How did railroads handle depreciation, repair, and fixed asset life-cycles in the mid 19th Century?
They were experienced in design, construction, project management and business.
They planned for maintenance and for repair.
They knew about wear mechanisms from aggressive operation and thought it was management’s role to contain this.
They shared data and used it. They gathered data from handwritten records, making spreadsheets, graphs, and KPIs by hand.
They planned for a system’s physical and business life-cycle.
Their accounting methods are the basis of modern depreciation methods for fixed assets.
They considered deferring maintenance to maximize short-term stock returns to be incompetant or dishonest.
Their work was published in major newspapers, journals, and debated in public by railroad owners and engineers.
Dionysius Lardner (1793 – 1859)
John B. Jervis (1795 – 1885)
R. Price-Williams (1827-1916)
Part 1: Astronomer discusses depreciation; gets quoted by Marx
Dionysius Lardner quit an early career as a lawyer to become a professor of astronomy and a science writer. He was the editor of a popular encyclopedia and wrote dozens of books between 1828 to 1858. He was involved with two married women, which changed the course of his career. He also challenged the famous Isambard Kingdom Brunel publicly in several railway and shipbuilding matters, and lost.
Lardner’s 1850 book Railway Economy contained some important ideas about maintenance and depreciation. Karl Marx quoted this book in Das Kapital.
Railway Economy described the maintenance organizations of a railroad. One department specialized in the track, one in locomotives, one for the cars, and one for the stations. Lardner explained why maintenance was necessary, He characterized three kinds of wear based on the time frame over which they occurred. One was annual, with the damage and repair spanning a year or less. The second was damage that accumulated over multiple years and resulted in reconstruction. The third was damage that accumulated so slowly it was hard to measure, on the order of centuries, and resulted in abandonment or replacement.
Lardner noted that in the first few years of a railway’s operations, spending on track and railbed repairs would decrease. He explained that the early spending was required to correct construction flaws, not repair worn-out elements.
At the time Lardner was writing, he considered that commercial railway operation had only been underway for 20 years. At the beginning of commercial railway operation, the wear of rails was so slow it was nearly imperceptible. Rail life was estimated at 100 to 150 years, making rail wear an example of his third category. Lardner wrote that in 1850 this was understood to be wrong. In 30 years, the linear weight of rails had more than doubled to increase their strength. Larder noted that no rails had ever really worn out…instead, they were breaking, so they were being replaced by ever heavier rails and ties. The breakage was from poor construction and ever heavier locomotives and trains, but not wear.
Lardner complained that working engineers did not have time for a scientific approach to rail wear. Instead, he complimented the Belgian government’s research. Contemporaneous research showed that most rails would need replacing after a 20-year life. Lardner discussed how to fund replacement of the rails at the end of their useful life. He described investing some of the early profits into an annuity that matured at the end of the rails’ useful life. This is the basis of the concept of depreciation. Money was held back from profits, and actually invested for planned wholesale replacement. Individual component replacement fell under Lardner’s first annual category, but system-wide reconstruction fell under his second category.
At the beginning of railroads’ commercial operation, the life of the rails was considered very long, with no immediate need to plan for replacement. Within 20 years, it was understood that rails had a finite service life, would wear out, and that a provision had to be made to eventually replace all of them. It was understood that this was a different problem than breakage and repair.
Lardner compared locomotives and railway cars with maintenance of the track and railbed. The chapter, “Maintenance and Reproduction of the Rolling Stock”, asks,
A question has lately been raised among railway companies, respecting the wear and tear of the rolling stock, and the proper method of maintaining it in a state of perfect efficiency. (p. 107)
Lardner explored the proposed analogy between maintenance of way and the rolling stock machinery. There were some maintenance strategies available from the experience of roads and canals that applied to railroad tracks. For engines and cars, the situation was new. New steam engine designs were being fielded. Machinery was subject to continual repairs and replacement of parts over its lifetime. Most locomotive components could be replaced. If a locomotive was 20 years old, but every part had been replaced, was it still actually deteriorated as if it was 20 years old? This is the classic Ship of Theseus problem.
The major question was whether a reserve for replacement should be set aside. For track and the “way” or “road,” deterioration from age was on the order of 20 years, in Lardner’s second wear classification. An amount of cash was set aside every year and invested. With replaceable components, locomotives might fall into Lardner’s first wear classification that required annual treatment. Larder commented about locomotives in Belgian service, similar to the Belgian track situation. The oldest Belgian locomotive was 13 years, and none had been taken out of service due to age. He expressed a desire to be able to examine the operations and maintenance record of an older locomotive, but none had been published. Lardner concludes that enough repair effort could put the rolling stock into a “constant state of rejuvenescence,” so that a financial reserve was not necessary.
Larder discussed and compared two life-cycle maintenance strategies used by early British railway companies. For the track and road-bed, the strategy was long-term run-to-failure. Minor repairs and maintenance were practiced (“maintenance of way”), but they were not sufficient to keep the track operational forever. The rate of decay could be slowed, but the rail bed, ties, and track had to be replaced after wear from use and weather. For engines and cars, the strategy was planned maintenance. The continuous reinvestment kept the physical state of the engines constant over a long period of time.
Karl Marx cited Lardner’s work five times in his discussion of circulating capital, using the ideas of depreciation, the example of Belgian railways, the phrase “constant state of rejuvenescence,” the problem of greater repairs early in railway life, and the idea of decay over long epochs.
“Capital: A Critique of Political Economy” Karl Marx translated by David Fernbach, Penguin Classics London 1992
http://digamo.free.fr/penguin2.pdf
Cites Larder:, p. 250, 251, 258, 259, 260
“Railway economy; a treatise on the new art of transport” Dionysius Lardner 1850
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiuo.ark:/13960/t5cc10k7r
Part 2: Assistant Eire canal surveyor invents locomotive and demands good record keeping of repair costs
John Jervis was a major figure in 19th century American civil engineering. He began his self-taught career in 1817 as an laborer and assistant surveyor during the construction of New York’s Erie canal. Jervis rose to become the chief engineer for construction of new water supply aqueducts for both New York and Boston, major public investments. He became chief engineer of several railroads. He was president of the Rock Island Line, famous in an American folk song. He also invented the 4-2-0 type locomotive, which is named the “Jervis type.” In 1840, about two-thirds of American locomotives were 4-2-0s. [A History of the American Locomotive: Its Development, 1830-1880, John H. White.] Jervis wrote his book on management of railway property was written in 1860, after 20 years in the railroad business.
Like Larder, Jervis noted that the life of rails, engines, and cars was incorrectly expected to be very long in early days of railroading. Because of this error, the estimates of maintenance and repair were wrong. As the demand went up, trains got heavier, locomotives got heavier and more powerful, and the rails suffered. Heavier rails were installed to meet the severe service. This impacted the entire railway business model. (p. 29)
Jervis also agreed with Larder that during the first years of a new railroad, initial track and repairs would be higher, especially if construction quality was lower. (p. 220)
Jervis was very specific about how to prevent rail problems and their importance in controlling expenses:
One of the first things that indicates an inefficient track-master is the neglect of the side ditches, and consequent imperfect drainage of the road-bed. This neglect will not fail to increase the expense of keeping the track in order, and at times of rain, render it impossible to maintain it in good adjustment.
As the work of renewal with durable materials goes on, the railway will be steadily assuming a more substantial and permanent character, rendering it more secure for the passage of trains, and diminishing the expense of repairs and maintenance.
In the maintenance of track, a very important duty should rest on the engineer, to see that the original drainage proves adequate for maintaining a dry road-bed; and if not, to devise and proceed with measures that will effectually secure this object; a branch of railway affairs that demands the most diligent attention. (p. 230)
With a background actually maintaining canals (his first engineering position), but also as the president of a major railway, Jervis easily connected decay and wear to periodic replacement and financial performance:
As decay and wear produce their effects on those materials, the expenses of repairs and maintenance must necessarily increase, until they reach a point that will require an annual expense, varying each year, but forming an approximate average in a series of five years. The sleepers [ties] will begin to fail ordinarily in about five years, while a portion may last eight years; the rail will be very dependent in its wear on the weight and speed of the machinery used; the latter will be more important than the extent of the traffic. The circumstance of increasing expenses, at least for a few years, indicates the propriety of holding in reserve a portion of the net earnings, to meet future expenses, if it be the purpose to maintain regularity and uniformity in dividends to the proprietors. (p. 233)
Jervis is repeating Lardner’s approach to investing in an annuity to cover major replacements. Lardner had little direct experience with railway management. Jervis had more than average. Jervis identified two areas where managers could reduce damage mechanisms to the railbed and track. One was ensuring drainage. The other was resisting the temptation to overload trains and run them as fast as possible. Violating either guideline caused an unbudgeted surprise: a major repair bill and a track out of service.
Jervis’ discussion of machinery deterioration and repair was not quite so advanced. Mostly, he discussed replacement to prolong life, something he termed “perpetuation.”
In the ordinary deterioration, it will be found that new parts may be advantageously ingrafted with those that have suffered a comparatively moderate degree of wear, and still sufficient for much useful service. In this way one part after another is substituted, until there may be nothing of the original structure left; still it is practically the same engine, coach or car, with the same name or number; the repairs, therefore, involve the renewal and complete maintenance of the machinery, and will demand shop accommodations and stationary power sufficient for this object. (p. 235)
This sounds as if Jervis took a preventive approach to the track and roadbed, but a passive repair approach to the locomotives. However, he commented on the need for the master-machinist to have a clerk:
It is indispensable to a good administration of business, that a strict account should be kept of the cost of repairs on each machine; this will show the quality and value of each — and is particularly important in respect to engines, as it will indicate the care and skill with which they are run. (p. 237)
Jervis recognized that skillful operation results in less spending on repairs. He recognized that what is not measured, cannot be managed. He extended these comments into a complete operating picture, promoting a unified management structure covering track repairs, machine repairs, and operations:
To merely run trains, is a thing that may be done with small experience: To run trains and manage the track and machinery, so as to effect the most economical transport, is a very different thing, and as yet very imperfectly studied. (p. 244)
Jervis advised managers to keep maintenance and fuel records separately for fast and slow trains separately. to show the ”influence of speed on the maintenance of engines and coaches” so that rates could be set appropriately. He compared the wearout rates for light, frequent passenger trains with occasional, heavy freight service. Heavily loaded freight trains damaged the rails faster than more frequent passenger service. Faster trains damaged the rails faster also. Jervis wanted railroads to stop using a flat pricing model. He wanted to charge enough to recover the repair and replacement costs. To do this, a manager would have to have accurate maintenance records that included information about speed and weight of the load. The manager would also have to be able forecast future maintenance requirements, considering speed and weight. Failing to include maintenance in the business plan would lead to failure:
The traffic may carry them along and pay current expenses until the renewal of rails and machinery becomes necessary, when it will appear that there are no funds for such a purpose, and the railway must be abandoned…(p. 283)
Jervis also advised operational managers to optimize the train weight, speed, and schedule to give less wear of rails. He gave an example where bad freight priorities lead to heavier freight trains making up delay time by averaging 30 mph instead of the planned 12mph. While the freight may arrive on schedule, this added extra fuel and repair costs.
Jervis held the opinion that wear and repair rates were a fundamental part of the business plan. He warned that having initially low repair spending was temporary, but also an opportunity:
The railway and machinery, if well constructed, being new, the repairs and maintenance for a few years will be comparatively small, and the net profits will, for the time, be larger than will ultimately be found an average rate on the traffic. Continued use will impair the track and machinery, and new parts will be required for their efficient maintenance and usefulness, consequently it must be expected that there will be an increase of current expenses in the operation of a railway. It is usual to estimate the probable increase in the traffic to be not only sufficient to meet this increase of expense, but to even more than do it, and to justify the expectation of an increasing rate of dividend. The more prudent course would be, to make adequate provision by a reserved fund, that may very properly be appropriated to the purchase of new machinery, to meet the growing wants of increasing traffic; instead of the too common course, of increasing the indebtedness of the Institution for this purpose.
The business had two approaches for major repairs, to reserve for it, or borrow. Reserving for repair was wiser, but reduced the company’s immediate returns.
The latter course is most likely to be pursued, if there be an influence in the Board of Directors that seeks to elevate the market value of the stock, as it is well understood that dividends are a material element in promoting such a result, without much reference to the sources from whence they are derived. If, on the other hand, the railway property is regarded as an investment of funds, and governed on the same business principle as would control an intelligent individual, who would not esteem the payment from one hand to the other as evidence that his property was thereby enhanced in value, the management will be different. All efforts to produce fictitious value, either a rise or fall, can be no benefit to the property; and can only be viewed as means of deception, practised on those who may unwittingly repose confidence in unfaithful managers. (p. 302)
Planning to run to failure while providing high stock returns, was as bad as a lie. Jervis outlined a method for a new railroad, whose repair costs are low initially, to invest in a sinking fund for repairs and replacement as ridership and freight expand in the first few years of operation. The intent was to preserve the future physical health of the railroad, and provide “regularity and reasonable certainty in dividends.”
“Railway Property: a Treatise on Construction and Management” by Jervis, 1861
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo1.ark:/13960/t42r4dq3f
American Society of Civil Engineers biography of Jervis:
https://www.asce.org/templates/person-bio-detail.aspx?id=11178
Part 3: Railway engineer writes first book in history about depreciation; may be remembered mostly for social statistics.
In 1866, the Institution of Civil Engineers awarded R. Price Williams the Telford Medal for a study of railroad track maintenance costs. In the 1850s and 1860s, several British companies were operating steam locomotives on iron tracks. Transportation of coal, passengers, raw materials, and manufactured goods was in ever greater demand as new steam engines powered industrial growth. Williams compared repair costs between different railways.
Williams was trying to prove that the rails and ties were wearing out much faster than originally expected. Locomotives were becoming more powerful to run faster, more frequently, and with heavier loads. Repair spending could be affected by a number of factors, for example, a lightly loaded passenger train on flat land that stopped frequently would result in a different rate of track repairs than a heavy coal train in hilly country. Schedules were different, so the passenger train might pass several times a day, but the heavy train, more rarely. Accounting systems were not standard, providing another challenge to the analyst. By comparing these factors, Williams proved that the wear and repair spending correlated with use. This was not obvious, since arguments existed that different rail joint designs, rail alloys, railroad tie designs and material, and locomotive wheel designs were the major factors. He concluded:
That the rapid deterioration of the permanent way is in a great measure attributable to the increased weight and speed of the traffic these facts clearly show; and the concurrence of the tonnage outlines with the cost of renewals also bears a collateral proof of the truth of these deductions.
Having established that weight and speed caused spending on repairs, he then turned to rail cross-sections and material. His conclusion was a recommendation to change from iron to Bessemer steel rails in certain applications. At the time, Bessemer steel was new, much more expensive, and limited. It was simpler to frequently replace cheaper iron rails. Williams was arguing that steel would reduce life-cycle costs by predicting less spending on repairs and replacement while increasing operational availability, reliability, and safety.
In 1870, Williams presented another paper to the ICE, this time examining locomotives instead of track. The 1870 work is an analysis of accounting value, depreciation methods, and periodic maintenance. As major assemblies wore out, they were replaced. The author analyzed the periodic reinvestment required to keep railroad locomotives and cars in good repair. The 1870 book opens with the statement,
From the moment the steam is first generated in a locomotive, or the first train mile has been run by a railway carriage or wagon, the dilapidation due to the destructive effects of wear and tear may be said to have begun, alike in the rolling stock and in the roadway that carries it.
The accumulated experience now possessed of the wear and tear of rolling stock, extending over a period of nearly forty years, enables the average life of each part of these structures to be as accurately determined as the average duration of human life…
Mortality tables were first published two hundred years earlier and were the statistical basis of the life insurance industry. This comparison is meant to emphasize the certainty with which Williams thought he could assign to the wear-out life of locomotive components. His statement also shows that railroad investors and engineers had been interested in the management of physical capital assets since approximately 1830. He was treating the end of useful life not as a surprise, but as a predictable event that had a known accounting value. Williams recognized that systems and components have a useful life, that wear causes failure, and that the eventual failure can be predicted, not simply tolerated.
Williams also noted that an operating fleet could fall into disrepair. If a group of vehicles had been neglected, and the maintenance budget was then increased back to a standard per-mile figure, this would still be insufficient to recover. A fleet that had been damaged by deferred maintenance would need extra resources to catch up. Average repair cost was only a useful indicator within a certain context.
Williams theorized that depreciation should be modeled proportional to the square of time, to capture the accelerating wear on components. Depreciation represented loss of value due to decaying physical condition. This makes depreciation a mathematical model of the end-of-life probability of failure. The author characterizes the model as “not absolutely correct, but a nearer approximation” than the common straight line depreciation method. Today, we see conceptual graphics of the D-I-P-F curve that are concave down, showing an increasing wear rate over time. A linear D-I-P-F curve would be justifiably criticized.
Table A contained a breakdown of locomotive engine value by subassembly. The table listed the expected component life and number of replacements expected over the engine’s life. This is an early life cycle maintenance plan. It covered 20 pages, with lines as detailed as “14 split pins” and “1 elbow pipe (cast iron).” Each line included the material cost, labor cost, and included age and wear factors. He gave a method for establishing the value and virtual age of a locomotive. This method assigned an age and condition factor for each replaceable component. The factors were different for different kinds of components, to reflect their different failure mechanisms. The factors were applied to the original installed value, and over time and use, reduced the value to scrap. The sum of the component values gave the actual value of the locomotive. If the locomotive value had fallen below what was expected from it’s age, there was a management problem. The fleet was aging faster than expected, the machines would not perform as planned, and the company would have to make larger and earlier reinvestments. This would reduce returns to stockholders…a real problem.
Williams also recognized that a certain risk of failure always existed, “…a certain and definite amount of dilapidation must always be present, quite irrespective of a thorough and efficient maintenance.” Williams’ parabolic treatment contained the same concepts as the D-I-P-F curve: that imperfections always exist, and once wear starts, it accelerates. Wear and renewal concepts are clearly visible in his graph of the value of an engine and tender over thirty years.
In the graph Williams titled Figure 2, the vertical axis is the money value of the assembly, and the horizontal axis is time in use. The curve tends downward and value is lost due to use and time. Planned replacement of subassemblies resulted in the restoration of value. Graphically, this is shown by the positive discontinuities, i.e. vertical jumps in the remaining value of the engine.
Williams used the concept of “money life” which was contemporaneously defined as the time value of investment compared to annual maintenance. There was some debate about the definition of money life, which was distinct from net book value. For this article, I am judging that money life, remaining technical life, resale value, and net present value are approximately representative of the same concept as cost-of-ownership of a worn assembly over the remaining technical life.
Later Williams discussed the manipulation of publicized business costs by deferring maintenance,
That both the rolling stock and the road of some railways had, at unfortunate periods of their history, been permitted to lapse into a depreciated condition, in order to pay a large and unearned dividend, no one who had any knowledge of railway history would deny; and this neglect had resulted in the entire absence of dividends on some railways. (pg 77).
This statement recognizes, in 1870, that there was a problem of deferring maintenance to manipulate cash flow statements, and that this affected the investor relations and the profitability of a whole railway company.
Williams’ rolling stock work was entered into the proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers on April 12, 1870 and discussed at their meetings that month. The meeting minutes show that for the second time, Williams’ work was debated and accepted by key figures of the Victorian engineering establishment.
Charles Vignoles, the Institute president and a career railway engineer, led the discussion. Vignoles also had a role to play in the contemporaneous discussion of maintenance of Macadamised roads, with two references by name in an 1870 study of road maintenance by Fredrick Paget.
The minutes of the following discussion include comments from several leading railway engineers, including John Ramsbottom, president of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers. Ramsbottom contributed to the reliability of most safety valves in history by inventing the Ramsbottom safety valve. Ramsbottom also had a major contribution to all piston engines (steam, gasoline, and diesel) by inventing the split piston ring. Ramsbottom’s assistant engineer had worked with Williams to develop his tables of component wear factors.
Williams influenced major figures in British steam, rail, and highway engineering, at a time when these systems were key to the expansion of the British economy and empire. Williams’ work on maintenance of rolling stock was covered by the journals Engineering and The Railway News (Vol 16, pg 590, Oct 28, 1871, here.) His work on permanent way was published in Money Market Review in 1867, from which Karl Marx cited it twice in volume 2 of Das Kapital, which Engels finished after Marx’s death.
Williams published other several works on railroad and telegraph economics, and became an internationally-recognized authority on valuation of railways. Later in life, Williams published several studies in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society so may be remembered mostly as a statistician. R. Price Williams is to be cited regularly for an original study of the growth of London’s population from 1801 to 1881. The study continues to be used as a source by historians and several Wikipedia articles.
Williams also had an influence on accounting. Richard P. Brief, NYU’s emeritus professor of accounting, credits Williams with having the first book related to depreciation in Depreciation and Capital Maintenance. Professor Brief also notes that Williams influenced Ewing Matheson in his 1884 work The Depreciation of Factories and Their Valuation, which is of some importance in the history of accounting. Matheson cited Williams’ work on rolling stock in several examples. Maintenance and reliability professionals will appreciate Matheson’s outlook. On page three he states,
The question of depreciation cannot be separated from that of maintenance, and in theory one may be said to balance the other…In any particular building, machine, or appurtenance, decay or wear of some sort must take place in the course of time, and repairs in order to compensate fully for the decline in value, must take the form of renewal.
Matheson discussed how the deterioration of any machine is affected by its run rate, severity of service, and treatment by the operator. Matheson recommended that depreciation rates be selected using a system that takes into account deterioration, maintenance, and renewals. Otherwise, a firm’s statements of account would become wrong, “delusive” or “dishonest”…strong language for a Victorian accountant. Matheson’s approach was that overhauls, repairs, and maintenance are not surprises, but a planned part of the asset’s lifecycle and the overall business plan.
The effect of wear and maintenance on the valuation of a plant was not just a matter accounting theory. It affected the ability to attract new investors and obtain insurance. In 1910 the problem of deferred or improper maintenance was addressed in an article in Engineering Contracting titled “Methods of Conducting the Valuation of the Physical Properties of the Chicago Consolidated Traction Co., with Summaries of Costs.” This article describes several ways that the value of a railway system was determined. For the subsystem of the actual track, the most simple indicator was the length of the rail system. Second, echoing Williams’ 1864 work, was the condition of joints, ties, and the rail bed. Another factor was the remaining amount of wear available in the rails. This was a condition-based factor, determined by thickness measurements. However, the commission also considered deferred maintenance into the remaining service life and overall value:
In case of rails, the present value of the rail has been determined by readings indicating the wear of the head, and from these readings the remaining wearing value of the rail has been computed. In case of bad alignment of rail, surface kinks, due to improper maintenance of tracks and to operation of heavier cars than those from which the track was designed, the additional depreciation due to this condition has been expressed in terms of a percentage of the wearing value.
In case of substructure and joints whereas it was estimated that with proper maintenance the life of this part of the property should be 20 years, where improper maintenance was evident one or two years were added to the age of the property as determined from the records, this being equivalent to depreciating this part of the property for a period of one or two years in excess of its actual life. (pg. 274)
Depreciation methods that recognized the need for planned life-cycle maintenance had crossed the Atlantic and by 1910 were in use in Chicago.
http://digamo.free.fr/penguin2.pdf
Cites Williams: p. 249, 259
R. Price Williams, “On the Maintenance and Renewal of Permanent Way”, Minutes of Proceedings, Institution of Civil Engineers, Vol XXV, 1866, Ed. James Forrest, London 1866
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044092023100
The Internet Archive versions have better scans of the color graphs:
Graph of London and Northwestern, https://archive.org/details/minutesofproceed25inst/page/n415/mode/1up
An example of the data he used is the table of maintenance per mile in 6-month periods: https://archive.org/details/minutesofproceed25inst/page/n435/mode/1up
R. Price Williams. (1870). The maintenance and renewal of railway rolling stock … with an abstract of the discussion upon the paper. London: Printed by W. Clowes and sons.
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015021046944
Institution of Civil Engineers (Great Britain). Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. London: Institution of Civil Engineers Vol 30
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxgrl9
Williams covered by The Railway News, Vol 16, pg 590, Oct 28, 1871
Williams recognized as authority on railway valuation in Australia in 1889 in Engineering magazine:
Williams on Railway Rates and Terminal Charges
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2979829?seq=1
Williams on Telegraph Tariffs
Brief, R. P. (1984). Depreciation and capital maintenance. New York: Garland Pub.
Matheson, E. (1884). The depreciation of factories and their valuation. London: E. & F.N. Spon.
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b38117
Kealy, Philip J., Engineering-contracting. New York: M.C. Clark, 1906-1911. Vol 34, No. 13. pg 274. New York, 1910
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxhiba
References and further reading
Marx, Karl “Capital: A Critique of Political Economy” Penguin Classics London 1992, http://digamo.free.fr/penguin2.pdf
Marx cited Larder: on p. 250, 251, 258, 259, and 260. Marx cited Williams on p. 249 and 259.
“Railway economy; a treatise on the new art of transport” Dionysius Lardner 1850
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiuo.ark:/13960/t5cc10k7r
“Railway Property: a Treatise on Construction and Management” by Jervis, 1861
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo1.ark:/13960/t42r4dq3f
https://www.asce.org/templates/person-bio-detail.aspx?id=11178
R. Price Williams, “On the Maintenance and Renewal of Permanent Way”, Minutes of Proceedings, Institution of Civil Engineers, Vol XXV, 1866, Ed. James Forrest, London 1866
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044092023100
The Internet Archive versions have better scans of the color graphs:
Graph of London and Northwestern, https://archive.org/details/minutesofproceed25inst/page/n415/mode/1up
An example of the data he used is the table of maintenance per mile in 6-month periods: https://archive.org/details/minutesofproceed25inst/page/n435/mode/1up
R. Price Williams. (1870). The maintenance and renewal of railway rolling stock … with an abstract of the discussion upon the paper. London: Printed by W. Clowes and sons.
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015021046944
Institution of Civil Engineers (Great Britain). Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers. London: Institution of Civil Engineers Vol 30
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxgrl9
Williams covered by The Railway News, Vol 16, pg 590, Oct 28, 1871
Williams recognized as authority on railway valuation in Australia in 1889 in Engineering magazine:
Williams on Railway Rates and Terminal Charges
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2979829?seq=1
Williams on Telegraph Tariffs
Brief, R. P. (1984). Depreciation and capital maintenance. New York: Garland Pub.
Matheson, E. (1884). The depreciation of factories and their valuation. London: E. & F.N. Spon.
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b38117
Kealy, Philip J., Engineering-contracting. New York: M.C. Clark, 1906-1911. Vol 34, No. 13. pg 274. New York, 1910
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxhiba
Obituary
Leave a Reply