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cement on top of the boxes, especially those near the east end of the road, shows cracks extending at right angles to the direction of the track, and there is also an open crack around the pile exactly as would be the case if the pile swayed back and forth slightly. Furthermore, I found circumstances which led me to doubt whether the boxes were actually filled with cement as represented. In a number of instances the side strips (marked BB, in sketch) do not extend up to within from three to six inches of the top of the planks which form the sides of the box. The cement is leveled off even with the tops of the planks, thus leaving three to six inches of cement exposed above the side strips. By making a small hole in this just at the top of the side strips, a knife-blade can be worked in behind the planks. I did this in about a dozen cases, and in every instance after getting through the cement and in behind the plank the knife-blade brought out nothing but loose sand. Moreover, I herewith submit a piece of cement from off the top of one of the boxes, which had been so cracked that it could be easily lifted out, and in which the transition from hard cement on top to loose sand underneath, can be observed. From this I am inclined to believe that in many, if not all cases, the boxes have simply been filled with loose sand, and a thin layer of cement plastered over the top. Such a reinforcement of the piles is, of course, of little if any value. All of which is respectfully submitted.

CHAS. F. STOWELL,

Bridge Engineer.

Having the report of the bridge engineer and the application of the company for a modification of its order, the Board replied: "The Board is satisfied that the method of strengthening the piles is not safe, and adheres to its former recommendation that new piles be substituted for those decayed."

The company replied by pointing out that the work of strengthening had progressed to some extent, and, in a manner, leading even to greater strength than at first proposed, and asked that the work of substitution be postponed until the end of the summer season. The Board then sent its inspector for a further inspection, with the result as set forth below.

To the Honorable the Board of Railroad Commissioners:

GENTLEMEN.-I beg to further report on the Sea View railroad as follows: The inspection of April 3, 1889, was made in company with J. L. Morrow, superintendent. Mr. Morrow stated to your inspector the manner in which he proposed to treat the piles in bridge at east end of road, which were decayed at the surface of the ground. The piles have not entirely lost strength, but three-eighths to five-eighths of sectional area is destroyed. Mr. Morrow stated that the decay extended below the ground about two feet. Your inspector did not dig up a pile, but rested on the information given. Your inspector does not remember seeing any piles treated as stated in Mr. Schroeder's communication of seventeenth of June, nor did the inspector sanction and approve of the method to be adopted. Always the reply was: Possibly it may answer." The report of Mr. Stowell does not present the method adopted and applied the same as your inspector understood and reported May twentieth. The piles were to be boxed in well above and below point of decay, and all four sides of boxing firmly spiked to the piles in sound timber, virtually splicing the piles. Cement was spoken of, but did not enter into the matter as of any value to your inspector. It is respectfully suggested that the piles be thoroughly spliced by boxing with two-inch yellow pine plank, and that the four sides of these boxes be thoroughly spiked to each other and each side to the piles above and below point of decay. Also, that the box extend along the piles sufficient to keep them from wearing. As stated in report of May twentieth, such treatment, if well done, will possibly answer for this year. Respectfully submitted,

ALBANY, June 24, 1889.

T. W. SPENCER,
Inspector.

Subsequently the Board received the following satisfactory letter:

SEA VIEW RAILROAD, SHELTER ISLAND HEIGHTS, N. Y., July 15, 1889.

The Honorable Board of Railroad Commissioners, Albany: GENTLEMEN.-Your communication of the first instant was duly received. The piles have been boxed as directed, and our superintendent, who has the structure carefully examined daily, informs me that on a personal examination by him on Wednesday last, he found the supports all in good and firm condition, not giving away at any point.

Very respectfully,

F. S. SCHROEDER, President Sea View Railroad Company, Coney Island.

STERLING MOUNTAIN RAILROAD.

This road is operated mostly for transporting ore, coal and iron for the Sterling Iron Company. A few passengers are carried, but no equipment for that purpose is provided. During the summer seasons excursions are run over the line from points and with the cars of other roads. No time-tables are issued. tickets sold or baggage checked, and the road is considered exclusively private property. The length of road is about eight miles, six and one-half of which is laid with fifty-six-pounds-per-yard steel rails; the remainder is laid with iron of same weight, the whole being in good condition. Three thousand new sleepers are provided for this year, which, with the renewals of last season, will bring the tieing of superstructure to a strong condition, At least two-thirds of the road passes through the lands of the Sterling Iron Company. and no fences are used other than where private farm lands adjoin. There are a number of highway-crossings through the iron company's property, which, owing to the

increase of use, should be provided with warning signs. Generally stub-switches are used, but in a few instances points have been substituted. The superstructure is in quite ordinary adjustment, which, if improved, would be beneficial to the rolling stock in saving of repairs. Each of the openings were examined. Many of them have recently been strongly renewed, but the absence of a good floor system is objectionable; otherwise the openings in road-bed are well maintained. There are no truss-bridges, and the girder openings have spans from ten to twenty-four feet in length. The trestle at the northerly end of road has been filled. As a whole, this property has been much improved since the previous examination, which, with a better adjusted superstructure, would make a well-maintained road.

STONY CLOVE AND CATSKILL MOUNTAIN RAILROAD.

(Three feet gauge.)

This narrow-gauge road is in all respects well maintained. It is fourteen miles long and has a heavy rising grade from Phoenicia to the Summit, in a notch of the Catskill range, and then descends into the valley of Schoharie creek at Hunter's. The superstructure is in good adjustment and sleepers in strong life. Larger ties, and more per mile, are being used this season in repairs. Fifty small sluice-ways have been piped and openings filled, together with 200 feet of trestle at Phoenicia. Five bays of trestle twenty feet high has been rebuilt in yellow pine, and masonry abutments constructed at each end. Another trestle of three bays has been rebuilt in like timber. Two spans of Queen truss have been rebuilt. All openings have a good floor. The ditches are well opened and the roadway cleanly kept. The eighty-feet span through Howe truss at Phoenicia has a new floor. There are twenty-three openings from four to twenty feet in width, aggregating 172 feet in length; one, near Hunter's, twenty-six feet wide has two pine stringers twelve inches square under each rail. Standard cars are drawn over the road on narrow-gauge trucks, and more rigid girders are suggested. Care is exercised in keeping the brakes on cars and engines in good condition. The only depot of moment owned by this company is at Hunter's and is in good order.

SYRACUSE AND BALDWINSVILLE RAILROAD.

This is a comparatively new single-track road, extending from Amboy, on the West Shore railroad, to Baldwinsville, six miles in length. It has been operated about four years. The track is laid with fifty-six pounds per yard steel rails, with angle-bar fastenings and alternate joints. Point-switches are used out of main line. The grades are slight and the curves easy. The line follows flat lands, and road-bed is mostly an embankment from three to eight feet high. The roadway is well inclosed with a fivestrand wire fence, but is poorly kept: the weeds and brush not having been cut this season. The sleepers are in strong life and track in good line and surface. The roadbed is not entirely ballasted, but where this is done sand or cinders are used. There is one bridge, over Seneca river, at Baldwinsville. It has four sixty-feet spans through and two spans of plate-girder deck for double-track and stone masonry abutments and piers, and is well floored. There are five short-span openings in road-bed from five to twelve feet wide. Each of these has good masonry abutments and strong I beam girders. The floors are very good except they need guard-rails. At Amboy the West Shore railroad depot is used. At Baldwinsville is a very good frame passenger station well furnished. TONAWANDA VALLEY AND CUBA RAILROAD.

To the Honorable the Board of Railroad Commissioners:

GENTLEMEN.

In the performance of duty your inspector examined the Tonawanda and Cuba railroad September 27, 1889. Its physical condition is such that this special report is necessary. The road is three-feet gauge, and now operated between Attica and Sandusky only, a distance of twenty-nine and one-half miles. There are two through Howe trusses, which constitutes all the truss-bridging on the road. They are in fair physical life, and one near Arcade, with pile-bridge approach, was designed to carry standard-gauge equipment. Freight car bodies of standard-gauge roads are transferred to narrow-gauge trucks, and thus car loads of thirty and forty thousand pounds weight pass over this road. Since the previous inspection little has been done to road-bed or superstructure. The short, deep sags in embankments between Attica and Curriers have not been sufficiently filled, and the clay cuttings on north end of road have slid in, filling the ditches. There are a large number of trestles, from one span of five feet. in cattle-guards, to six bays of fifteen feet each and up to twenty or more feet in height. These trestles are all of hemlock timber, and appear to be in good life of material; a number have been lately rebuilt. A large number of single span cattle-guards and water-ways have the rail directly on the stringer. Where ties are used they are widely spaced generally and destitute of tie-guards. The rail is of iron. thirty pounds in weight per lineal yard, and secured at joints with fish-plates. Very much of the rail is overworn, often the head one-half gone. The rail is much of it bent and kinked both vertically and horizontally; many joint-bolts are gone and the surface and line of track are in a seriously defective condition. The sleepers, during the last and present season, have to some extent been renewed by using second-hand ties from adjoining standard-gauge roads, but probably three-fifths of the sleepers are so far decayed that they will not hold track in gauge or sustain a spike in place. Possibly one-third of the ties can be lifted at outer end and will break off under the rail. No ballast of moment is under the superstructure. The foregoing representation of the maintenance of this road does not fully express its lamentable condition. A reduction to a low minimum of running speed, if operated at all, appears necessary until proper tieing and track adjustment are accomplished. Your inspector respectfully suggests to your Honorable Board that a personal inspection of this property be made before any recommendations are presented. THOS. W. SPENCER,

Inspector.

B. W. SPENCER, Esq..

ALBANY, October 8, 1889.

Receiver Tonawanda Valley and Cuba Railroad Company, New York City: SIR-The Board herewith transmits a copy of a special report of its inspector as to the physical condition of the Tonawanda Valley and Cuba road,

It appears that the road is in such bad physical condition in many respects as to be absolutely unsafe to operate at other than a very reduced rate of speed.

The Board recommends:

First. That the rate of speed be reduced immediately to one not exceeding ten miles an hour at any time.

Second. That the defects pointed out by the inspector be remedied at the earliest moment practicable.

Should the receiver desire a hearing with regard to any of these matters, it will be granted upon application within ten days.

The Board further desires a communication to the effect that its recommendations, particularly that with regard to the reduction of speed, will be immediately conformed to by the road. By the Board.

WM. C. HUDSON,

Secretary.

The following communication from the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad Company, relative to additions and betterments made since the date of inspection, was received too late to attach to the inspection report:

ROME, WATERTOWN AND Ogdensburg RAILROAD COMPANY.
OFFICE OF THE GENERAL MANAGER,
OSWEGO, N. Y., December 7, 1889.

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First. In connection with the Rochester branch: We have in the city of Rochester a short distance east and across the tracks from the passenger depot,ra substantial new brick freight house. 204 feet long, which we think is an important pat of our facilities at that point, and a valuable addition to the property.

Second, Your notes on the Gouverneur bridge, on the main line: We have to advise you that a new three-span lattice bridge, proportioned to carry the new heavy consolidation locomotives, is now being substituted for the wooden structure, which we hope to have completed at the end of this month.

Further on, in the report on the main line: Your notes have doubtless been misleading, as, between Norwood and Massena Springs, the openings are all supported by first class masonry, and the stringers are all oak. There is no hemlock used in the construction of the openings on that part of the road; and in this connection I would say that yellow pine stringers have been provided for all openings where hemlock has heretofore been used, and are being put in as rapidly as possible, though all are not yet in.

Yours truly.

29

E. S. BOWEN,
General Manager.

MINUTES OF THE BOARD.

REPORTED IN PURSUANCE OF SECTIONS 2 AND 10 OF CHAPTER 353, LAWS OF 1882.

OCTOBER 1, 1588.

The Board met pursuant to adjournment. All present.
The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.

The Board heard H. W. Webb, vice-president of the Wagner Palace Car Company and John Adams, general superintendent of the Fitchburg Railroad Company, relative to heating cars by steam.

The Secretary submitted the unfinished business, under the rules, as follows:

Applications of the Long Island, Fitchburg, Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad companies and Wagner Palace Car Company, for an extension of time for the heating of cars. Ordered laid on the table for the present.

Ordered, that the letters of H. W. Sewall, W. H. Harrison and J. S. Elkins, relating to coupler for steam heating, be placed on file.

Application of the Steinway and Hunter's Point Railroad Company, also of the Riker Avenue and Sanford's Point Branch Railroad Company, for consent to suspend operations for certain months. Ordered granted.

Application of the Rockaway Village Railroad Company, for permission to suspend operations during winter months. Ordered granted.

Ordered, that Secretary examine what roads suspended operations last winter and report the same to the Board.

Letter of Roger Foster relative to the death of an Italian laborer on the Albany and Susquehanna railroad. Ordered, that Secretary write that on the 19th of July, 1887, about 6.30 P. M., one and a half miles west of Worcester station, Pulo Martine (No. 490), an Italian laborer, fell from a work train and was instantly killed.

Letter of F. W. Baldwin, superintendent Ogdensburgh and Lake Champlain railroad, relativo to William Rowe, Jr. Ordered filed and closed.

Letter of J. M. Toucey, general superintendent_New York Central and Hudson River railroad, relative to complaint of William Rowe, Jr. Ordered filled.

Letter of George D. Chapman, receiver of the Lackawanna and Pittsburg Railroad Company, in answer to complaint of Chauncey Hagadorn. Ordered usual course. Letter of John Mackay, relative to application of Long Island Railroad Company for leave to suspend operations of the Bay Ridge branch. Ordered filled.

Letter of Henry G. Danforth, relative to John Brown's complaint against the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg Railroad Company.

Ordered, that the Secretary write Mr. Reynolds, receiver of Lebanon Springs Railroad Company, that the Board desires immediate answer to its communication.

Letter of R. H. Meagley, president of City Railroad Company of Binghamton, relative to the integrity of the corporate rights of companies chartered since 1875, and previous to 1884. Ordered that letter, as dictated, copy of which is on fille, be sent. Adjourned until October 9th, 10 A. M.

QCTOBER 9, 1888.

WILLIAM C. HUDSON,

Secretary.

The Board met pursuant to adjournment. All present.

The minutes of the previous meeting were read and approved.

The Secretary submitted the unfinished business, under the rule, as follows: Letter of Louis K. Brown, relative to flagging a crossing at Chatham, on Lebanon Springs road. Ordered filed and closed.

Answer of Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg Railroad Company to complaint of Thomas Brown. Ordered usual course.

Answer of the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburgh Railroad Company to complaint of Forepaugh show, and reply of Mr. Coyle, agent, to complaint of exorbitant rate on freight. Ordered, that Secretary writo Mr. Coyle that Board desires to know whether a release was given to the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company, and to the Boston and Albany Railroad Company, in consideration of a lower rate; also, whether there was a refusal or declination on his own part to give a release to the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburgh Company.

Letter of Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburgh Railroad Company, being answer to complaint of Hayes and Ogden, relative to excessive rates on corn meal. Ordered usual course.

Reply of Chauncy M. Haga orn to answer of George D. Chapman, receiver of the Lackawanna and Pittsburg Railroad Company, to complaint of former.

Ordered, that notice, same as dictated, be sent to parties in interest for hearing on the 23d inst.

Letter of A. C. Cushman, relative to application of Long Island Railroad Company, for consent to suspend operations, during winter months, of Bay Ridge Branch of Manhattan Division of Long Island road. Ordered filed.

Letter of H. W. Webb, vice-president of the Wagner Palace Car Company, relative to steam heating. Ordered filed.

Commissioner Rogers submitted a report in the matter of an accident on the Manhattan Elevated railway on September 26, 1888. Adopted and ordered issued. Ordered, that the bill of Thomas W. Spencer, for $84.77 be approved.

Commissioner Rogers submitted a report in the matter of the application of the Long Island Railroad Company for consent to suspend the operation of the Bay Ridge Branch of the Manhattan Beach division, giving consent thereto. Adopted and ordered printed and issued as the order of the Board.

Adjourned until Monday the 15th, 1.30 P. M.

WILLIAM C. HUDSON,

Secretary.

OCTOBER 15, 1888.

The Board met pursuant to adjournment. All present.

The minutes of the last meeting were read and approved.

The Secretary submitted the unfinished business under the rule, as follows: Letter of Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, relative to the expenses of train crew, on inspection of the Rensselaer and Saratoga road, containing check for the same, Ordered filed.

Brief of Charles Parsons, Jr., vice-president of the Rome. Watertown and Ogdensburgh railroad, relative to complaint of the Watertown banks. Ordered that a copy of the same be sent to James A. Ward.

Letter of Oliver Watson, relative to the Lackawanna and Pittsburg Railroad Company. Ordered filed.

Letter of Georgo Wilson, secretary Chamber of Commerce, advising that the Board may, for the future, have the use of the chamber. Ordered filed.

Complaint from the Sabbath Association of Binghamton, N. Y., complaining against Sunday traffic. Ordered filed.

Reply of Hayes & Ogden to answer of the Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburgh Railroad Company, in matter of their complaint against said road. Referred to Commissioner Baker.

Letter of Chateaugay Railroad Company, relative to steam heating. Ordered, that Secretary write and say that the Board notes what is said, but is hardly prepared to say that such a condition of affairs as stated in your letter, exempts the road from the provision's of chapter 616 of the Laws of 1887, requiring trains to be heated other than by

steam.

Answers to letters of Board from the New York and Rockaway Beach; Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach; Brooklyn, Bath and West End: Prospect Park and Coney Island; Stony Clove and Catskill Mountain; Mount McGregor; Catskill Mountain; Kaaterskill; Rochester and Lake Ontario; Sea View: Chateaugay, and Brooklyn and Brighton Beach Railroad Companies. Ordered, that /Secretary write and ask by what authority they cease operations, and to send them a copy of the law. Ordered, that E. B. Watson be employed temporarily. Adjourned.

WILLIAM C. HUDSON,

Secretary.

OCTOBER 16, 1888.

The Board met and gave a hearing, in pursuance of circular No. 57, in the matter of the adoption by the railroads of this State of a uniform steam coupler. Representatives of most of the railroads of the State and several inventors were heard on the subject.

George S. Gatchell, general superintendent of the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad Company, appeared in relation to extending the time in which roads should heat cars by steam.

C. L. Kimball, general superintendent of the North Shore and Canada Railroad Company appeared, in relation to steam heating of their cars, asking to be relieved from

same.

Letter of H. W. Webb, relative to exemption from heating. Letter ordered sent as dictated.

Adjourned until Monday October 22, at 2 P. M.

WILLIAM C. HUDSON,

Secretary.

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