The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 — John Shaqi
The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2Various
General
The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2
Various
London (England) -- Periodicals
First of all, to describe the track. The road-bed is made of pitch pine,
mounted on sixty-five trestles, three feet from the floor, and the track
extends to 276 feet, of a double line of rails. Of the rails all
together there are 1,200 feet; and some idea of what this means may be
understood from the fact that when they came from Sheffield, where they
were specially rolled for Mr. Leigh, they formed two solid heaps of
metal, each as high as a man. The rails are of mild steel; they are
double-headed, and about an inch in height; some of them are nearly
twelve feet long. They are fastened down to 2,000 pitch pine sleepers by
4,000 malleable cast-iron chairs, held in place with hard-wood wedges
and 16,000 screws. All the fish plates, bolts, and nuts used in joining
the rails together are exact miniatures of those to be seen on an
ordinary railway. The track is ballasted with nine hundredweight of
limestone chips, and the gauge is six inches.
Details which involve a large number of figures are apt to be rather dry
and tiresome; but in the present case, if frequent reference be made
from the letterpress to the illustrations, it will be seen with what
extreme care, and with what extraordinarily minute and even loving
faithfulness, all the features of a first-class modern railway have been
reproduced in miniature.
[Illustration: OAKGREEN STATION, WHERE THE LINE STARTS.]
The line starts from Oakgreen, the principal station, where are located
the offices of the management. In front of the buildings is a platform
twenty-four feet long, provided with the usual seats and other
conveniences for passengers, of whom a few may be noticed waiting for
the express to convey them to their destination. The platform is
sheltered from the elements by a glass roof, while the gates admitting
to it are of the regular palisade type. At the further end is a
passenger foot-bridge of trellis-work covered over; it stands high above
the line, and is reached by two staircases, and everybody is warned not
to venture to cross the railway by any other means. At the same time
there are level crossings for the greatly daring.
[Illustration: BEECHVALE STATION, SHOWING TUNNEL IN THE DISTANCE.]
Behind the station proper is the goods station and siding, forty feet
long, the goods shed itself being four feet long.
Both of these stations, and indeed the other station and the whole line,
are beautifully lighted up, when necessary, by electric lamps fitted
with reflectors. There are in all fifty-eight of these soft, lovely
lights; and a particularly tall one will be observed in the goods
station for the purpose of affording sufficient light to that very busy
portion of the company's undertakings. The lamps are supplied from
storage batteries placed under the track, and their illuminating
capacity is enough to light up the whole room without bringing the gas,
with which it is also fitted up, into requisition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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