On Continental and other railways out of Great Britain the Vignoles, or flat-bottomed, rail holds almost universal sway since it requires less attention, but increased rail weights even up to 1361b. per yd. are used, and in many countries the rail is not spiked direct to the sleeper but rests on a metal plate. To join the rails a "fish plate" was designed, attributed to Stevens on the Camden and Amboy Railroad (U.S.), and adopted in England in 1847. These metal "fishes" were first wedged but later bolted on the inside to the two rails, making a suspended joint between two sleepers; for many years these two end sleepers were placed closer together than their neighbours. In British practice this policy still survives, although it is more widely prevalent in other countries. On British railways the rail joints are opposite but on other railways it is often the practice to stagger them, that is, place the rail joint of the left hand rail opposite to the centre of the right hand rail. The present British steel fish plate is held in position by four pear necked fish bolts. The design of the chair with its attendant spikes for attaching it to the sleeper has suffered many modifications but the standard specification provides for a chair with two galvanized coach screws driven through oak ferrules on the inner side of the rail and a similar one on the outside. Rails are slightly canted inwards in the chair and held by wooden keys, usually oak. In Great Britain wooden sleepers treated with creosote or some other preservative are universal although metal sleepers, largely used on railways of other coun tries, and concrete sleepers, have been used experimentally but do not last so well in Great Britain, or make for such smooth running. With the old bridge rail employed by Brunel, longitudinal sleepers underneath the rails were employed with fewer cross ties but the system died out with the conversion to the standard gauge of 4ft. 8-lin. In America a reinforced concrete bed has been tried experi mentally on the Pere Marquette Railroad. The sleepers normally rest upon a bed of ballast with the top surface exposed so as to allow easy adjustments by the permanent way men. Granite or slag, broken into small pieces, is laid between the sleepers to ensure drainage and avoid dust. The depth of the road bed varies, but it should be wide enough to spread the weight and is often about i8in. deep, duly sloped to ensure draining the water out wards. A space of 6f t. has to be left between two pairs of rails, though in other countries than Great Britain this is wider, and consequently permits greater overhang of the rolling stock.
Construction.—The ideal location for a railway line is one which passes between two centres of trade in a straight line and over level country, thereby eliminating the need for extensive earthworks, whether to cut through a hill or to build up an em bankment over a valley. In practice railways have to be con structed on the routes over which trade and commerce will flow and use has to be made of the best location available, bearing in mind the capital cost in relation to the traffic likely to be available after its completion. As a natural result of this position it is com mon to find in highly developed and industrialized countries rail way locations which required considerable first cost and capital outlay to construct, with comparatively easy gradients and curves of a large radius, whilst in newly developed countries, where it is more problematical as to the amount of traffic which will be avail able for movement by rail, the line is constructed at first as cheaply as possible with heavy gradients and sharp curves, render ing it necessary at a later date to build expensive cut offs so that operating expenses may be reduced and the capacity of the rail way increased. Where passenger traffic is expected to be an impor tant source of revenue the railway must be designed to take pas senger trains at high speeds. It will be realized that the location
of a railway is necessarily a compromise between the desire to build the line as cheaply as possible and to construct it so that the costs of operation will be as low as possible. In hilly country the earth removed by the cuttings, or cuts, to permit the railway to pass through the higher ground, is used to form the embank ments, or fills, upon which the track is enabled to cross the lower ground, while culverts, bridges and viaducts carry the railway over streams, rivers and depressions where an embankment would exceed 6oft. in height.
Gauges.—A railway may be constructed on one of several run ning gauges, this being the distance between the inner edges of the running rails. That which has come to be known as the standard gauge is 4ft. 81in. This curious measurement was due to the trans fer of the flange from the rail to the wheel when the plateways (see Track, page 922) were abandoned, the old wagons of the i6th and 17th centuries being apparently 5ft. between wheels. This gauge is universal in Great Britain, except for a few light railways, and is • practically universal for the United States and Canadian railways. On the Continent there are considerable mile ages of metre and other smaller gauges, especially in mountainous districts, such as parts of Germany and Switzerland. The main trunk lines of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Czechoslo vakia, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Jugo-Slavia, Norway and Sweden, are all approximately 4ft. or so close to that gauge as to permit through running of locomotives and roll ing stock. In Ireland the gauge is mainly 5ft. sin. (see Section A), while in Spain and Portugal the lines are mainly 5ft. 6in.
and in Russia 5ft.
In England the Eastern Counties line was originally built to a 5ft. gauge as was also the London and Blackwall, but these were later converted to the 4ft. 81in. standard. When the Great West ern was first constructed I. K. Brunel chose the 7ft., or broad gauge, but after a long drawn-out battle between the 4ft. 81in. and the 7ft. gauges, the latter was in many places fitted with a third rail, or mixed gauge, to permit through running, and finally disap peared from the Great Western in May, 1892. It left as a legacy to the G.W.R., however, a wider loading gauge, namely, the maximum measurements to which rolling stock may be constructed or goods loaded. The importance of a standardized loading gauge, which unfortunately does not exist in Great Britain, is second only in importance to a standardized running gauge. By means of train ferry steamers, which carry locomotives and rolling stock on their decks, it is possible for British rolling stock to cross the Con tinent on the Harwich to Zeebrugge train ferry, traverse all cen tral Europe, and by means of similar steamers between Sassnitz and Trelleborg to reach Scandinavia, or to cross the Straits of Messina to Sicily. Similarly continental railway rolling stock can arrive in England, if it is not too large for the smaller British load ing gauge. Train ferry steamers are also used on the Great Lakes of North America, Japan and elsewhere. The running gauge in India is mainly 5ft. 6in., but there are large mileages of metre gauge lines as well as of other gauges, while in Japan the normal gauge is 3ft. 6in. The South African Railways are of the 3ft. 6in. gauge as is also the Sudan Government system, but the Egyptian State lines are built to the standard gauge, whilst the Kenya and Uganda railway is built to a metre gauge. The most important South American railways are based upon Buenos Aires and are mainly of the 5ft. 6in. gauge, though other gauges exist in Argen tina, Brazil, Chile and Peru. The development of railways in Australia has suffered by the difference in the gauges adopted by the various State systems (see Section A).