RAILWAYS

ZETETIC COSMOGONY:
OR
Conclusive Evidence
THAT THE WORLD IS NOT A
ROTATING—REVOLVING—GLOBE,
BUT
A STATIONARY PLANE CIRCLE.
By Thomas Winship
1899

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(Post 29/47)

RAILWAYS.

In projecting railways on a globe, the datum line would be the arc of a circle corresponding to the latitude of the place. That the datum line for railway projections is always a horizontal line, proves that the general configuration of the world is horizontal. To support the globe theory, the gentlemen of the observatories should call upon the surveyor to prove that he allows the necessary amount for "curvature." But this is what the learned men dare not do, as it is well-known that the allowance for the supposed curvature is never made. In the session of the British Parliament for 1862, Order No. 44 states:

"That the section be drawn to the same HORIZONTAL scale as the plan, and to a vertical scale of not less than one inch to every one hundred feet, and shall show the surface of the ground marked on the plan, the intended level of the proposed work, the height of every embankment, and the depth of every cutting, and a DATUM HORIZONTAL LINE which shall be the same throughout the whole length of the work . . . ."

In the Birmingham Weekly Mercury, of 15th February, 1890, "Surveyor" writes as follows:

"'An Engineer of thirty years standing' wrote to a Magazine in 1874 quoting the following sentence as the result of his experience in the construction of railways, more especially:—'I am thoroughly acquainted with the theory and practice of civil engineering. However bigoted some of our professors may be in the theory of surveying according to the prescribed rules, yet it is well known amongst us that such theoretical measurements are incapable of any practical illustration. All our locomotives are designed to run on what may be regarded as TRUE LEVELS or FLATS. There are, of course, partial inclines or gradients here and there, but they are always accurately defined and must be carefully traversed. But anything approaching to eight inches in the mile, increasing as the square of the distance, COULD NOT BE WORKED BY ANY ENGINE THAT WAS EVER YET CONSTRUCTED. Taking one station with another all over England and Scotland, it may be stated that all the platforms are ON THE SAME RELATIVE LEVEL. The distance between the Eastern and Western coasts of England may be set down as 300 miles. If the prescribed curvature was indeed as represented, the central stations at Rugby or Warwick ought to be close upon three miles higher than a chord drawn from the two extremities. If such was the case there is not a driver or stoker within the Kingdom that would be found to take charge of the train . . . . We can only laugh at those of your readers who seriously give us credit for such venturesome exploits, as running trains round spherical curves. Horizontal curves on levels are dangerous enough, vertical curves would be a thousand times worse, and with our rolling stock constructed as at present physically impossible. There are several other reasons why such locomotion on iron rails would be AS IMPRACTICABLE AS CARRYING THE TRAINS THROUGH THE AIR."  

This important evidence by a practical man, may be supplemented by the following from W. Winckler, M.I.C.E., in the Earth Review for October, 1893:

"As an engineer of many years standing, I say that this absurd allowance is only permitted in school books. No engineer would dream of allowing anything of the kind. I have projected many miles of railways and many more of canals and the allowance has not even been thought of, much less allowed for. This allowance for curvature means this—that it is 8" for the first mile of a canal, and increasing at the ratio by the square of the distance in miles; thus a small navigable canal for boats, say 30 miles long, will have, by the above rule an allowance for curvature of 600 feet. Think of that and then please credit engineers as not being quite such fools. Nothing of the sort is allowed. I must however, state that college astronomers have made the student engineer to think that in his method of levelling what is known as the "backsight" cancels any curvature by his "foresight", and so on. It is only a theory, and if astronomers declare that our method of levelling cancels the obligation of making this allowance, we sha'nt quarrel with them—it does no damage to our projects when we get into practice, but we no more think of allowing 600 feet for a line of 30 miles of railway or canal, than of wasting our time trying to square the circle."

Astronomers know full well that it is no use appealing to the engineers, as their testimony is dead against the globular theory, although many of them believe in it all the same; but I never met one who said that he ever made the allowance said to be necessary for projecting railways on the surface of "our tiny globe." In "Theoretical Astronomy," page 46, the author tells us that:

"Mr. J. C. Bourne, in his magnificent work called 'The History of the Great Western Railway' . . . . which is more than 118 miles long . . . . 'the whole line with the exception of the inclined planes, may be regarded practically as level.'"

One hundred and eighteen miles of LEVEL railway, and yet the surface on which it is projected a globe? Impossible. It cannot be.

Early in 1898 I met Mr. Hughes, chief officer of the steamer "City of Lincoln." This gentleman told me he had projected thousands of miles of level railway in South America, and never heard of any allowance for curvature being made. On one occasion he surveyed over one thousand miles of railway which was a perfect straight line all the way. It is well known that in the Argentine Republic and other parts of South America, there are railways thousands of miles long without curve or gradient. In the "Cruise of the Falcon," by that intrepid traveller and navigator, E. F. Knight, it is stated in Vol. 2, pages 1 and 2:

"From Tucuman to Cordova we were carried by the Government railway." "There are no curves on the way, the rails being carried in ONE PERFECTLY STRAIGHT LINE ACROSS THE LEVEL PLAINS."

In projecting railways, the world is acknowledged to be a plane, and if it were a globe the rules of projection have yet to be discovered. Level railways prove a level world, to the utter confusion of the globular school of impractical men with high salaries and little brains.