines from tho summit in oyery di-
rectiOn, having from thirty to forty feet gradual
slope to the solid land around.
IN rainy weather il sensibly swells with the
water. and rises in those parts where the moss
Is the deepest,-tho capillary attraction of the
iibres Of the submerged mass. which is from
twenty to thirty feet in DEPTH causing the re-
tentiOn OF the moisture, whilst the growing
plants etectually check evaporation from the
surface. The peculiar character of the mos 3
has presented an insuperablc difficulty to any
system Of Wholesale drainage.
So soft aud spOngy was it that the Surveyors
found difficulty in making their survey 1t
would not bear mans weight, and they were
obliged TO attach broad boards to their feet
How was a road to be constructed for n heavy
locomotive with train of passengers or goods
upon bog which was incapable of supporting
the weight of Il solitary individual
Mr.. Stephenson idea was that such a road
might be made to Peat upon the bog. simply by
means of a sufficient extension Of the bearing
surface. As ship is capable of sustaining
heavy loads, hOatcd in water, so, in his opir1
ion, might road be aoated upon boz which
was OF considerably greater consistency than
water.
On this principle the road was constructed
But, perhaps, greater feat was the construc-
tiOn Of the Box Tunnel on the Great Western
Railway, and the Woodhead Tunnel, on the
Sheffield and Manchester Railway, which pen
etrates mountain ridge for about three miles
The average number of men employed was
about thousand; and during the six years the
works were in progress, twenty six were killed.
| OF whom sixteen were miners. There were
| about four hundred minor accidents, many Of
the n attended with loss Of limb, and the sum
total of the casualties, in proportion to the men
| employed, was greater, according to Mr. Edwin
Chadwick, than was suffered by the British
army IN the battles of Talavera, Salamanca,
] kittOria. and Waterloo