men's talents do not lie in that direction, and it is practically impossible today to get the data on the life of the different kinds of ties. Anyone who has used ties extensively knows perfectly well that white oak will last longer than any other type of tie in some territories. The same thing applies to other species, and cypress is the tie which gives the longest life in the extreme South under light traffic.

A good deal has been said about standardization of specifications for cross-ties. That would be useless unless the instructions for inspecting the ties were also standardized, as the inspectors themselves are standardized, which is an impossibility.

Mr. F. J. Stimson ( Pennsylvania:-I understood Mr. Burton to say they adopted the six-inch tie as a standard because it was of shorter life than the seven-inch tie. In looking at Table I, I understand that the table shows the same life for the six-inch white oak as the seven-inch white oak. Mr. Burton's statement that the life of the tie is controlled by the element of decay is correct, but I cannot see any reference to that in this table.

Mr. Burton-The statistics as reported by the roads do show exactly that. It is accounted for by the fact that the larger ties in general are used on roads of heavy traffic; they are worn out, and this is reflected in Table I to a certain extent. Although the reports indicated that the ties failed to decay, actually the decay is facilitated by the wear, and inconsistency does appear at times. We came to this conclusion by asking for opinions on the point, and we also averaged the data furnished to us. these results being given in the top paragraph on page 237.

Mr. W. R. Armstrong (Oregon Short Line) --What application will this have to western roads that do not have any oak ties, and do not use six-inch ties? I do not see any use for a standard of that kind for a large proportion of the roads of the country.

The President:-The idea is that the standard tie be used for testing. and not to adopt the standard tie for the road.

Mr. Burton:-The Committee would suggest Mr. Armstrong might purchase and try out perhaps 100 white oak ties, to determine what Salt Lake's climate is, measured in terms of these ties. Once you find this out you put your results in on a basis comparable with the results in other parts of the country, whatever may be the kind of tie commonly used. The idea is to make the reports from different roads in widely scattered parts of the country comparable.

The purpose of a specification is to secure material of like kind or of a definite kind, so that when you specify a certain grade of ties, for example, you obtain a certain definite quality. If the white oak specification does not do this, it is the fault of the specification, but the Committee. with the information it has, believes white oak is the best for the standard test tie.

Mr. C. M. Taylor (Philadelphia & Reading) :--Is it the thought of the Committee that the test track program, described in section d, on page

235, indicates the life of the ties on the average, or just the test tie section alone?

Mr. Burton: The Committee is recommending as part of its next year's assignment, a revision of the instructions for the test sections, and I believe one of the points brought out will be that the test section should be so selected as to be representative of the road as a whole.

Mr. G. J. Ray (Delaware, Lackawanna & Western):-On page 239, columns 1 and 3, are somewhat in confusion. For instance, I do not understand why, in the case of redwood ties, that the six-inch tie will show 1.42, whereas the seven-inch tie will show only 1.17, as compared with the white oak. It also shows that the redwood seven-inch tie compares favorably with the white oak seven-inch tie.

Mr. Burton-That is explained, I think, by the fact that Table I is prepared from the returns without any hand picking on the part of the Committee, that is, we have not gone behind the face of the returns. We explained a moment ago that in general the larger ties are used by roads of heavy traffic, and while Table I is intended only to represent decay, we know the decay is influenced by the amount of wear and the wear by the heavy traffic.

Mr. J. L. Campbell (El Paso & Southwestern) :--The ratio of durability of redwood ties given in these tables, compared with the white oak, are surprisingly low on the basis of the quality of redwood that used to be secured, but is not low on the basis of some redwood ties secured in these days. When the Southern Pacific track was laid through El Paso forty years ago, redwood ties were used exclusively. They remained in the track for twenty-five years and were finally removed on account of rail cutting. I do not recall seeing decay in any of them. In 1912 we laid about 18 miles of track with redwood ties. In ballasting that track eight years afterwards many of these ties were found failing by decay. There is a wide variation in the durability of redwood as between the butt and the top of the tree. Such variation will enter into an investigation of this kind if various kinds of redwood are used.

Mr. Burton:-The data relating to redwood is not of sufficient quantity to make it satisfactory, as there is only one road reporting the use of this material. The Southern Pacific Company, Pacific System, reported the use of seven-inch redwood ties which lasted eleven years, as against the average of eight years the country over for the white oak ties. The difference is not great, and if more roads reported we would have somewhat higher figures for the redwood, I believe.

Mr. F. J. Angier (Baltimore & Ohio) :-My understanding is that you. are basing the different ties on 6x8-inch white oak tics, giving a certain length of time. What kind of white bak tie is it? Northern, southern, chestnut oak, what species of oak is it? Is it a heart oak or a sap oak? What are we to use, as a white oak tie, to base the other ties upon?

Mr. Burton: I think Mr. Angier's question is a proper one to ask, and I would call attention to the specifications for white oak ties contained in last year's report, which specify the proportion of heart and sap.

Mr. G. J. Ray (Delaware, Lackawanna & Western):-If the Union Pacific were to buy a thousand of these test ties, and get them from New Jersey or Pennsylvania, and insert these in tracks, and use on one of their parallel tracks the same number of ties from the southern part of Virginia, they would be more than likely to get at least two or three years' difference in the life of the test ties. There is no question about it. We have had that experience with white oak ties all over the country, so that it does seem to me that the Committee must be careful about recording correct information. They must get the information at least as to where the ties came from, as there is a great difference in white oak grown in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, from the white oak grown in the southern part of the country.

Mr. Burton:-The Committee realizes that something of the kind may be a fact, but the question is, What ought we to do? We have a specification which says that a certain thing specified is what we want for white oak. Possibly the specification should be modified to call a white oak tie one thing north of the Mason and Dixon line, and something else south of it.

Mr. Angier-Specify Virginia white oak.

Mr. Burton:-Don't you further complicate it by having a definite understanding of what Virginia white oak is?

Mr. Angier:-Many of us can remember when white oak gave us a life of ten or eleven years. The white oak today is not giving over six years' life. Thirty-three per cent are sapwood, and they are not lasting over four years. We should specify that the tie should be all heart or should be from a certain part of the country.

Mr. Burton:-The Committee would like a suggestion from Mr. Angier or anybody else as to what would be the best tie made standard. As regards sap, the specifications adopted by this Association classify heart white oak, Class U, and sap white oak is shown in Class T. The specification further details just what a heart tie is and what a sap tie is.

As regard the part of the country from which the tie is procured, that is another matter. If the same species from points in the south is greatly different from points in the north, possibly the specifications should be further modified.

Mr. John R. Leighty (Presidents' Conference Committee):-It is entirely possible that the plan the Committee has outlined will establish what seems to be a very valuable factor for equating the service life of timber of the same species from different parts of the country, if, for instance, you have some Virginia oak used by one railroad and some Ohio oak used by another railroad in the same climatic territory, and under similar traffic conditions. It seems to me you have made a step towards developing an equation factor which would enable you to measure the life of ties from one part of the country against that of ties from another part of the country, which would be a very valuable factor, when it is derived. It is entirely possible that a railroad could afford to pay considerable

money to get a tie that would last more years, and this plan you have outlined, I think, will lead you to the information necessary for determining what might be done along that line.

The President:-We will now vote on the recommendations found on page 238.

(The recommendations were put to vote and unanimously adopted.) Chairman Clark:-The Chairman of Sub-Committee No. 3 on Substitute Ties is unavoidably absent.

(Mr. Clark abstracted the Appendix B on Substitute Ties.) Chairman Clark:-Sub-Committee No. 4 reports progress.

Subject No. 6 is "The effect of design of tie plates and track spikes on the durability of cross-ties and results of improperly protecting ties from mechanical wear." Mr. Layng will present this report.

Mr. F. R. Layng (Bessemer & Lake Erie):—The Committee has had this subject assigned to it for a number of years, and on page 259 we have recapitulated the work contained in previous reports, and we have tried on page 260 and 261 to briefly state the information the Committee now has in hand on this subject, with the idea of expressing what has been learned by this study, and with the thought that the Committee, for the present at least, can discontinue the study of the subject, having covered the subject as far as it is possible at this time.

I move that this report be received as information and the subject be discontinued.

The President:-I think the question of discontinuance of the subject is matter for the Committee on Outline of Work to consider, and the motion will be that the report be received by this convention as information.

(The motion was seconded, put to vote and carried.)

The President:-That completes the Committee's report, except for the recommendations for next year. The Committee is dismissed with the thanks of the Association.

(For Report, see p. 429.)

Professor A. N. Talbot (University of Illinois) :-I think you are all glad to be at the end of a very long session, and I will make my presentation on this report brief. As stated in the report, the work of the year has been given to the working up of tests already made. This has involved a great deal of detail work. I am glad to say, however, that the progress on the work has been such that we now have the material nearly in form to present to the whole Committee for discussion, and we expect to have a report during the year covering all of these tests.

The work I refer to is the calculation of the stresses in earth, both straight and curved track, in a number of types of locomotive, and the effect of both these and the counterbalance of these stresses. The lateral bending is also included.

There have also been carried on a series of tests in the laboratory on the stresses in angle bars and joints of various kinds, and it is believed that this will give information of some interest on the way the different angle bars act, and how far back it is from the end of the rail, before the rail and the bar act as a single piece, and I think that information will have an influence on the forms of angle bar which should be used.

The Committee is enabled only to present a report of progress at this time. I think, however, that all the members of the Committee will be glad to have suggestions either here or afterwards, as to the work to be done, or the work which should be undertaken.

Mr. C. H. Mottier (Illinois Central) :—I would like to ask Professor Talbot if the Committee has given any attention to the distribution of pressure through embankment. I am prompted to ask this question because the Committee has done considerable work on distribution of stresses through ballast, perhaps to a depth of two feet. They have the information on that subject available, and presumably have the apparatus necessary to make further tests at a greater depth. I feel that definite knowledge as to the distribution of pressure through embankment will be of great value and I am, therefore, wondering if the Committee has in mind the development of this subject.

Chairman Talbot:-The work on that has not gone very far. Tests in the laboratory have been conducted which are applicable to the transmission of pressures through any granular material, and during the year some effort has been made to find out whether it is worth while to conduct further tests in the laboratory on the way in which the pressures are transmitted in granular material. So far as the determination of the distribution of pressures in embankments is concerned, I am afraid that tests would not result in anything of value unless done on a large scale and under many different conditions, in which case the cost of the work would be prohibitive.

I think before summer comes we shall have information that will enable us to judge if it is worth while to go into this matter further.

The President:-Are there any further discussions? If not, the Committee is excused with the thanks of the Association.