Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Elements of Railway Economics
The Object of this book is to consider railways and railway business from the economic point of view. It will be well, therefore, to begin by understanding precisely what a railway is.
Historically and etymologically a railway is merely a road on which rails are laid. Originally the rails, whether of stone or wood or iron, were laid ?at on the surface, and vehicles with ordinary wheels were free either to use the special track or to move at large over the whole width of the road. In the next stage of development, the rails were continuous iron plates with ?anges on their outer edges to confine the Wheels to the track proper. In the next stage, the rails were raised above the surface and the ?ange was transferred from the rails to the wheels. The railway thus became specialized it could only be used by special vehicles, and the special vehicles could no longer be used on ordinary roads. Naturally, the railway forsook the public highway and was laid on land allocated to its sole use.
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