English: For the engineering student, the aim has been to present, in a connected manner, the various operations that go to make up the laying out and building of a railway, and at the same time to give him an idea of those modifications which his abstract science must receive before it is fit to be applied to practice. There are many problems in practical engineering embracing so large a number of variable elements that it is simply impossible for science to solve them in a satisfactory manner. In such cases we may often, by accumulating a large amount of experience, deduce an empirical rule, which will answer every requirement ;and it is important that the student should be able both to accumulate and arrange the results of practice, and to draw therefrom rules for his own guidance.