The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-01-10
RAILROAD TIES.

l Ipey Are Maue Cnlefy or Oak and 1 Their Average Life is Five Years. l The drummer in railroad supplies
 handed the drummer in cotton goods
 his silver mounted flask as he settled
 himself comfortably as the train pulled
 out of Philadelphia for Washington a few days ago.
 1 1The reason why you chaps in the
 south used to have many years ago so
 many accidents on your old lines was | because pine trees, being so convenient,
 were used extensively in the making of
 rrilioad ties, than which no more im- portant element enters into the make
 up of a railroad" he said. Pine wood | will not hold the spikes, is soft and rots l quickly, and has now been abandoned as : supports of the steel rails
 "Who ever thinks of the ties of a road
 as he speeds along at the rate of sixty
 miles an hour with scarcely tremor of the coach In which he is sitting? No one But railroad men give the closest attention to these wooden ribs
 "Ties are placed at varying distances apart, but the average distance adopted
 by most trunk lines is one and a half feet from center to center. Give me
 your pencil. There are approximately Hbout $500 ties to the mile. These ties
 are worth, delivered to the road, from 90 cents to $1.10 each, depending upon the point of delivery. Tn the prairie sections of the west for instance, ties, owing to distance from the base of SUD- plies, are more expensive than in a re- zion abounding in forests. Placing their value at $1 each, on double track from New York to Washington, distance of 221 miles, the ties alone are worth $773,- 800, while along the sides of the track are piles of ties seasoning easily worth half thus sum. Therefore, in a road operating two thousand miles of track it's ties alone represent an expenditure of s7,0o0, ,000
 Each tie is carefully inspected by men who make that their business, who look for splits decayed places, worm- eaten spots and other imperfections. Each piece of wood selected must be up to the standard size in length, width and thickness, If the inspector passes tie he daubs a round splash of red paint on the end, which shows plainly on the freshly hewn or sawed wood, and that's what all of those little red eyes meant on that pile of new ties we just passed and of which you asked the meaning.
 "The average life of tie is about five years, depending upon climatic influ- ences and the character of the road bed. Ties set in a soft, moist soil will of course, rot quicker than those placed in rock ballast, which is now the ac- cepted roadbed of all the great lines The various species of oak are mainly used, though chestnut and one or two other varieties of wood which are tough and of firm. solid grain are used
 we don't hear so much about spreading rails and ensuing accidents as a decade or two ago. One reason for l this is the closer inspection now given to ties and their renewing.
 "Iron ties have been used on some of 1 the roads in Europe, but if they have ! proved a success there they have not been adopted in this country, and I | doubt if they will ever be. Down in Central America in the tropical forests they use ties of solid mahogany, as it is about the only wood which will with stand the climate and the ravages of tropical Washington Star LORD BROUGHAM'S FIRST BRIEF.
 The following story of how Lord