This is copied from the 3rd page of the thread titled "Compaction" started by Murphy Sidings. That thead drifted way off topic and it appears that his question was not answered, so I am creating this new thread.
Murphy Siding asked:
We've all seen photos from 100 or more years ago, showing men with teams of horses grading a future railroad ROW. Once they heaped up the prairie to the correct height, and leveled it, how was the dirt compacted to carry the weight of a train without uneven settling?
DSchmitt answered:
There are books on railroad construction from the early 1900's. One example is Construction and Maintenance of Railway Roadbed and Track by Federeck J Prior, copyright 1907. I browsed several of them, looking at their Table of Contents , Index and reading sections on roadbed construction and embankments. I did not find any mention of compaction. Using suitable materials was emphasied, with discussion of what is suitable and where to use various materials. Also discussed was estimation and allowing for "shrinkage" and settlement by building embakments initially higher than the finished grade.
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Railway Track and Maintenance by by E E Russel Tratmam, copyright 1926. I have the NMRA 2003 reprint. It say: " It is very desirable that the roadbeds should be compact enough to provide a firm foundation for the track, in most new construction this condition is not obtained, and much ballast is lost by being driven into the comparitively soft and loose surface. In exceptional cases, the roadbed has been compacted by 10-ton steam rollers, with very satisfactory results." This book was initially published in 1897 but there were many editions and some major revisions between then and 1926.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
That's a good question, and perhaps eventually will bring a good answer from qualified people.
Even today, I wonder how tracks remain in good consistent elevation and tangent with so much weight and forces against it....especially where braking might be involved, and curves, etc....Driving across a highway crossing and sighting down the ROW, I am amazed how good the alignment seems to be in most places on main lines, as desired. I'm sure there are locations {problem spots}, that react more than most of it and requires fixing....
One spot here in Muncie I note driving coming south into town on route 3, and sighting down a tangent stretch, it has a very slight "bow" in it where it is supposed to be straight...I've watched it for some time....months, a year or more, and wonder if that situation will eventually be pushed back to being straight again....It's very little by sight, and most would not notice it but being a rail fan, I seem to notice conditions such as this, etc.....
Quentin
Something I see admire is the culverts and small bridges built over a century ago out of Sioux Quartzite. Those all seem to be in really good shape after 100 years, so I assume there was at least some standard of compaction used under them.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Our experience leads us to compare line & level of track to that of highways - because we drive highways day in and day out - and experience the bumps, pot holes and poor state of repair of the highways.
Railroads (even poorly maintained ones) are maintained to a much higher standard of line and level than highways as railroad equipment is much more unforgiving to line and level defects than trucks and automobiles.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Structures such as bridges and stone culverts require a lot of attention to proper load bearing conditions for soil. Railroad tracks can be resurfaced to proper alignment by adjusting them in the ballast if the roadbed settles. But structures break up if their foundation bedding settles. So structures were placed on properly tamped soil or bedrock even in the 1800s while railroads of that era often were built on poorly compacted roadbeds.
Another thing to consider is that in cold climates, even with a properly compacted track roadbed, the surface rises as it freezes up in the fall, and drops back down as it thaws out in the spring. Any variation in soil composition causes a variation in the rise and fall of ground due to the freeze/thaw cycle.
Also, bridges and trestles do not rise and fall with the ground frost while the rest of the track does.
This thread reminds me of a story Maury Klein tells about E. H. Harriman.
As I recall, Harriman purchased controlling interest in the Union Pacific in 1898 or 9 when the railroad was in its second bankruptcy. He was inspecting the tracks with a UP management official. He asked why the ballast ran as far as it did on either side of the track--18 inches, as I recall. The management official replied this was the company standard. Harriman ordered him to reduce it in order to save money on ballast. I always wondered exactly how much money it did save.
John WR This thread reminds me of a story Maury Klein tells about E. H. Harriman. As I recall, Harriman purchased controlling interest in the Union Pacific in 1898 or 9 when the railroad was in its second bankruptcy. He was inspecting the tracks with a UP management official. He asked why the ballast ran as far as it did on either side of the track--18 inches, as I recall. The management official replied this was the company standard. Harriman ordered him to reduce it in order to save money on ballast. I always wondered exactly how much money it did save.
And today the prevailing thought is to increase the width of the ballast shoulder to provide additional resistance within the track structure to prevent 'sun kinks' within track laid with welded rail. Thus saving money and service disruptions by not having to fix the kinks and the occasional resulting derailment
Try Walter Mason Camp's "Notes On Track" circa 1890-1904.....
If you do not undercut or sled the track, of course you will see wider ballast shoulders.
Harriman should asked how much of that shoulder was a sugar coated disguise of muddy track conditions.
BaltACDAnd today the prevailing thought is to increase the width of the ballast shoulder to provide additional resistance within the track structure to prevent 'sun kinks' within track laid with welded rail. Thus saving money and service disruptions by not having to fix the kinks and the occasional resulting derailment
From my own perspective, Balt, which is that I know nothing about laying railroad track, is that Harriman was making a shoot from the hip decision that was probably pretty dumb.
mudchickenHarriman should [have] asked how much of that shoulder was a sugar coated disguise of muddy track conditions.
No doubt you are right, Mudchicken. But Maury Klein does not suggest he did any such thing. His whole objection was based on how much he could save buying less ballast. Harriman's background was in financing railroads where he had real expertise but Klein does not report he was ever involved in actually building one. Since there as an explicit policy about ballast width the issue had been considered by people who were involved with laying track and this was there best considered judgement. Had I been in Harriman's place I would not have given such an order.
In order for the entire tie to be supported, the ballast must extend the full length under the tie. Since the ballast has height, and requires a slope at its ends, the base of the ballast must extend past the ends of the ties. If the ballast slopes 45 degrees (for instance), and is 12” thick beneath the tie; then the ballast has to extend 12” beyond the ends of the ties. How far did Harriman want to cut it back?
Bucyrus In order for the entire tie to be supported, the ballast must extend the full length under the tie. Since the ballast has height, and requires a slope at its ends, the base of the ballast must extend past the ends of the ties. If the ballast slopes 45 degrees (for instance), and is 12” thick beneath the tie; then the ballast has to extend 12” beyond the ends of the ties. How far did Harriman want to cut it back?
My GUESS - in true bean counter financial tradition - to the end of the ties - what doesn't directly support the tie is excess.
All I can recall, Bucyrus, is that Harriman believed 18 inches was too much and wanted it cut back. Whether or not he gave a new dimension I do not recall.
But Klein presents Harriman as a man who believed in building a railroad to the highest standards of the day. Yet hearing about his concerns about not wasting ballast I have to say "You sure could'a fooled me."
Just one or two comments. If the ballast is 12" thick beneath the tie, then the total depth will be more like 18" since it will also be around the ties. And of course you need enough beyond the ends of the ties to provide the necessary lateral support.
Secondly (wandering somewhat from the original thread) although the ballast is under the full length of the tie, tamping should be done only around the rails and not in the central area. The reason is that you don't want the ties to become center bound. On one subdivision the TEC train was always warning of wide gauge defects, but the gang sent out to fix them could not find any problem. It was eventually realized that the ties were center bound. When the train passed over the ties bowed down under the rails, which then angled slightly outwards causing wider gauge. Naturally when the track forces arrived there was no load and the track gauge was within tolerance. The solution is either a small ballast lift, or a more major undercutting project, but I can't recall which was used.
Thinking back in history, the 19th century locomotives and freight cars were only a fraction of today's weights. With the much lower forces, soil compaction would not be as critical. Furthermore, placement of fills was done a lot more incrementally, very unlike what can be achieved by current earth moving equipment, and that inherently improves compaction. In the following 100+ years, as train weights increased, the fills gradually became more compact under the traffic to match. Any settlement was easily fixed by adding a little more ballast under the tie.
John
John,
That is an interesting point about ties being center bound and widening the gage.
As I stated in the original post on this thread, books on railroad construction in the early 1900's do not mention compaction.
It is clear that good compaction, when achieved, was because of good choice of materials based on experience, the compaction caused by the draft animals and equipment working on the roadbed and also through initally building the roadbed higher than the final grade. The weight of the extra material aided compaction.
The first reference to compaction I found was in the book by Prior.
I have since found this information from Wilipedia:
" The Proctor compaction test is a laboratory method of experimentally determining the optimal moisture content at which a given soil type will become most dense and achieve its maximum dry density. The term Proctor is in honor of R. R. Proctor, who in 1933 showed that the dry density of a soil for a given compactive effort depends on the amount of water the soil contains during soil compaction.[1] His original test is most commonly referred to as the standard Proctor compaction test; later on, his test was updated to create the modified Proctor compaction test."
As is usually the case Proctor built on the work of predessors in the field, however I think it is safe to say that prior to when R. R. Proctor's studies became known in the mid 1930's, Engineers did not understand compaction, how to measure it and how to consistently achieve good results.
cx500 [snipped - PDN] . . . Thinking back in history, the 19th century locomotives and freight cars were only a fraction of today's weights. With the much lower forces, soil compaction would not be as critical. Furthermore, placement of fills was done a lot more incrementally, very unlike what can be achieved by current earth moving equipment, and that inherently improves compaction. In the following 100+ years, as train weights increased, the fills gradually became more compact under the traffic to match. Any settlement was easily fixed by adding a little more ballast under the tie. John
http://sanjoaquinhistory.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/FresnoScraperDitchWork2.jpg
To attempt to put some numbers to this: Consider a horse that weights about 1,600 lbs., and likely has only 2 of its 4 hooves on the ground most of the time (the other 2 are in mid-air moving forward). So each hoof on the ground is supporting 800 lbs. of horse. If we say a typical horse's hoof will fit in a shape about 6" long x 6" wide, that's about 1/4 square foot (1/2 ft. x 1/2 ft.). So, the unit pressure would be around 800 lbs. / 0.25 sq. ft. = 3,200 lbs./ sq. ft., or about 22 lbs. per square inch.
In contrast, a typical 2-8-0 of the late 1800's might have had 40,000 lbs. on each axle at 5 ft. spacing (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Cooper#Coopers_Loading_System ). Taking the width of the soil pressure prism as being about 10 ft. wide at the bottom of the ballast section*, that 40,000 lbs. would be spread out over 5ft. x 10 ft. = 50 sq. ft., for an average pressure/ loading of about 800 lbs. per square ft. ( divided by 12 in. x 12 in. = 144 is about 5.5 lbs. per sq. inch). Alternatively, the trailing load of 4000 lbs. per linear foot of track would also be spread out over about a 10-ft. width*, for an average pressure/ load of 400 lbs. per sq. ft. (2.8 psi).
(*Tie at 8 ft. long/ wide, plus 1 ft. on each side in the shoulders of the ballast prism - unless Harriman got there first . . . )
Clearly, even the higher of those 2 calculated loading pressures on the soil - the 800 lbs. per sq. ft. of the locomotive axle - is only about 1/4 of my estimate of the pressure from the horses' hooves. So even allowing for 3 of 4 hooves on the ground simultaneously, and some error in my guess at the horse's weight and hoof size, it is still obvious that the soil pressure exerted by the typical train of the day is only a fraction of that imposed by the horses' hooves. Therefore, it is likely that as long as the soil in the fill was not too wet or otherwise unsuitable, compaction necessary to support trains could have been achieved and obtained.
By the way, the Proctor tests are better than no test, but: The correlation between the size/ gradation of the samples taken and compaction effort used for the laboratory determinations - as limited by the capabilities of that equipment - with the actual material and modern contractor's equipment is, at times, "poor" (as was said by WABCO's Norman Vautz (sp ?), Ph.D., in a Railway Post Office "Letter to the Editor" about the agreement between the theory and actual operation of air brake systems, after one of David H. Hamley's articles on same in Trains in the late 1960's . . . ).
- Paul North.
John WR All I can recall, Bucyrus, is that Harriman believed 18 inches was too much and wanted it cut back. Whether or not he gave a new dimension I do not recall. But Klein presents Harriman as a man who believed in building a railroad to the highest standards of the day. Yet hearing about his concerns about not wasting ballast I have to say "You sure could'a fooled me."
You sure do like to trash the great men who built the best railroad network in the world.
Harriman ask a pertinent question. "Why are you doing this?" He got a BS answer: "It's company policy." (AKA "We've always done it this way.")
When someone answers like that it means they're not thinking. Harriman certainly did bring the UP up to first class standards so he could not have been totally ignorant of what was needed (or not needed). If the railroad wasted money on ballast too wide it couldn't spend the money on heavier rail.
A good company will be full of managers asking "Why are we doing this?" That's one thing that made Harriman so good. He would ask questions like that.
Engineering science does progress. When the 18" standard was set it may have been the best practice of the day. 30 years after the railroad was built the standard best practice could well have changed. Harriman, a thinking man, knew this while his manager didn't seem to think too much at all.
People fall into ruts and follow routines. A good corporate leader, such as Harriman, will challenge people to think and innovate. And always ask "Why are we doing this this way?" OR "Why are we doing this at all?"
Now I am a little confused. When Harriman asked why the ballast ran as far as it did, and was told it was the company standard; and when he order it reduced to save money--- was this the correct thing to do, or did Harriman make the wrong decision based on his wrong assumption or ignorance about the ballast use being wasteful?
On each side of the ties the ballast is tapered down from the hinge point (approximately at the level of the top of the tie) to the toe at the level of the roadbed.
What was the 18" dimension? Was it from the edge of the tie to the hinge point or the edge of the tie to the toe?
I suspect it was to the hinge point, in which case ballast was being wasted. If the dimension were to the toe there would not be enough ballast.
UP Standard Plans show 6" tie to the hinge point on branch lines (adopted 1904, revised 1982) and 1 'tie to hinge on main lines (adopted 1927, revised 1982). The slope hinge point to toe is 3:1 in all cases.
Southern Pacific Standard Plans for heavy traffic branch lines (adopted 1958) show 3" tie to hinge point with 2:1 slope hinge point to toe or 2" tie to hinge point with 2-1/4:1 slope to hinge point to toe depending on the Class of ballast.
Pennsylvania Railroad Standard Plans dated 1917 show the hinge point at the edge of the ties.
Bucyrus John WR This thread reminds me of a story Maury Klein tells about E. H. Harriman. As I recall, Harriman purchased controlling interest in the Union Pacific in 1898 or 9 when the railroad was in its second bankruptcy. He was inspecting the tracks with a UP management official. He asked why the ballast ran as far as it did on either side of the track--18 inches, as I recall. The management official replied this was the company standard. Harriman ordered him to reduce it in order to save money on ballast. I always wondered exactly how much money it did save. Now I am a little confused. When Harriman asked why the ballast ran as far as it did, and was told it was the company standard; and when he order it reduced to save money--- was this the correct thing to do, or did Harriman make the wrong decision based on his wrong assumption or ignorance about the ballast use being wasteful?
greyhounds makes a good point about the role of management (compare with the similar story about John D. Rockefeller ordering a worker to experiment with how many drops of solder it took to seal a can of oil - 39 vs. 40, etc.). However, one of the purposes of a company "standard" is to reduce the need to analyze each situation separately (yes, to "think"), so that an acceptable solution or method can be readily identified and implemented without "reinventing the wheel" [EDIT - added:] at each instance, time, or location. Said another way, it reduces the need for highly-trained personnel at the lower levels in the organization - lesser-trained persons can then do the job as well as is needed. In other instances, the apparent excess of the standard is to provide for a margin of safety, or allow for occasional or rare contingencies that do happen but not always, and which might not be evident to the guy on the ground just then, but which have been encountered elsewhere, and the "standard' reflects the consensus and prevailing wisdom of how to address those.
DSchmitt's comments about the ballast section are well-taken. I interpret the 18" dimension as being from the end of the tie - about 6" out level to the "hinge point", then down to the subgrade on a 2 (horizontal) to 1 (vertical) slope for about 12", which would correspond to a vertical distance of about 6". Keep in mind that back then the ballast section was often very "thin" and rounded, and would have been near the bottom of the ties at the end of the ties, not full up near the tops of the ties as we often see today with Continuous Welded Rail. So, there would have been maybe 5 - 6" of ballast under the tie; alternatively - and perhaps more likely - a 9" thick of ballast, at a 2:1 slope starting at the end of the tie would also yield the 18" "beyond" dimension cited above, with 3" of that layer being above the bottom of the tie (but still well below the top) at the end, and 6" of ballast below the tie, etc.
Just to be clear, I don’t think there is anything wrong with questioning the standard, or questioning anything. I question everything just to be safe. I recommend it. But this story about Harriman has him not only questioning the ballast standard, but also overriding it on the spot by direct order.
It is not clear how he determined that the standard was wrong. If he knew it was wrong, he would not have questioned it. He would have just overridden it and ordered it changed. However, assuming the standard was correct; apparently Harriman over road the standard because the person he asked to justify the standard did not want to risk offering an explanation of the rationale behind the standard to somebody as powerful as Harriman. That is one of the risks of a questioning manager.
We don’t know the rest of the story, but it might have cost the company some extra money to put some ballast back after somebody with more gumption explained why the standard was right to Harriman.
Back to the matter of compaction. Spreading in thin layers and having the horses and full scrapers travel over them, as opposed to just dumping in piles, was a vital part of achieving compaction. The horses weight quickly spreads out and only compacts the top few inches.
I looked at the ballast sections shown in Railway Track & Trackwork by Edward Tratman, McGraw Hill Book Company 1909.
There was no agreement amoung the railroads. It is complicated to determine because the various railroads do not show measurements to the same points. Some examples -my interpetation.
NYC: approx depth 18" to top of tie ,Stone ballast 1" below top of tie, hinge point at edge of tie, 4' inside of rail to toe of ballast: Gravel ballast to top of tie, hinge point outside edge of rai, 4' inside of rail to toe.
Pennsylvania: depth varies but min to bottom of tie appears to be about 8" , ballast to top of tie, hinge point edge of tie, slope not specified.
NYNH&H depth 12" to bottom of tie, Gravel 2" below top of tie at edge curves to grade: Stone to top of tie, hinge point 12" from edge of tie, 1:1 slope
ATSF depth 12" to bottom of tie, Gravel, Broken Stone,Burnt Clay or Cinders ballast to top of tie, hinge point 6" from tie, 2:1 slope
There are also other standards for other ballast types like Cementing Gravel and Earth.
Paul_D_North_Jr cx500 [snipped - PDN] . . . Thinking back in history, the 19th century locomotives and freight cars were only a fraction of today's weights. With the much lower forces, soil compaction would not be as critical. Furthermore, placement of fills was done a lot more incrementally, very unlike what can be achieved by current earth moving equipment, and that inherently improves compaction. In the following 100+ years, as train weights increased, the fills gradually became more compact under the traffic to match. Any settlement was easily fixed by adding a little more ballast under the tie. John Concur. Since each Fresno scraper likely carried and placed not more than about a cubic yard (27 cubic ft.) of material, and there were usually many of them operating in a repetitive linear or circular pattern, each load was likely spread pretty thinly, and then and tromped on by many following teams and wheels as the fill was built and the full and empty Fresnos passing over it to add the later upper layers. See this photo for an illustration: http://sanjoaquinhistory.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/FresnoScraperDitchWork2.jpg To attempt to put some numbers to this: Consider a horse that weights about 1,600 lbs., and likely has only 2 of its 4 hooves on the ground most of the time (the other 2 are in mid-air moving forward). So each hoof on the ground is supporting 800 lbs. of horse. If we say a typical horse's hoof will fit in a shape about 6" long x 6" wide, that's about 1/4 square foot (1/2 ft. x 1/2 ft.). So, the unit pressure would be around 800 lbs. / 0.25 sq. ft. = 3,200 lbs./ sq. ft., or about 22 lbs. per square inch. In contrast, a typical 2-8-0 of the late 1800's might have had 40,000 lbs. on each axle at 5 ft. spacing (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Cooper#Coopers_Loading_System ). Taking the width of the soil pressure prism as being about 10 ft. wide at the bottom of the ballast section*, that 40,000 lbs. would be spread out over 5ft. x 10 ft. = 50 sq. ft., for an average pressure/ loading of about 800 lbs. per square ft. ( divided by 12 in. x 12 in. = 144 is about 5.5 lbs. per sq. inch). Alternatively, the trailing load of 4000 lbs. per linear foot of track would also be spread out over about a 10-ft. width*, for an average pressure/ load of 400 lbs. per sq. ft. (2.8 psi). (*Tie at 8 ft. long/ wide, plus 1 ft. on each side in the shoulders of the ballast prism - unless Harriman got there first . . . ) Clearly, even the higher of those 2 calculated loading pressures on the soil - the 800 lbs. per sq. ft. of the locomotive axle - is only about 1/4 of my estimate of the pressure from the horses' hooves. So even allowing for 3 of 4 hooves on the ground simultaneously, and some error in my guess at the horse's weight and hoof size, it is still obvious that the soil pressure exerted by the typical train of the day is only a fraction of that imposed by the horses' hooves. Therefore, it is likely that as long as the soil in the fill was not too wet or otherwise unsuitable, compaction necessary to support trains could have been achieved and obtained. By the way, the Proctor tests are better than no test, but: The correlation between the size/ gradation of the samples taken and compaction effort used for the laboratory determinations - as limited by the capabilities of that equipment - with the actual material and modern contractor's equipment is, at times, "poor" (as was said by WABCO's Norman Vautz (sp ?), Ph.D., in a Railway Post Office "Letter to the Editor" about the agreement between the theory and actual operation of air brake systems, after one of David H. Hamley's articles on same in Trains in the late 1960's . . . ). - Paul North.
As I was growing up, I watched men using dragpans to move dirt. When I first saw the word "Fresno," I wondered why a dragpan was so called; after reading the first few posts on this thread, I knew why. Different places, different terms.
Johnny
Bucyrus,
I read Maury Klein's book several months ago but this story sticks in my memory and I am reasonably sure I am basically correct about recalling it.
Klein presents Harriman as a financier who wanted to get involved with railroads. He had been very involved with the Illinois Central for about 15 years but that involvement had always been with working with the financial aspects of the railroad. He was on the Board of Directors and I'm sure technical issues must have come up for discussion. However, Klein does not report and great participation of Harriman in technical decisions. On the other hand, he was extremely skillful at raising money at low rates of interest.
As Klein represents it, Harriman has just brought a controlling interest in the railroad. Understandably, he wants to inspect his new property. He's walking along with a management official, I think the Superintendent, who is familiar with the technology of laying track and Harriman wonders about the width of the ballast. The official tells him that the company has standards for those kinds of issues an in this case the standard is 18 inches on either side of the tracks or ties. All or this sounds like a perfectly reasonable conversation.
Harriman then goes on to say that the standard must be changed to save ballast and the money it costs. Now, Klein does not say he is talking out of complete ignorance of the issue but there is nothing to suggest that Harriman is anything but ignorant of the issue.
Looking at this as a layman and trying to put myself in Harriman's shoes I am amazed that he would make such a shoot from the hip decision. If I were in his place there are other things I would want to know about first. For example, a list of locomotives with their age and condition. But if I did question the ballast I would ask to see a copy of the standard and then, perhaps, solicit the opinion of both those in charge of track laying at the UP and also get a second opinion of competent people at the IC where he was still a Director.
But I am not E. H. Harriman. And according to Klein that is not what he did.
Of course he was very successful with the UP. But he seems to owe his success to the general economic climate of the country at the time as much as anything.
I have searched for the ballast section used by the UP or any railroad prior to "Harriman era", but have been unsuccessful..
On all the ballast sections I have found (all from books published almost 20 years after he inspected the UP) none had a tie to hinge point dimension greater than 1" and most less than 1'. In all cases where the tie to toe dimension is shown or can be extrapulated from the dimensions shown it is at least 3'.
More speculation:
While he was not an engineer Harriman probably had inspected other railroad properties and thus was familiar with the apearance of ballasted track. He probably asked the question because the width of ballast on the UP looked excessive when compared to other railroads.
Lab Back to the matter of compaction. Spreading in thin layers and having the horses and full scrapers travel over them, as opposed to just dumping in piles, was a vital part of achieving compaction. The horses weight quickly spreads out and only compacts the top few inches.
With sufficient horse traffic on fill raised in layers, with the proper soil and moisture content, a thoroughly sufficient degree of compaction could be achieved. But the need for railroad grade compaction might be exaggerated due to a belief that it is ultra-critical because trains are so heavy. The really critical need for compaction is in soil that will bear structural foundations. This is because any degree of differential settling will cause structural damage that can incur a large cost to repair.
For railroad grades, I see three distinct phases of earthmoving art as follows:
1) The horse and scraper/pick and shovel phase used up to generally circa 1880-90.
2) The steam shovel/dump train/fill trestle phase used circa 1880-90 to 1915.
3) The current power equipment cutting, hauling, and filling phase.
Phase #1 provided compaction from horses and pulled equipment.
Phase #3 has provided compaction from power equipment including specific compaction equipment.
It is phase #2 that raises a question as to how compaction was achieved. For the fill operation alone, this phase had no need for horse or equipment traffic working on the fill surface. So if this fill was compacted, it would have required horse or power equipment working the fill surface just for the purpose of compacting it. I have no knowledge of this being done, but if it was, it would have been complicated by the presence of the trestle rising out of the fill. The trestle piling and braces would have been obstacles to the compacting operation.
DSchmittWhile he was not an engineer Harriman probably had inspected other railroad properties and thus was familiar with the apearance of ballasted track. He probably asked the question because the width of ballast on the UP looked excessive when compared to other railroads.
Harriman first got into the railraod business in 1881 and according to Maury Klein this happened about 1899. Over the almost 20 years of involvement I imagine he did have opportunities to inspect railroad properties. However, Klein does not discuss that or give any insight to what he might have saw when he looked at them so I simply don't know.
Well the lack of compaction on CSX's A&WP sub showed today as a surfacing maching was working sub today after only 4 - 6 months previous
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