After all the cars have been loaded they are taken away for unloading. Sometimes the steam shovel is left idle until the train returns, which is a very wasteful method of working, even where the haul to the dump is short, half a mile to two miles. Two engines and crews should be furnished for hauls up to ten miles; three engines and crews, or more, for longer hauls, or where the traffic on the main line is very heavy, and delays to the work trains are frequent. The material is generally utilized in filling trestles, widening embankments for side tracks, double tracks, yards, etc., thereby making two improvements at the same time.
In widening a cut it is good policy to keep the grade of the pit from 1 to 2 ft. below the surface of the subgrade of the main track, as shown in Fig. 22, thereby providing for drainage of the ballast and also providing a receptacle for the spreading of loose material dropping off the cars and washing in from the surface of the cut; there is nearly always considerable of this loose material to roll or wash into the pit after the cut has been completed; and unless room is provided for it, the accumulation will soon reach the height of the track, washing mud on it, and choking the drainage, thus injuriously affecting the main track.
Widening a Cut; Loading on a Side Track Graded by Hand or Steam.--The delays in loading on the main track of a railway in operation, due to the clearing of the track for all trains, vary from one to four hours per day of ten hours, and sometimes amount to as much as seven hours, depending upon the density of the traffic on the line. The first cut in a case such as the latter is therefore necessarily an expensive one, and where the traffic is so heavy it is often cheaper to make a narrow cut for the side track, on which the steam shovel is to load, either by wagons and wheel scrapers, Fig. 23, or by hand with wheelbarrows loading back on cars, Fig. 24.
The latter plan has the great disadvantage that only one car at a time can be loaded and only a few men (six to ten) can be employed. Therefore this plan is never adopted where quick work is required, but is used only where ample time is available, and mostly as an early spring preliminary job, preparing the way for the operation of the steam shovel later in the season. From three to six flat or coal cars are used, enough to require a whole day for the gang of men employed to load; the material from the face of the excavation is loaded on wheelbarrows, and wheeled over the empty cars to the one farthest from the cut. This car is loaded first, then the one next to it, etc. At night the loaded cars are taken out of the switch by the first available freight train and hauled to the nearest yard or side track where widening of the embankment is wanted, or where the material can be otherwise used to advantage, and there unloaded by a small gang of men on the following day; the cars to be returned again the next night. Other empty cars are placed in the pit track for loading next day, by a train bound toward the pit the same night the loaded cars were taken out. The work can be carried on from either one or both ends of the cut. Coal cars should never be used if flats can possibly be obtained, as the latter can be unloaded by a gang of men one-third as large as would be necessary for unloading coal cars.