The Andrew County Republican. [volume] (Savannah, Mo.) 1871-1876, 1872-01-31
Railways ana Locomotive s
HY wM. II. BROWN.

Tell any person in your acquaintance that
RAILWAYS are more than couple of centur-
les old, and he will laugh a. you as a fool.
In the minds OF nineteen men out OF twenty,
the railroad aud the locomotive are regar-
ded as simultaneous or nearly simultaneous
discoveries. the one inseparably coLaected
with the other. This is q great mistake.
Old Roger North speaks of railways as
being in use In the ncighborhnod of the
river TYNE (Engiand) in 1875. Bur we can
70 even further back than this. There is a
record of rail track being Hsed for the
TRANSPORTATION of coal from the mines at
Newcastle in 1880. The rails were of tim
Der, but that detracts nothing from the
merit Of the invention. Certainly the un-
known. man Of genius who first hit upon
| this means Of facilitating the movement of
wheeled carriages ought TO rank next to
that other man Of genius who frat invented
wheels. Simple az the discovery was, It had
escaped the attention of those great Egyp-
tjan and Roman engineers, among whose
works are the Pyramids and the Appian
WAY, in spite of a need of some such means
| being evidently felt very greatly. The
EpyDtians spent the labor for ten years of
| 100000 men-though this is one Of the few
! facts Mr.. Brown has apparently missed-tO
build a causeway of huge blocks of stone,
! fitted together with exquisite skill, from the
!
ciently strong to serve for the Transports.
| tion of the enormous masses of stone and
granite which were used In the construction
of the Pyramids Had they been acquainted
with the simple-the ridiculously simple
contrivance OF a railroad, a mere fractional
percentage of this labor would have becl
necessary.
The first iron rails that we have any &C.
! Count Of were used at Whitehaven, some
where about 1740; and il. 1867, a French
traveller in England describes with enthusi
asm the immense advantages of iron r0ads
In l776-the year of the Declaration of In
idependence-the first rails with ledge OF
the outer side afterwards changed To tn,
inner side, and then abandoned in 1889 il
favor OF flanges upon the whecIs) were cast
apd a road was constructed with them a
the Duke of NOrtolk's colliery, ncr Sheffield
The irst railroad built in the Uni;et
States, was three niles in length, extcndin.
from the granite quarries of Quincy, Mass.
to the Neponset river. The road was com
menced in 1925, and completed in 1897. |
was built with granite sieepers seven anC
half feet long, laid eight feet apart. Tn
rails five feet apart, were OF pine, foot deep
covered with an oak plate, and these witt
fat bars OF iron.
The second railroad was commenced il
January, 1877, and completed IN May OF th
, same wear, extending from the coal mine
in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, to tn
!. Lehiph river, distance of nine miles. From
the summit of the road, and within half
> mile of the mines, the descent by plan
, was nine hundred aud eighty-two feet, in
clned two hundred and twenty-five feet t
the river, and thence Twenty-Five feet in
shute to the spot where the cars were dis
) charged into the boats. The cars descend
ed by gravity. with the loaded wagons, an
were drawn mp agsin by males. The rail
of the road we're of timber, laid on woOde
I sleep.rs and strapped with fiat iron bars.
In 1925 the Delaware and Hudson Cana
4 Company constructed a railroad from Ihei
coalminest0 Hsnesdale, the Termination &
,their canal, The Baltimore and Ohio raj
4 road and the South Carolina railroad wer
/ also commenced in the same year.
81 Before this, however, Colonel Stevens, {
HObOken,- had, rs far back as. 1913, declare
to the Legislature, m debate on De Wi
nj GliHtOn's, bill lfor the construction Int til
. Erie canal, that he should build. q railroa
at much Less cost than the canal, and he ais
alluded to the possible employment Of loc'
z motives. 4 He was laughed at Tor his pain
and New York State lost the honor OF bein
g. y -