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3*8 BETWEEN THE OCEAN AND THE LAKES
was wanted for the timber it contained. She took $1,000 in irregular elevation or depression of either stick can take place at a
joint. They will break joints with each other, and with the iron rails,
the Company's stock.
and will be bound together, at ever)- six feet on curves, and at every
T. Selleck and M. Brainard took the contract, July 27,
eight feet on tangents, by cross ties of plank, seven and a half feet
1839, for the piling of the meadows, at sH cents per foot long, three inches thick, and seven inches wide, fittedaccurately into
for piles, and $1,100 a mile for driving. 'Phis included the notches two and a half inches deep, on the upper side of the longitudinal
timbers, and secured by a treenail of pin oak, two inches in
piling of the Chester meadows, then an almost bottomless
morass, now the broad and fertile onion meadows, famous
the country over. The condition of this area at the time
the railroad found its way across it fifty-seven years ago,
and the work that had to be done to get a foundation for the
railroad in the then treacherous spread of morass, was described
at the time in the New York Railroad Journal:
" Immediately in the line of the route," said the article, " is
found a very extensive peat swamp, which must be crossed at
a level of twenty or thirty feet above the surface. This
swamp has every appearance of having been the bed of a
lake. The difficulties of building the road across it have been
met in the following manner : Four piles are placed transversely
to the road and upon them is founded a trestlework,
having a space of twenty feet between the piles. The piles
are generally fifty feet long, and are driven through the peat
into the solid substratum, and the level of the road is from
twenty to thirty feet above the surface."
That " open " work was years ago made solid, and the
traveller on the Erie, passing over that mile of railroad between
Greycourt and Chester, N. Y., would little suppose that
its foundation was builded on cordons of timber, with bases
driven nearly seventy feet into the yielding earth before they
touched stable bottom.
diameter. The position of the base of the rail having been accurately
marked out on the cross ties, notches half an inch deep and four
inches wide will be cut into them, so as to let the rail rest continuously
on the longitudinal timbers, the edges of which must be addiceddown
to shed the rain.
The rails are secured from any motion, except that due to the expansion
and contraction of the metal, by appropriate chairs of cast
iron at the joints, and are fastened to the timbers by brad-headed
spikes, half an inch square and five and a half inches long, one of
which is required for every eighteen inches.
Where timber of suitable quality is found on the line of the road, it
may be hewn on two sides instead of being sawed square. In such
cases it must be got out nine inches thick, and the counter hewn on
the upper surface before being laid.
It will be noticed that by this plan of road, each bearing timber rests
continuously on the ground, and at the same time supports continuously
the iron rail. The cross ties, too, have a double action, binding
together the longitudinal bearers, and also connecting the rails, by the
notches into which their bases are fitted. By placing the ties on the
upper side of the bearers instead of the lower, the connexion is made
at the point where its efficiency is greatest and most necessary, and
as no part of the vertical support is derived from the ties, the dimensions
proposed for them will be found sufficient.
The drainage of the track will be effected by a ditch between the
longitudinal timbers, for which the width between the rails affords
ample room, and cross drains at suitable distances will carry off the
water. The centre drain will be sunk lower than the cross ties, so as
Another locality that was a source of much labor, disappointment,
and expense to the contractors was in the vicinity Vt'here a pile road is adopted (which will be the case on more than
not to interfere with them.
of what is now Arden station, east of Turner's, N. Y. Here two hundred miles of the Susquehanna and Western divisions), a
similar superstructure is proposed, with the necessary modifications
long stretches of quagmire of great depth were encountered,
for connecting it firmly and securely to the heads of the piles.
and piles as large as telegraph poles had to be driven down
The width of the track on the New York and Erie Railroad is six
through the treacherous deposit to find a solid foundation. feet, and the distance between the tracks (where two lines are laid) is
These piles in some places were driven on top of one another seven feet. These dimensions admit of wider and more commodious
to a depth of nearly 140 feet before such foundation could cars being used with safety, than can be adopted for roads of the
be struck. Then between the rows of piling thousands of ordinary width. The first-class passenger cars already built for this
loads of rock and gravel and earth, mingled with countless
road are believed to be equal to any hitherto constructed in the United
States, with regard to beauty and finish, and superior in all the
untrimmed trees of large size, were dumped, to sink to the
arrangements and appliances requisite for comfort and ease. They
solid ground or rock beneath, and gradually build up a foundation
for the road-bed. Nor were the original trouble and eight wheels. Those intended for gentlemen will accommodate com­
are eleven feet wide, and thirty-six feet long, and are mounted on
cost of this unstable spot the end of it. To this day immense
quantities of broken stone are dumped there to re­
retiring rooms of ample dimensions.
fortably seventy-eight persons. The ladies' cars have drawing and
place the fictitious bottom as it in time sinks away.
The second-class cars, intended for the use of emigrants, and others
desirous of travelling at a low rate, and willing to accept of cheaper
accommodations, will be capable of carrying one hundred persons.
THE ORIGINAL ERIE RAILROAD.
STATE STOCK AND EARLY CONTRACTORS.
(From an Official Statement made in 7840 for Public Information.)
The iron rails are to be of the 11 form, with heavy heads. They By the acts of the New York Legislature of 1838 and 1S40
are three and one-half inches high, four inches wide on the base, and that State issued Conditionally certificates of stock to the
weigh fifty-six lbs. per lineal yard. Both sides are alike, in order to Company ill aid of the construction of the railroad. The
admit of reversion, if symptoms of failure are perceived in those parts r * • /11 .,.,* ( s:t * * 1 .• " J ' " '
twelve inches broad, eight imhes thick, and as long as can be con- trollcr 1 Sates Cook. January 2, 1839, it -was nominally sold
veniently obtained. They must be scraphed at the ends, so that no to Nevius, Townsend & Co., of New York, at 89 per cent.