In 1862 Mr. Henry Rouse, the Chief Resident Engineer to the Egyptian Railway, in the course of a report upon the use of these sleepers, says, “I may assert with unerring confidence, that after ten years’ use of them, had a system of permanent way to be again selected for adoption on the fine alluvial soil of Egypt, no more fitting choice could be made than was, in fact, made by Mr. Robert Stephenson in 1851, when he determined on the adoption of Greaves’s cast-iron pot sleeper road.”
Captain Sherard Osborn, R.N., the late agent to the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, quotes the report of Mr. Rouse, and confirms it with the recommendations of Mr. Hardcastle, Mr. Perry, and Abul Meyd Effendi, Civil Engineers, each in charge of portions of the Egyptian Railway. On the other hand, the Chief Engineer of the East India Line says, “I do not consider these sleepers would be suitable for the through roads of this railway, although they might be used with advantage on sidings and in station yards. From general knowledge I am of opinion that, with small ballast, iron pot sleepers would answer well in countries where rainfall is not excessive, and is evenly distributed over many months in every year, but that they are not adapted to large ballast under any circumstances, more particularly when the road is liable to much periodical injury from rain. They might be used with advantage on long lengths of bank in dry districts with very considerable economy in ballast. In rock cuttings, however, where the jar is at all times great, iron pot sleepers would be liable to much damage from trains at high speed.” It may here perhaps be incidentally noticed that the use of cast-iron sleepers has not been adopted in the construction of Peruvian railways. In Brazil, with one exception, they have been used on all the railways in that country. The running speed of the trains there is, however, not more than twenty miles an hour. They have also been adopted in the construction of the railways of the Argentine Republic.
Upon the whole, the balance of opinion seems decidedly in favour of the general adoption of iron sleepers. They are certainly preferable to stone blocks; and timber is impossible[101] upon Indian Railways.