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He searched through every possible trade journal, through reading rooms and libraries, for the price of I-beams, channels, Z-bars, and the like; but nowhere could he even find mention of them. His failure left him puzzled and panic-stricken; he could not understand it. If only he had more time, he reflected, time in which to learn the usages and the customs of this country.
After an air raid the Line Section would go out to effect repairs, to get communications going again and at the same time the lads would pick up anything that appeared to belong to nobody and that could be of possible use to the army; done by civilians that would be called looting. In this way we became the recipients of bricks, breeze blocks, I-beams and other odds-and-ends.
The outside tracks were blocked directly on these girders, and the central track was supported by blocking up the transverse girders on I-beams placed between the girders "B"; and no blocking was placed between the girders "B" and the longitudinal girders carrying the central track. The weight on each column was assumed to be 172,000 lb. Supports for Surface Railway Structure.
He took the ruler, no fool he, he knew that three feet equalled 36 inches so he measured in 18 inches from each end of both I-beams and chalked lines. "Get these down to Ordnance," he said, "and get them to cut off the four ends." Whether the installation was ever completed I don't know.
The job was given to the man who could use a pencil and who had some engineering experience, me I prepared a design that consisted mainly of two horizontal I-beams surmounted on two low brick piers with two longer I-beams leading up from the ground level to the piers. Since the track would be fixed this would only be suitable for one type of vehicle so it was designed for our utility vans.
Cradles were designed for the support of the 48-in. and 24-in. water mains, resting on the transverse girders, and the 48-in. cast-iron sewer on the east side of the avenue was carried on I-beams bracketed to the ends of the transverse girders, as shown on Figs. 1 and 2.
And where the great space-ship had rested there was for an instant nothing. Exactly nothing a vacuum. Vessel, falsework, rollers, trucks, the enormous steel I-beams of the tracks, even the deep-set concrete piers and foundations and a vast hemisphere of the solid ground; all had disappeared utterly and instantaneously.
Much later just before I left Bowden Battery work was resumed on the structure but by this time officers had come and gone and I was standing by the latest Two-pips as he surveyed the two long I-beams. "sergeant!" he snapped." "Sah," answered Three-stripes. "These I-beams," said Two-pips, "are too long, I will not have them intruding into my parade ground, get me a ruler and some chalk."
In placing these I-beams, heavier blocking was used in the center of the span than at the ends where the bents would come, to prevent the subsidence of the track owing to the sag in the I-beams. As much excavation, to a depth of about 20 ft., was taken out adjoining the elevated railway foundations as could be done with safety.
Then needle-beams and posts were placed under each yoke. The concrete forming the track structure was then enclosed with planking to prevent it from cracking and falling. I-beams were then placed under the needle-beams carrying the structures, and these were carried on posts; they were changed alternately until the excavation had been taken out to a depth of about 16 ft. below the surface.
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