From the Introduction. In the rapid and extraordinary growth of railroad construction, within the last sixty years, the improvements made in the road-bed have been many and very marked in degree, and the proper maintenance of this important department has always been an interesting study. Within the last fifteen years, however, the introduction of steel rails has practically worked a complete revolution in the construction and care of railways, and the few really good works which treated of iron rails and their details are now out of date in many features and valueless as guides to the trackmen. In the following pages the author has endeavored to put into a compact, simple form the latest practice in the maintenance of track as deduced from the accepted methods of the prominent trunk lines of railway in the United States. The purpose of this volume is to describe the materials used in the construction and maintenance of the road-bed; the tools handled by the trackmen; the appliances and structures connected with the track and in the charge of the track department, and to fully discuss the most profitable manner of doing work. It is intended to be essentially a "practical" treatise; but one fully recognizing the value of scientific work and simply reducing these scientific methods to their most thoroughly practical form. With this end in view, mathematics have been avoided as much as possible, and likewise abstruse technical problems which have been fully discussed by other authors. One of the valuable features of this work will be its details of illustration and description. The information given is intended to be precise, accurate and to the point; and the illustrations are all made from actual working drawings, and are given with such dimensions as are considered requisite....
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