RAILWAYS, or RAILROADS. Roads upon which lines of rails are laid to facilitate the movement of vehicles for the carriage of freight and passengers. When employed without qualifi cation the term railway or railroad is generally understood to indicate a road consisting of two parallel lines of rails or of multiples of such units upon which cars are hauled by locomotive steam engines. With the adoption of electric power in place of steam on considerable sections of railway line, steam locomotion has become a less distinctive characteristic of railways than was formerly the case, and the term when un qualified has a less definite meaning than for merly, yet ordinarily a steam railway is under stood when the term railway is used by itself. Railways employing other form of motive power are similarly defined as electric railways, cable railways, eompressed-air railways, etc., and rail ways serving especial purposes or distinguished by peculiar characteri,,tics of construction are defined as elevated railways. logging railways,
plantation railways. street railways, ship rail ways, reek railways. etc. A railway may consist of a single line of track with two lines of rails, when it is known as a single-track railway, or it may consist of two, three, or four lines of track, when it is known. respectively, as a double track, three-track, or four-track railway. In a few instances railways have been constructed with a track consisting of a single line of rail.
Such roads are known as bicycle railways. mono- • rail railways, or by other special names. More frequently railway lines are constructed with tracks consisting of three lines of rails. Rack railways have this form of track, as also do rail ways designated to carry both standard-gauge and narrow-gauge cars.