Mt. Moosilauke (1884) - Railroad Economy
". . . The company from the very beginning thought it would be economical to burn old ties, so every fall ties were picked up and put into piles along the track, when someone was got to saw them up; then trains would stop wherever there were piles of ties and wood-up. Later they built three tie sheds, one at Bridgewater, one at Woodsville and the other at Wing Road.
A contract was made with O.G. Smith to pick up the ties and saw them at so much a cord. Just as soon as the summer trains were off, we would start out with ten flat cars, about thirty men with boarding cars, and fill up these sheds, living all the time on the train and stopping wherever night overtook us. This took the time till snow came. Then Smith would put his sawing machine into the sheds and saw up the ties during the winter.
Smith was supposed to cut them sixteen inches long, but from the time he cut them to the time they were put into the fire box they generally grew to be any where from 24 to 30 inches in length. A large part of these ties would fall to pieces in handling, and every fall before we filled the shed with a new consignment we would shovel out fifty carloads or so in the form of chips and rotten rubbish.
They had a directors meeting at one time to talk over the matter of using the old ties. Some thought it was not economical, but the management thought we better keep on using them. One director expressed his opinion that although the ties would probably make just as much steam as good hard wood, the steam was undoubtedly of poorer quality. . . ."
From "Early Railroad Tales" by George E. Cummings, pp. 429-454, The Moosilaukee Reader (Vol.2). ©1999.
