The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1906-12-05
RAILROAD NEWS.
Santa Fe Has 1926 Miles of Dirt
Track, --OiIed.
Remainder Is RaIIasted With
Rock, Slug or Cinders.
BIGGER ANPYRAMID
100000 Carloads of Ballast Used
on the System.
$4,000 Cars of Rails Strung
Across Continent.
BIGGER THAN PYRAMID


We have before US a blueprint a
yard long, filed with figures. It is
called the rail and ballast statement,
and is a page of the records of the
Santa Fe. showing the construction of
that railway up to date. 1t tells an
interesting story of the building of
trans-continental highway. Through
its painstaking tabulation may be trac-
ed the composition Of every mile Of
main line and branches, the material
used for ballast on every mile, and the
kind and weight of the rails used In
Texas, Arizona and California 1926
miles of track are laid on the bare
earth, dltched on either side and
spr1nkled with crude petroleum, which
packs the sand or clay and effectuaIly
prevents dust. There is a quality of
resiliency about this sort of road-bed
that reminds one of automobile tour
ing. 1t makes the finest road-bed in
the world. There are 1924 miles of
gravel-ballaSted road, and 1854 miles
of rock ballast. Engine cinders are
utilized to ballast 1856 miles of track
and. volcanic cinders, from an extinct
crater in southern California, ballast
3S1 miles. Stag, ''gumbo" (burned
clay), screenings. cemented gravel and
disintegrated granite and mixed bal
last are employed on 436 miles, maxi
ing altogether 1850 miles of specially
ballasted track, mainly on main lines.
The rails used are chiefly the stan
dard steel bar, eighty-five pounds to
the yard. though there are four miles
of the ponderous one hundred-and-
one-pound rail in New Mexico. There
are 1858 miles laid with the standard
rail and 1,462 miles OF seventy-f1ve-
pound rail. On the level prairies of
Oklahoma and Kansas there are still
some of the lighter rails used for
branch lineS-Which are rapidly Civ
ing place to those of standard weight
Il is difficult to form an idea Of the
magnitude of these figures
Take the ballast for example
nearly four thousand miles of ma
terial or 100000 carloads of twenty
I I'VE yards The great pyramid of
Cheops is probably the largest mass
of material ever brought together for
construction purposes by human
hands. The ballast laboriously quar-
ried, crushed, spread and tamped on
the track of the Santa Fe would build
a pyramid a third bigger than that of
the Egyptian king.
Or take the rails: The 1 1858 miles
laid with the standard eighty-five-
pound rail carry an aggregate of 248-
700 tons of steel. and the 1862 miles
of seventy-fve-pou rail carry 243,-
600 tons A total of heavy rail, in
round numbers, Of 100000 tons of
finished steel. Loaded on the heaviest
platform cars, 1920 cars would be
required to carry the burden. If we
suppose that the ore was brought
down the lakes from the Minnesota
mines Though much Of it may have
come from southern mines), a process
sion of a hundred big ten-thousand-
ton freighters would have been need
ed to deliver the necessary ore.
1t would be interesting to follow this
up, and trace the labor employed in
getting out and preparing the ballast
material, in sprinkling the track with
oil, in mining the iron ore, bringing it
down the lakes or from southern
mines. making the pig iron in the
foundry and the steel ingots, amid the
brilliant pyrotechnics of the Bessemer
converters, rolling the long rails in the
glare of Catherine wheels of sparks in
the great rolling mills, and finally see
the bronzed Mexican spiking down the
rails to the ties away out southwest. It
is a wonderful story, and not without
chapters of self-sacrifice and heroism
that we read between the solid rows
of figures of this blueprint.
New York Central Changes
New York. Dec. 5.-Announcemen
was made today of the appointment of
Chas. F. Daily, passenger traffic man
ager, and Albert H Harris, general
counsel Of the New York Central lines,
as vice presidents of both the Lake