St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-09-26
European Railroads.
EUROPE, Aug, IS

EUROPE, aug, 1913.
Dear Mr.. Stone will you take kind
ly letter on European railrOads2 Why
l should feel moved to write upon them
rather than upon a good many other
things, l might be as unable to guess as
you.
A stranger notices the substantial
character of the whole "plant." Ex-
pense seems nowhere to have been con-
sidered, but only how to make every
thing as for all time. The bridges are
of solid masonry or iron. Nowhere is a
wooden one, whether over or under the
track, to be seen. A deep rock cutting
is rare, the hill is tunneled instead.
Such burrowing might almost be said
to be as common in Europe as it is rare
in America. Going from Genoa to Pisa
we passed through more than eighty
tunnels, some of them more than a mile
long. One of our party remarked that
we were under ground more than half
the time, and on reflection the idea
seemed plausible. In Germany, along
the Rhine, the entrances of the tunnels
are beautiful gateways, initiating if not
riyaling the architecture of its finest
castles. A stone gateway at each end
of an important bridge, with tower
over principal pier, is not rare sight.
The railroad bridge spanning the Rhine
at Cologne has towers rising from each
pier, and a gateway of rich masonry at
each end, crowned by an equestrian
statue. The fact that the government
generally owns the railroads partly ex
plains how such embellishments can be
afforded. The station houses in the
cities, are generally imposing buildings.
That at Milan is one of the sights of the
city. That at Genoa is very fine, hav-
ing columned porte cOchere in its front,
where passengers can leave or take car
riages under cover, and before it stands
the fine statue of Columbus. The ac-
commodations within doors however,
are seldom up to our American stan
dard.
The international line over the Bren-
ner pass is magnificent specimen of
engineering,-the road from Verona to
Innsbruck and Munich. The altitude
attained is 4465 feet, to gain which the
road frequently doubles on itself, and
in places the grade is LAO, or 132 feet
to the mile. Tunnels are frequent. The
speed upward is of course slow. l ex-
pected to shoot down like a spent rock
ct, but the descent was hardly swifter
than the ascent. Along this route no.
ticed the seven telegraph wires, de-
scending from the poles, gathered in a
bundle and laid out of sight in the ma
sonry of the tunnels, instead of being
hung on insulators along the walls, as
elsewhere.
The rails used are generally of the
heaviest patterns used in America,
with very thick face, and the joint is
that now generally preferred among us,
known as the ''fsh" joint. The length
seems always the longest, thirty-six feet
or more.
The roadbed is always of the solidest
construction, defended against land
slides often by buttresses, walls laid in
mortar, and against undermining by
similar walls or sloping embankments,
faced with stone set on edge, like city
pavement or St. Louis levee. Indeed,
large portions of the banks of the
RhOne and of the Rhine are faced with
this style of wall to defend the lands on
either side from washing. The Austri-
an and German roads are superbly bal
lasted with broken stone, which seems
to be an effectual preventive of dust
In Italy and in Holland, however, we
suffered more from this evil than even
in America. The turf covered sides ot
the cuts and embankments that one
sees along all European railways are nc
insurance against this bane of travel.
The locomotive, outside of America
at least in Western Europe, is an ugly
black monster. Probably that is what
it always seems at first sight every
where. But in America, by contrast
and 1 think really, it is often beauti-
full machine. Our Hinckleys and Ma
sons and Baldwins have Wed with each
other till they have produced what
must perforce excite the admiration OF
every observer, whose fear has suffi-
ciently subsided to allow fair judg-
ment. A really graceful arrangement
of parts is possible and has been attain.
ed. The latter patterns are as mucl
more beautiful than the earlier as oul
top carriages are better shaped thar
the Canadian cateche. Adding to thil
cylinder heads, connecting rods, pit
mans, and other parts of polished steel