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None of that business of every outfit building its own private set of rails to whatever gauge suited it."
Track Design
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The USE should introduce only three gauges. Standard gauge(Standardspur) 4 ft 8.5 in (1435mm) will
be standard in this world, too. Narrow gauge(Schmalspur) 3ft 3in (990mm) will be for cheaper track on
secondary branch lines. And then there will be Tactical gauge(Grubenspur) 2 ft (610 mm) for military
tacrail, mining and temporary industrial purposes. Together, these should satisfy almost all needs for the
foreseeable future.
The best compromise, balancing functionality against scarcity of resources, is to use steel rails weighing
forty pounds per yard. The length of an individual rail will be sixty feet. But rail is only the most obvious
part of a track. We must start by creating a foundation; grading the land to create a level track bed. This
bed is typically elevated, and slopes down on both sides to allow drainage. On top of the bed we have
six to nine inches of ballast (gravel). Then we need sleepers, which are the wood ties which are
perpendicular to the actual rails. Sleepers will be 25 to 30 inches apart, and thus there are about
2,100-2,500 sleepers in a mile of track. The rail is spiked onto the sleepers; we need at least six spikes
per sleeper.
So, for each mile of track we need about 140,800 pounds of rail, 2,100 sleepers (weighing over 100 lbs
each), 12,600 spikes and 18,900 cubic feet of ballast.
For the sleeper, a treatment with either creosote or mercury compounds is necessary. Otherwise the
sleeper will not last for long. Both substances are expensive, poisonous and difficult to acquire. The
additional cost will be more than the price of the sleeper but will actually pay off because a treated
sleeper will last about 25 years while an untreated sleeper will last only five years. Creosote is essentially
coal tar or wood tar. Because we still don't have enough industrial capacity in the chemical industry, we
have to import wood tar from Sweden. Mercury is more difficult to obtain as it comes mainly from Spain
or Tuscany.
Track Construction
Building the track will be an incredibly laborious, costly and time-consuming task. While the bar-topped
track from Grantville to Halle has acted as our test bed, the real railroad will have much higher demands
in durability and reliability. Despite the track having been planned with regard to the work involved, there
will be a lot of logging, gravel moving, grading and building little bridges. Most work will be done by
hand.
Initially there will be only one construction site advancing through the countryside. In later years it will be
possible to advance with much faster pace, due to building bridges or dams well in advance.
Considering the situation in Germany in 1634, our workforce will be comprised of three parts. The core
force will be permanently employed workers, probably those refugees who do not mind a hard but
honest job. Job training for a trade should be offered as incentive. This may cause conflicts with the
guilds, but is important for a high quality of work. In the longer run, many educated personnel from our
crew will be lured out by better opportunities and settle down elsewhere. This will provide an additional
bonus for the development of the country. But another part of the permanent workers will remain and
form the backbone of the whole organization. The guys who get bitten hard by the railroad bug will
oversee the whole moving construction site. They have to find a good solution to every challenge, really
quickly. They will be true engineers by trade, if not by education.
There are lots of lessons about railroad construction, logistics and organization for them to master.
Consider the monumental logistical challenge to have all the many parts and huge amounts of material
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needed for only one mile of track ready at the right place at the right time, and within budget, too.
The second component of our workforce will be seasonal workers, mostly farmers who seek
employment between seeding and harvest. This will funnel a bit of money into war torn rural regions. If
given a free ride in the employment contract, it will expedite their transfer and make them available much
earlier.
The last part of the labor force will be local farmers ordered by their nobles to do work in the
construction site. There is no use in complaining about this system right now. For the nobles it might be
the only way to earn some money, for the farmers it's the way to pay their rent for their land and for the
railroad company it might be the only way to get enough transportation capacity and draft animals. If the
farmers get fair and decent treatment on the site and the work is organized well enough, they might be
fairly effective while picking up some new ideas.
The main season for large scale ground work will be in summer and after harvest. In winter the frozen
ground will prevent such activities but might enable us to work in some previous inaccessible swamps. In
spring, the mud after snow melt and labor shortages due to the planting season will hamper our progress.
But even in the midst of winter there will be much work to do.
Engines
What sort of locomotives can we build? Replicas of huge American "Big Boys"? The fast British "Flying
Scotsman"? Sturdy workhorses like the German "01" or "50" Series? No, not for another fifteen years or
more. A reasonable decision would be to settle initially for a moderate top speed of 25 miles/h (40 km/h)
and average speed 10 miles/h, a modest weight of ten metric tons per axle, and a respectable endurance
of about 50 miles for coal and 25 miles for water while running a train of 300 tons on even ground for the
first engine type. A engine class with three powered axles like the German Baureihe 89 should do nicely.
This robust simple and flexible engine will weight about 32 metric tons when in operation. When used in
short hauls a tender is optional. With modifications, this type was in use in OTL for over 80 years. It had
about 290 horse power (215 kW).
Aside from this workhorse, a small engine for switching in the Grantville area and other nodes like
Magdeburg is all that's needed for the moment. The classical "Western Style" engine design familiar from
a lot of movies is better suited for fast passenger trains. It will have to wait for later.
For the switcher we need a really tiny engine class with two powered axles. With a power of about 100
hp, it should be capable of hauling about 100 tons at low speed. As it works only in a station, endurance
is not so important. The type could be tailored in two variants. One for standard gauge and another
suitable for narrow gauge.
Any engine will have to be able to use a wide range of solid fuel such as wood, peat, lignite or coal.
Therefore we need a spacious firebox. We have to rely on low pressure (wet steam) because the boilers
are easier to build and safer to operate. Water supply is abundant in Germany, but it might be useful to
mount a steam powered vacuum pump (called a pulsometer) on every engine to get it on board. Some
device to fight sparks out of the chimney is needed and real "bells and whistles" for signaling.
The first engines will be rather low tech, with boilers having leakage problems because they are riveted
and not welded. Only the controls, cylinders, pistons, pins, bearings and suspension systems will be built
with the help of up-time tools. Most parts will appear crude. The engines will most likely be unruly even [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]