many other roads have now adopted the brace-plate that we

use.

As to the rails, we have tried all kinds of rails. First, we had the old flat rail, and from that we came to the first girder rail made, forty-two pound Johnson, and then sixty-threepound Johnson; and then we went to the seventy-pound sixinch; to the seventy-five-pound seven-inch; to the eighty-five pound seven and three-sixteenths inches, and then we took up the improved nine-inch girder rail at ninety pounds to the yard. We laid a great deal of nine-inch rail, weighing ninety pounds to the yard, but it did not give us satisfaction. The reason is that we have various kinds of pavements, such as macadam, cedar block, etc., and the rail was too high; it rocked too much on us. Another fault that we found with the nineinch ninety-pound rail was that the web was too thin for the height. The severe cold weather we have, the extreme changes here we get a warm rain in the morning and a hard, cold snow storm in the afternoon-was too much on these rails, and they would pull and break, because the metal was not packed. The body was not close enough packed-rolled out too thin. We would like to construct our roads as we wish, but the municipal conditions will not allow us to do so.

Some one spoke here of putting the concrete under the rails. We have none laid like the present form of construction, but our cable lines are all laid in concrete, and we find that in from eleven to fifteen years the concrete rots out and crumbles. Our yokes and rails go down into it, and it becomes a trench and every time a car goes over it, it oscillates and goes down. When it does so, you know what it means—you are pulling the car up hill all the time and it means power.

Mr. Butts, in his paper, on the metal question, stated that he poured the metal at a bright yellow heat. My instructions are to my men to pour no metal into a mould unless it is at a white heat. If it is not at a white heat they are to make a pig of it. The essential part of that is, after sand blasting the joint and getting all the pits of the rail perfectly clean, you must have your metal very hot in order to flux and amalgamate the

rail. If you do not do that you are not sure of a bond. When you do that, and have a man watch and see that the metal is at a perfect heat, then your bond is sure, for we have made a great many tests and have not found any defective bonds when this method is carried out. In the early part of the history of welded joints we were a little skeptical about them, but on making test after test, and becoming more thoroughly acquainted with this work, getting it down to a system where it was perfect, we found that the extra bonds were useless and a waste of money.

As to the matter of maintenance, no one seems to have spoken of organization in maintenance. It is very essential in the maintenance of railroad tracks to have a thorough organization of all the men under you so that you can get them together at any time. I can get all of the force in our track department together at one point inside of an hour. That is a point which every one should study. Track work has been my study for years and years. Give your men good tools and have them thoroughly organized. Our forces are organized in this manner. We have a track master and we have a section foreman. Our roads are cut up into sections. We have six sections on our road, giving very nearly forty miles of road to each section. The section men should work according to the work on that section; in other words, we calculated, in the first place, to cut our sections into so many divisions, and, if there are many railroad crossings in one section, we take some straight line off that section and put it on some other section. A man has that section and knows he has to care for it. We have one caller on each section. The telephone operator at the main office calls simply this one man in each section, a man who lives near to the barn, and that caller calls all the rest of the men and tells them where to go. These things are very essential, especially in the northern country, where you are liable to get a snow storm in thirty minutes. A hard drifting snow with very cold weather comes upon us suddenly, and these men must be on hand to clean out the slots, etc.

I do not want to take up your valuable time further than to say that I would like to explain that I have been trying for eight years to cure a certain thing, and that is a wavy rail. We have some rail here which is what we call a wavy rail—there is a depression in the rail about every three inches. It looks like a little sea. I have taken that rail out and sent pieces to the best experts in America, but I have never got any satisfaction from them. I want to know if any one can tell me what is the cause of the wavy rail.

Mr. Butts-In answering some of the questions, I would say that we have not advocated in this paper anything less than a six-inch rail. In the matter of welded joints we have not experienced any breakage of these joints, and we have welded not less than three thousand. They do not break. The reason of that is that the part exposed to the sun and the part exposed to the earth, the heat is refracted off into the earth. as fast as it enters the rail, so that there is an equilibrium throughout. I would like to inquire what depth of rail the gentleman has on his cable construction.

Mr. Heidelberg-We now have a rail seven and threesixteenths inches in depth. Previously we had a six-inch rail without a foot—a round bottom.

Mr. Butts-The rail in cable construction is laid on yokes, spaced every four and one-half to five and one-half feet, and the rails are not imbedded in concrete, but supported entirely by the yokes. That is my experience in the matter of rails on cable roads, and, therefore, the application of the concrete construction as applied to cable railroads does not apply to the concrete trench construction, as we understand it. For instance, there is a vibration between these yokes that will wear out almost anything. It is not a rigid construction. In regard to the bonding of the rails, we do not bond the rails where they are welded. The welded joint has the full electrical capacity of the rail. Where we do not put on the welded joint we bond with a No. o bond.

Mr. MacGregor-Do you cast weld outside of the streets. which are paved?

Mr. Butts-No, sir; we have not had any experience in that line, although, as I said before, it depends entirely upon the amount of metal that you have embedded in the earth as compared with the amount of metal exposed to the sun. I do not see why, if it could be maintained imbedded in the earth. it would not be as successful as if it were imbedded in other material or in paving.

President Sergeant-I shall be very sorry to cut off any discussion on this very interesting subject, but our time is getting short, and I think, therefore, that we shall have to proceed to the next paper. Before doing so, however, we will call for the report of the Committee on Nominations, of which Mr. Henry C. Moore is Chairman.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON NOMINATIONS.

Mr. Moore presented the following report:

Chicago, October 19, 1899. To the President and Members of the American Street Railway Association:

Gentlemen-The Nominating Committee respectfully reports that they recommend Kansas City, Mo., as the next place of meeting, and also recommend the following gentlemen for officers of the Association for the ensuing year:

For President,

JOHN M. ROACH, Chicago, Ill.

For First Vice-President,
JOHN A. RIGG, Reading, Pa.

For Second Vice-President,

HERBERT H. VREELAND, New York City.
For Third Vice-President,

FRANK G. JONES, Memphis, Tenn.
For Secretary and Treasurer,

THOMAS C. PENINGTON, Chicago, Ill.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

President, Vice-Presidents and

CHARLES S. SERGEANT, Boston, Mass.

CHARLES K. DURBIN, Denver, Col.
NICHOLAS S. HILL, Jr., Charleston, S. C.

CHARLES W. WASON, Cleveland, Ohio.

JOHN R. GRAHAM, Quincy, Mass.
Respectfully submitted,

HENRY C. MOORE,

Chairman.

E. G. CONNEtte.

ALBION E. LANG,
E. C. FOSTter.

Mr. Moore-We received a very hearty invitation to go to Kansas City. In fact, as you will remember, we had an invitation at the Boston meeting to go to Kansas City. The committee have decided to recommend Kansas City.

Invitations for the convention of 1900 to be held in the City of Charleston, S. C., were received from Hon. J. Adger Smyth, Mayor; T. R. McGahan, President, Charleston Chamber of Commerce; W. B. Wilson, President, Merchants' Exchange, and W. H. Welch, President, Young Men's Business League.

Invitations for the convention of 1900 to be held in the city of Cleveland, O., were received from Hon. John H. Farley, Mayor, and W. H. Sigler, President, Cleveland Business Men's Convention League.

Invitations to hold the convention of 1901 in the city of Milwaukee, Wis., were also received from Hon. David Rose, Mayor, and T. J. Sullivan, Secretary, Citizens' Business League.

We also received an invitation to meet in the city of Toledo, O., in 1902.

President Sergeant-Gentlemen, you have heard the report of the Committee on Nominations. What is your pleasure regarding the report?

Mr. Harrington, Camden-I move that the report of the committee be accepted and the Secretary authorized to cast the vote of the association for the gentlemen nominated, and for the place of meeting next year. Carried.

President Sergeant appointed Mr. Dimmock and Mr. Connette as tellers to receive the vote.

The Secretary duly cast the ballot for Kansas City as the place of meeting and for the election of officers as nominated by the committee.