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THE RAILWAY CONQUEST
OF THE WORLD

[Frontispiece

WHERE THE UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY STRIKES ACROSS SALT LAKE

The “cut off” across the water is 27 miles in length, of which 15 miles are represented by solid earth embankment.

CONQUESTS OF SCIENCE

THE
RAILWAY CONQUEST
OF THE WORLD

BY
FREDERICK A. TALBOT

AUTHOR OF
“THE NEW GARDEN OF CANADA,” “THE MAKING OF A GREAT CANADIAN RAILWAY,” &C.

ILLUSTRATED

PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN

Copyright London 1911 by William Heinemann

PREFACE

There is the unfathomable fascination of romance connected with the construction of great railways, though little is known of the beginning and the growth of the great trunk roads of the world; of the heavy tax which their construction imposed upon the ingenuity, skill and resource of their builders. Speeding along swiftly in a luxurious Pullman car over a road-bed as smooth as an asphalt pavement conveys no impression of the perils and dangers faced or of the infinite labour expended in the making of that steel highway. To-day the earth is girdled with some 700,000 miles of railways, and there are few countries in which the locomotive has not made its appearance.

This volume has been written with the express purpose of telling in a popular manner this story of romance. It is obviously impossible to deal with every great railway undertaking in the compass of a single volume; but those described may safely be considered representative, and they are the largest and most interesting enterprises between the two poles.

In the writing of this volume I have been assisted by innumerable friends who have been identified closely with the introduction of Stephenson’s invention into fresh fields of conquest. I am indebted especially to the following gentlemen: Messrs. Norman B. Dickson, M.INST.C.E.; A. M. Cleland, the Northern Pacific Railway Company; the late J. C. Meredith, chief engineer, the Florida East Coast Railway; A. L. Lawley; R. R. Gales, M.INST.C.E.; H. E. Gwyther, chief engineer, the Leopoldina Railway Company, Ltd.; Francis B. Clarke, president of the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway; William Hood, chief engineer, the Southern Pacific Company; F. A. Miller, the Chicago, Milwaukee and Puget Sound Railway; the I. R. Austrian Railway Ministry; W. Weston, the Denver, North-western and Pacific Railway Company; the Pennsylvania Steel Company; W. T. Robson, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company; the Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company, and Frederic Coleman of Darlington; the Swiss Federal Railways; H. R. Charlton, the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada; the chief engineer, the New Zealand Government Railways; the Peruvian Corporation; the chief engineers of the New South Wales, South Australia and West Australia Government Railways; the Minister of Ways of Communication of the Russian Empire; the Trans-Andine Railway Company; the chief engineer, the Imperial Japanese Government Railways; J. J. Gywn, chief engineer, and S. K. Hooper, the Denver and Rio Grande Railway; G. J. Ray, chief engineer, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad; Virgil G. Bogue, vice-president and chief engineer, the Western Pacific Railway Company; and S. J. Ellison of the Great Northern Railway, U.S.A.

Frederick A. Talbot.

Hove,
September 29, 1911.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I
THE RAILWAY SURVEYOR’S ADVENTUROUS LIFE

“One’s experience is varied from camping out in tents at fifty degrees below zero, to spending a large amount of time in the wilderness, when provisions are very short and one has to depend upon fish for food.”

This was the description of the task of discovering a path for the iron road through a new country, as related to me by the late John E. Schwitzer, one of the most brilliant railway engineers that Canada has produced, and one who had climbed the ladder of success from the humble capacity of rodman at a few shillings per week, to the position of chief engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway, within the short space of twenty-two years. From his unique experience he was fitted to speak with authority, and his statement sums up the life of a surveyor in a nutshell.

So far as the loneliness and the need to fish for food are concerned I can speak from experience. This article of diet is plentiful, but its monotony palls very quickly, while at times one longs for the excitement of the city. But once this feeling has been lived down one would not exchange the virgin country, with its invigorating air and life of exciting adventure, for a smoke-begrimed stifling centre of activity for any consideration.

In Great Britain, owing to its completely settled condition, the difficulties incidental to this class of work do not exist. The wrestles with heat, sun-baked desert, ice-bound forest and extreme cold have never been experienced in connection with the driving forward of the ribbon of steel in these islands. There is an utter lack of that thrilling romantic interest and adventure associated with similar work in an unknown country, where the surveyor is not merely a surveyor, but an explorer as well. In any of the four continents beyond Europe he fulfils an important mission. He is the advance-guard of civilisation. He spies out the country for the greatest settling force that has yet been devised, and although the work more often than not is extremely perilous, he revels in the dangers. One must be prepared to face any emergency: be ready to fulfil any duty. One may be buried for months amidst the strongholds of ice-capped mountains, isolated upon the sweltering desolate expanses of broiling deserts, imprisoned in the hearts of yawning ravines, or immersed amid reeking dismal swamps, cut off by hundreds of miles from the nearest town or settlement. Then Nature is the surveyor’s sole companion, and in her silent company herculean and heroic tasks often have to be fulfilled, of which the world at large never gleans an inkling.

The surveyor is the personification of happy-go-luckiness. He pursues his path doggedly, laughs at obstacles, no matter how forbidding they may be, and accomplishes glorious deeds unsung. Often his sudden death through accident, disease or misadventure goes unmourned beyond the limits of his own camp. Yet an everlasting and omnipotent monument to his memory is raised—the thin thread of steel which annihilates time and space.

These men show a devotion to their calling which it is impossible to fathom. They brave perils beyond conception and face death in a hundred different forms. It may be a slip on a treacherous foothold at the brink of a yawning gulch, the upset of a frail bark in a swiftly rushing rapid, a land- or rock-slide, an avalanche, or a tree snapping under the fury of the storm which hurries them to their doom. In silence they suffer the torments of thirst, the pangs of hunger, physical exhaustion, frostbite, snow-blindness, disease, the hostility of mankind and a thousand other dangers. When they have emerged from the ordeal they laugh at their experiences, and consider them no more fearsome than those confronting the ordinary city dweller as he walks along a crowded thoroughfare.

As one travels over the railway through Mexico, interest is aroused by four primitive little wooden crosses beside the track. It is a small God’s acre in an undulating expanse. The probability is that it would miss the eye unless one were bent on its discovery. Yet those four monuments tell a silent story of grim adventure. The Mexican Central was being driven through a hostile country, and the Indians were being forced back relentlessly by its influence. They were sullen but not subdued.

A little squad of four surveyors were busily engaged in pegging out the path for the line. They were deep in the intricacies of their task. Suddenly there was a savage blood-curdling whoop. A horde of Indians, in the full panoply of war-paint and feathers, were bearing down upon them on mischief bent. The engineers discarded their instruments hurriedly and grabbed their rifles. They were outnumbered hopelessly, but undaunted, they kept blazing away, picking off their foes with that stubbornness born of despair. There were no thoughts of surrender to the implacable enemy. Nor could they hope for aid; they were too far distant from their base. One by one they fell, and when at last their comrades came up, their mutilated corpses were the sole evidences of that forlorn struggle. To-day those four wooden crosses serve to recall that grim episode. Such dramatic incidents unfortunately were only too frequent in the early days of railway building upon the American continent, though they were far from being peculiar to the New World. They have been, and still are, repeated occasionally in connection with such enterprises in other parts of the globe.

It was only a year or two ago that one of the most ferocious acts of savage barbarity, such as is difficult to parallel in the annals of railway engineering, was perpetrated in South America. Only the fringe of that vast territory has been opened up by the iron horse. The greater part is more unknown to-day than the land around the North Pole.

A small party of engineers set off up country to map out a projected extension. They plunged boldly into the depths of the primeval forest. But they never returned. What happened when they disappeared within the tangled labyrinth of trees no one knows. The time slipped by, and their comrades outside, fretting at their prolonged absence, grew so alarmed that a relief party was organised. The worst was dreaded, for the hostility of the natives to the locomotive was known only too well. The relief party advanced warily, weapons in hand, ready for the slightest sign of fight. However, they were safe from molestation, but had not ventured far into the tangled jungle before they solved the mystery, and were able to reconstruct a tragic adventure only too realistically.

The steps of the surveying engineers had been dogged silently and relentlessly by the remorseless savages. When the former had gained a point sufficiently remote from the belt of civilisation, they were laid low by poisoned arrows. The relief-party accounted for every engineer, but one and all were beyond human succour. They were found in a gruesome row, poised upside down, with stakes driven lengthwise through their bodies and heads into the ground. They had been pinned down with no more compunction than the school-boy secures his etymological prize to a piece of cardboard.

A few years ago British North Borneo was the scene of a similar disaster. It had been decided to drive a railway from coast to coast, and a party set out on the reconnaissance, as the first step in a new railway undertaking is called. The path lay through the dense forest which had never been penetrated by the white man, and where the dreaded Head Hunters held undisputed sway. The prospect was forbidding in the extreme, but it did not dismay the engineers who plunged fearlessly into the bush. As the crow flies their journey was only one of some 150 miles, but the thick vegetation concealed difficulties innumerable.

That survey was doomed to failure. The party was overwhelmed by the Dyaks and massacred, with the exception of three native porters who succeeded in making good their escape. After experiencing terrible privations, this trio regained civilisation and communicated the sad tidings of the calamity. For years that stretch of forest defied conquest. Finally another attempt was made to traverse the jungle, and on this occasion no interference to progress was offered. The surveyors gained the opposite coast in about six months, being called upon to fight only one enemy—disease. It was a desperate plunge, for the party had to hack and hew its way foot by foot through the matted scrub and trees.

These afford instances of the hostility of mankind which fortunately to-day are encountered but seldom. It is the hostility of Nature which is feared more greatly now. Yet the work possesses a fascinating glamour. The existence of difficulty only spurs the determined to further effort.

Railway surveying in the effort to roll back the map in a new country offers the young man all the adventure in life that can be desired. As one surveyor who had spent more years than he could remember in the wilds between China and Peru remarked to me, “If it is not the natural difficulties or the hostility of the natives which lend variety to the work, the chances are a hundred to one that a revolution will fill the gap, especially in China or the South Americas.”

At times the work is exasperating. Perhaps the surveyor who has been imprisoned for months on end in an inhospitable country has been driven to his wits’ end to find a practicable location which is immune from the many disturbances of Nature. By dint of supreme effort finally he discovers a route which he congratulates himself to be absolutely safe, only to receive a rude awakening. In the survey of a new line through the Rockies, the mountains barring the engineer’s path had achieved an unenviable reputation, owing to the frequency and severity of the avalanches that tore down their steep slopes every spring. The surveyor reconnoitred that mountain chain from end to end, observed every path that the slides had been known to take, searched local records and questioned aged inhabitants to make himself acquainted thoroughly with the conditions.

At last he concluded that he had elaborated a path for the railway which was beyond the destructive efforts of the periodical visitations and work was commenced. Yet in the first spring, while the construction train was crawling along with a load of excavated spoil from the mountain-side, the slipping snow departed from its accustomed path, and in its descent caught the unlucky train, threw it into the gulch some distance below, ripped up the metals, buried the grade beneath thousands of tons of debris, and obliterated every vestige of the work.

The surveyor must be a man not to be daunted very easily in his enterprise, not to be cast down by heart-breaking failures, and who has the capacity to gather tangible assistance from apparently insignificant trifles. The search for a rift through a frowning mountain wall often is galling in its hopelessness. When the first Canadian trans-continental line was being forced towards the Pacific coast, the crossing of the Rocky, Selkirk and Gold ranges puzzled the surveyors acutely. Walter Moberly, a surveyor to the manner born, was deputed to complete the conquest of the Gold or Columbia Range. The obvious path to follow was along the bank of the mighty Columbia River, and this was taken by Moberly. Yet the Gold Range had to be threaded somewhere and somehow, though it appeared to defy penetration. He spent months wandering up and down the river, enduring hardships indescribable, seeking for the slightest breach through that terrible wall, wide enough to carry a pair of metals, but no gateway could he find.

BUILDING THE LOFTIEST BRIDGE IN THE WORLD

The Fades Viaduct spanning the Sioule River in France, 1,526 feet long. The two masonry towers are each 304 feet in height. The central span, 472 feet in length, was built out from each tower. The railway line in the centre of the bridge is 440 feet above the river.

Weary and sick at heart at the fruitlessness of his endeavours, he was one day returning despondently to camp. He was compelled well-nigh to admit failure. Suddenly he espied an eagle wheeling over his head. He followed its movements somewhat nonchalantly, until he saw it make directly for the Columbia mountains. Then his heart gave a thump! Would the bird rise and clear their lofty summits or would it sweep through a rift? Following its flight through the air, he saw the bird give a majestic dip downwards towards the chain. He turned the head of his jaded horse, and digging his spurs into its flanks, sped in the wake of the bird. Onward it flew as straight as an arrow towards a projecting crest, where it made a sharp turn and was lost to sight.

DRIVING A CUTTING 100 FEET DEEP BY THE AID OF DYNAMITE AND STEAM SHOVELS THROUGH SLATE ON THE DELAWARE, LACKAWANNA AND WESTERN RAILWAY, U.S.A.

Moberly galloped madly forward with his eyes glued to that crag. He never turned his head, fearing his sight might play him false, and was oblivious to stumbles and lurches as his steed fell over logs and slipped among boulders in its mad career. He swung round the crest, and there before his eyes the peaks were rolled back on either side, leaving a broad canyon, and of such a character that Nature appeared to have fashioned it expressly for the advance of the steel highway. The Columbia range was conquered. It was by pure accident that it had been found, but it was an accident which culminated a prolonged industrious quest. Indebted to his success to the monarch of the air Moberly christened the break in the rocky wall “Eagle Pass,” and it is through that gulch to-day that the Canadian Pacific makes its way to the western sea. As one sweeps between the massive ice-crowned teeth of the mountains one may see the site of the oldest cabin in the mountains, where the indefatigable Moberly passed the winter of 1871–2 completing the preliminary surveys for the line among the fastnesses of the Columbia Mountains.

The task of planning the location through such broken country is attended with the gravest dangers, relieved with exciting adventures. At places among the peaks a foothold on terra firma for the manipulation of the survey instruments is impossible. Then massive tree-logs are lowered into the gulch a few feet above the raging foam of a wicked mountain torrent, and along this slender staging the surveyor has to crawl to carry out his task.

Life often hangs upon the veritable thread. It may be that logs cannot be thrown over the cliff face. Then the surveyor has to don a leathern waist-belt fitted with a heavy swivel to which a rope is attached. In this way he is swung over the edge of a cliff to operate his level and transit along the face of a precipice where no foothold exists. Sometimes it becomes imperative to have recourse to dynamite to blast out a ledge along which to advance. Many a promising young engineer has gone to his last account in work of such a desperate character. In the survey of what is now the Denver and Rio Grande through one of Colorado’s yawning canyons, a young assistant had to be lowered in this manner. Half-a-dozen labourers grasped the end of the rope and steadied the surveyor in his descent over the perilous edge. From the brink to the bottom of the canyon was a matter of 200 feet or so straight down. In a few seconds the young fellow was dangling betwixt earth and sky, steadying his descent as best he could down the face of the cliff.

Suddenly there was a cry of alarm! The rope-man nearest the cliff edge noticed that the rope was bearing upon a piece of rock the edge of which was as keen as that of a razor. The rope had been sawn almost in two. Lowering stopped. The two men rushed forward to grasp the rope below the point of pending rupture to ease the strain. But they were too late. There was a slight tremor, the last strand snapped, and before the rope-men realised the situation as the end hung limply in their hands, the cry of the lost engineer as he tumbled through the air was echoed from the depths of the canyon.

Life in the field is indisputably hard and exacting, and the task is often aggravated by the scarcity, or monotony, of the food. This condition of affairs, however, is incomparably better to-day than it was thirty years ago. The surveyors are tended more thoughtfully than they were then, and the perfection of food-preserving science has enabled a camp now to be provisioned with tasty comestibles which formerly were unknown. Pork, beans and bannock—a substitute for bread made from flour and bacon fat with a little baking-powder—constituted the staple articles of diet, varied with fish from the streams, game from the forests and wild fruits. The bread was often musty, for immersion time after time in a torrent and storage upon damp ground did not improve the flavour of the flour by any means. The pork or bacon often was rancid, while the cook was invariably an execrable exponent of the culinary art, and his bannock played sad havoc with the digestive organs of the human body. Little wonder that the men, under such conditions, sought to secure additions to the menu from the rivers by methods decidedly unsportsmanlike, but the “end justified the means”; or delighted in bear steaks and venison.

Extreme altitudes such as have to be attained in order to cross the Andes undermine the strongest constitutions and render the surveyor’s work increasingly difficult. Struggling, crawling and slipping among crags and loose rocks inflicting cuts and bruises is arduous work indeed, but when the human frame is racked by the tortures of sorochté, or mountain sickness, the surveyor’s plight is to be pitied in very truth. In such climes the cold and winds are pitiless, the movements of the thermometer between midnight and noon are enormous, the fluctuation in some cases being as much as a hundred degrees in the course of twelve hours. In the middle of the day the heat is well-nigh unbearable, and the surveyor gladly discards his outer clothing. At night he finds it no simple matter to keep warm, for the mercury descends to a very low level and frost prevails. The winds too are so cutting and penetrating that it requires elaborate and special clothing after dark to keep warm.

Now and again a situation develops which relieves the monotony of the daily round of struggle against the forces of Nature. South America is pre-eminently the home of these humorous incidents. The concession for the construction of a railway through one of the tropical republics had been granted, and no time was lost in pushing forward with the preliminary surveys. But when the men with the transit and level reached a certain city they were surprised to meet with unveiled opposition. The municipal authorities point-blankly refused to permit the surveyors to carry out their work in the precincts of the city. Seeing that the latter was to benefit mostly from the steel link, the attitude was somewhat inexplicable at first sight. A little reflection, however, upon the South American methods of transacting business convinced the surveyor that bribery was the root of the trouble. He reported the interruption to his superiors, whose representatives hurried to the city to fathom the reason for the unexpected opposition. It was as the surveyor had surmised. The civic authorities would permit the iron horse to enter the city if the concessionaries would make a handsome contribution to the municipal improvement fund—explained the mayor. “Well, how much do you want?” remarked the concessionaries, who inwardly had not overlooked this contingency. The mayor could not say off-hand, and accordingly several delays occurred until this vital consideration was arranged. As a result of the prolonged parleys the concessionaries undertook to deliver a certain sum of money to the city.

The bullion was dispatched forthwith and reached the city the night before payment was due, so as to prevent the authorities to withdraw from the bargain on the plea that the concessionaries were dilatory. But law and order were not enforced very strongly, and the surveyor, with his companions, entertained certain qualms. Accordingly they decided to mount guard over the building in which they were passing the night in case of eventualities, at the same time securing a goodly supply of arms and ammunition.

As the first streaks of dawn lighted the scene the guard thought he descried the forms of men creeping along the ground in the gloom. Silently he roused his companions, and with firearms cocked they waited developments. Not a sign of movement was displayed among the inmates, and the robbers silently forced an entrance through the windows and door. Once inside the building they were greeted with a warm fusillade of lead, and in accordance with the characteristics of their ilk, they did not stop to reply, but beat as hurried retreat as they could under the assistance of bullets, leaving some of their number hors de combat. When day broke the besieged party examined the fruits of their marksmanship, and to their intense surprise discovered that the dead included the mayor of the city, and one or two of his companions who had carried out the negotiations for the contribution to the improvement fund, and who had been so remarkably solicitous concerning the city’s welfare!

It will be realised that the surveyor who undertakes the plotting of the line through a new country must be a man of illimitable resource and capacity, and at the same time ready to meet any development. It must be confessed, however, that the work, from its adventurous aspect, appeals strongly to the young engineer anxious to get away from monotonous routine.

CHAPTER II
THE ROMANCE OF CONSTRUCTION

Though the task of deciding the path for the railway teems with excitement, adventure and privation, the battle with Nature commences in grim earnest when the constructional engineer arrives on the scene. On paper it seems a simple task to follow the location as indicated by an unbroken row of wooden stakes, but to carry the surveyors’ work to completion, and to comply with requirements as to grades and curves, often proves a heart-rending undertaking. No matter how formidable any obstruction may appear, it is the work of the builder to beat it down; to overcome it by some means or other with the minimum of expense. He must be baulked by nothing.

Such a task demands a man of illimitable resource and infinite ingenuity, conversant with every phase of civil engineering. At the same time he must possess the happy faculty of being able to organise great armies of men of all nationalities, and in such a manner that he can get the utmost out of them. This is a searching difficulty. The camp of to-day upon a large railway undertaking is a heterogeneous mass of humanity; the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel could not have been more embarrassing. I have lived among the camps of Canada and the United States, and among a hundred men it has been no uncommon circumstance to find representatives of a dozen different tongues. The control of such men is rendered all the more complex for the reason that in the majority of cases they have little or no knowledge of any language but their own. It is not until they have been in one another’s company for several weeks that inter-conversation becomes possible. In addition to this drawback there are always the peculiar troubles incidental to racial and religious prejudices confronting the commander-in-chief, and at times he is hard pressed to preserve order and authority.

This trouble is not experienced to any great degree in connection with railway building operations in Great Britain, but abroad the initial difficulties of this character are exasperating to a superlative degree, more especially where reliance has to be made upon native labour. The workmen have to be educated into the use of labour- and time-saving implements. This is no easy matter. The native entertains strong opinions concerning his own ability, and the conversion from the primitive to the up-to-date scientific has to be effected gradually and unconsciously, a task which demands considerable tact and patience. A great amount of time must be expended necessarily in the early days to drill such raw material, but perseverance and an equable temper are the only virtues. In Mexico the railway pioneers found it almost hopeless to impress upon the pæons, as the navvies are called, that to carry ballast in a basket slung upon the back was not to be compared in speed and efficiency with conveyance by small trucks pushed along a tramroad. It was only by carrying out the work themselves in this more modern manner that the engineers could teach them the superior advantage of this method, with its sparing of effort and fatigue. In fact, the only way one can convert the raw native to ideas entirely foreign to his own custom is to show him how he can save himself trouble. Then he will adopt the idea with alacrity.

Now and again, however, the white man, despite his ingenuity in the devising of time-and labour-saving appliances, has to bow to the inevitable. For instance, in India the Hindoos toil at such a low daily wage that in many phases of work the wonders of mechanical invention cannot compare with their crude efforts in cheapness. It comes as a heavy blow to the engineer’s pride to realise that he must abandon his elaborate plant and that the native holds the balance between failure and success.

Again, in the South Americas the laissez-faire attitude of the inhabitants galls him to the quick. In the southern part of the New World the policy is “Never do to-day what can be done to-morrow,” and the native acts up to the very letter of the aphorism. Religious festivals, each of which is regarded as a holiday, occur with the most tantalizing frequency. It is no uncommon circumstance for two or three such orgies—they scarcely can be described as anything else—to occur in a week, and the labourer is a commendable zealot in the observance of the religious feasts. The engineer may fret and fume at the delay, but unless he is in a position to recruit outside labour he must tolerate the frequent interruptions in the work with the best grace he can muster. In the mountainous regions of South America the native knows only too well that he holds an unassailable advantage, for he is accustomed to the rarefied atmosphere encountered in the extreme altitudes, whereas it plays sad havoc with the strongest constitutions of Europeans.

Strange to say, one of the most conscientious workmen in railway building, as in other fields of industrial endeavour, is the Chinaman. From a cursory point of view this appears inexplicable, but it must be borne in mind that a Celestial’s word is his bond. Johnny will haggle and argue for hours over a bargain, but when he finally accepts the terms he will fulfil the contract to the letter, even should he ascertain before he has completed the task that it involves him in a personal loss. I have seen these men pick up their tools as the clock struck the hour for commencing the daily task, plod along quietly and continually until the hour of cessation, and give an indisputably good return for their daily wage. Can the same be said of the workmen of any other nationality? I am afraid not. In fact, the steadiness of the Chinaman has become so famous and has proved so reliable that it is safe to say that many of the biggest railways of the day never would have been completed but for his aid. It enabled the first trans-continental line to be carried across the United States to link New York with San Francisco; through Oriental labour the Canadian Pacific was consummated, and many another great undertaking of a like nature could tell a similar story.

The same spirit prevails when the scene of activity is removed to China itself. The Celestial may entertain quaint ideas concerning the iron road and its scope of utility. He may slave hard to-day laying the track, merely to pull it up again on the morrow on the plea that it is disturbing the spirits of his ancestors. But nevertheless he completes his part of the bargain in the first instance. Strikes are unknown and disputes never arise unless the employer declines to stand by his side of the contract. China is permeated through and through with secret societies or Guilds—Trade Unions, if you like—to one or other of which every Celestial belongs. The white engineer when he first arrives in the country finds it very difficult to make headway, but in reality he is on probation in the eyes of the Orientals. They are watching closely his methods, fathoming his code of honour, his capacity for handling men—in fact, are investigating him just as closely as if he were under a microscope. Once he has established his reputation and has inspired confidence, he need entertain no further apprehensions concerning trouble.

Yet the Celestials have their own peculiar and effective way of settling disputes among themselves. The engineer in need of a few thousand men negotiates for brawn and muscle through a middle-man or labour contractor. The engineer concludes his bargain with this worthy, and the latter makes his own terms with the men. He recruits the navvies at a certain wage, which he takes care to leave him a wide margin of profit. Occasionally he will be too grasping and will resort to sweating tactics. When the labourers find this out trouble looms ahead. The men report the matter to their Guilds, who take the avaricious middle-man in hand and make him disgorge some of his ill-gotten gains. If he refuses, well, one day the contractor is missing, and never is seen again by the engineer. No questions are asked and no explanations for his disappearance are offered. He has settled his account with the Guilds to his own personal disadvantage. The engineer, however, knows nothing about the dissatisfaction until he observes the absence of the contractor, for the work meantime continues its daily round undisturbed.

Although labour is a vital consideration, it is but one cog in the complex machine by means of which the iron road is driven forward through a new country. Without tools the efforts of the navvy would count for naught, and as time has rolled by inventive effort and engineering skill have contrived more and more wonderful devices to enable the epoch-making work to be fulfilled in the shortest space of time. There is the steam shovel, which will remove two and a half cubic yards of miscellaneous rubble with every swing of its ponderous arm; the grader, whereby the soil is ploughed up and displaced by an endless chain of buckets into capacious wagons for removal; the drag shovel, a huge scoop attached to the end of a chain which is pulled along the ground from a stationary point by steam power, becoming charged with material in its progress, and thus fashioning the cutting; the monitor, whereby tons of gravel are washed down the mountain-side under the disintegrating force of a powerful jet of water similar to a fireman’s hose; and a host of other wonderful implements, all devised for the express purpose of expediting the work in hand. Gunpowder and dynamite are invaluable handmaids, and to-day are used with an astonishing prodigality. Indeed, when the advance is through rock their services are indispensable. Crags, cliffs and even whole hills are blown away bodily by their agency, and the cost often runs into thousands of pounds, miniature volcanoes being produced by the upheavals.

A RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION CAMP AMONG THE MOUNTAINS

BUILDING A HIGH BANK ON THE DELAWARE, LACKAWANNA AND WESTERN RAILWAY, U.S.A., BY MODERN METHODS

An overhead cableway was stretched across the depression, from which a swinging line was suspended, and on which the trucks were backed to be emptied.

Those who have travelled over many remarkable railway systems in various parts of the world where striking evidences of the engineer’s skill are apparent upon a liberal scale, have pointed to the absence of any such evidences of activity in these islands—“The Home of the Railway.” But this to a certain degree is inevitable. The engineer was not faced with such physical conditions when he essayed to gridiron this country as confronted him in the Americas or Asia. There are no towering ranges of eternally snow-wreathed mountains to overcome, no wildly boiling wide rivers to span, no yawning canyons to thread or stretches of sterile desert to traverse. Yet when Stephenson and his contemporaries sought to achieve the railway conquest of Great Britain they encountered many obstacles which to them, with their crude appliances, were every whit as stupendous as those which rear up before the engineer to-day, although he is equipped with an extensive assortment of heavy artillery to assist him in his contest against the forces of Nature. Moreover, some of the expedients which Stephenson evolved to overcome a difficult situation are practised to-day merely because the intervening eighty years have not provided any better solution of a problem of a similar character.

THE HUGE STEAM SHOVEL WHICH TAKES SOME 3 TONS OF SPOIL WITH EVERY BITE

THE DRAG-LINE SHOVEL WHICH SCOOPS UP THE EARTH IN THE CUTTING AS IT IS PULLED ALONG

THE RAILWAY BUILDERS’ HEAVY ARTILLERY

Every one has read how Stephenson was for a time nonplussed by the treacherous bog Chat Moss, across which now speed the expresses of the London & North-Western railway. It is the largest stretch of swamp in the country, and many wiseacres prophesied that there Stephenson would meet his Waterloo when he essayed to carry the Manchester & Liverpool railway over its unstable surface. Yet Stephenson plodded along unconcerned and achieved success in a novel manner. He laid branches of trees and hedge cuttings upon the surface of the bog, and upon the softest patches pressed hurdles intertwined with heather into service. Upon this network he laid a layer of rock and gravel, which caused the foundation to sink somewhat into the morass. This formed the permanent way, and its peculiar character provoked more than one scornful criticism. But its stability confounded the critics.

To-day in foreign countries where huge stretches of swamp bar the progress of the iron road the self-same principle is adopted, and it is known as “corduroying” or “cross-waying.” In the northern States, Canada and Siberia—the latter country and Canada especially—the “muskeg,” or “tundra,” as this treacherous land is called, often stretches for miles. One can sound it sedulously to a great depth, and then will fail to touch the bottom. The soddened decayed vegetable matter merely fills a large depression which cannot be drained. The builders waste no time attempting to build up a solid earthen embankment resting on the submerged solid floor of the bog. They fashion a huge mattress of trees. Large trunks are laid horizontally and longitudinally to the track. Upon these are laid transversely two or three layers of shorter logs, the whole being secured together firmly. A topmost layer of branches forming a kind of thatching completes the structure.

At times these mattresses assume respectable proportions. I have stood beside some almost as thick as a man is tall, and they constituted quite formidable pieces of work. When the corduroy is completed a layer of rock is applied, and upon this is dumped the gravel and other material forming the embankment. Under the weight thus superimposed the mattress sinks deeply into the morass and rests firmly. The earthen ridge is continued to the requisite height; the whole of the embankment for the track rests upon the fabrication of tree-trunks. Yet the whole is just as solid as if resting upon granite. One might remark that it appears an indifferent foundation upon which to pile up a mass of earth weighing several hundred tons, and that in a short time the wood, under decomposition and collapse, would precipitate a subsidence. But as a matter of fact, the corduroy grows stronger with every passing day. The wood immersed in the viscous liquid and preserved from all contact with the atmosphere becomes waterlogged, until at last it assumes the character of bog-oak and is practically indestructible.

Stephenson was called upon to cope with another critical situation upon the same railway. The great tunnel at Kilsby was in course of construction, but work had not proceeded very far when the contractors struck a large pocket of water and quicksand. They combated this adversary for several months, and then, unable to make any appreciable headway, threw up the contract. Efforts were made to induce other firms to accept the task, but in vain. At last Stephenson was called upon to rescue the undertaking from failure. The outlook was far from promising, for the shaft was being sunk through material which the engineer always regards askance—a shale—while the fault in which reposed a large volume of water and sand was of large proportions. Stephenson concluded that the best way to cope with the problem was to pump out the water first, and accordingly he rigged up an elaborate plant capable of handling 1,800 gallons per minute, and this was kept going day and night. Even then, however, it was only by superhuman effort that the water was kept down. One day after Stephenson had been on the scene about six months, the water got the upper hand and flooded the tunnel to such a depth that the men and materials had to be floated in on rafts.

This undertaking, however, served to demonstrate to those anxious to participate in railway-building speculations how estimated expenses for definite work might be sent astray seriously, and how formidable and ubiquitous was the unexpected factor in such work. The original contractor offered to complete the burrow, 7,169 feet in length, under the Kilsby Ridge for some £90,000. By the time the last brick of the lining had been laid and the tunnel was ready for use over £300,000 had been expended.

The attempt to pierce this tunnel at that time, however, was a far more difficult enterprise than it would be to-day. The engineers had not the powerful marvellous appliances such as serve the contractor’s purposes now. Electric energy was unknown, the hydraulic shield for driving tunnels had yet to be invented, the steam shovel had not been thought of—in short, the contractor was handicapped on every side by the crude character of his tools. Some of these appliances which the modern railway-builder uses are little short of wonderful, both in time- and labour-saving qualities, and the majority have been born of necessity.

For instance, in the early railway days on the American continent too much time would have been occupied in building lofty earthen embankments among the mountains. Accordingly the rifts and gullies were spanned by timber trestles. But the woodwork was perishable, and there was always the risk of fire demolishing the structure and precipitating disaster to a passing train. The obvious remedy was to replace the wood by metal, but the expense was a deterrent factor.

One day a workman on one of the mountain sections suggested that the woodwork should be left intact, but buried beneath a mass of earth. The suggestion was received with ridicule because, as the divisional engineer pointed out, several thousand men and several hundred trucks and dozens of locomotives would be required to handle the material, while the time the task would occupy was incalculable. The workman listened to the criticisms, and then interposed with the quiet comment that he did not suggest using any trains and trucks, and that a few dozen men would be ample to complete the work. The divisional engineer was somewhat astonished, and at first thought the man had taken leave of his senses. Then the workman revealed his intentions. He would not resort to steam shovels or any other device of that character. He had observed minutely and tested the power of a jet of water, and consequently had conceived an idea to wash down masses of gravel by means of very powerful jets of water. There was no need even to rig up a steam engine and pump to supply the requisite force to the water flying from the nozzle. High up on the mountain-side was a creek. A dam could be thrown across this torrent at little cost, and the pent-up water could be led down to the working site below through piping, and the pressure thus secured by gravitation would be more than ample for the purpose. The gravel as washed out of the hillside would be directed into wooden conduits and led to points around the trestles, where it would be discharged to build up the embankment.

It was a simple means of overcoming a perplexing difficulty. The divisional engineer was so impressed with its feasibility that he secured the requisite permission for the workman to put his suggestion into practical form. The creek was dammed by throwing trees from bank to bank, and from the little pond thus formed the water was led several hundred feet down the mountain-side through pipes to the large nozzles. A small network of timber conduits were fashioned to convey the displaced gravel to the feet of the timber trestle.

In a short time work was commenced, and as the jets of water struck against the solid face of the mountain, the soft earth and gravel were washed out at tremendous speed. Heavy streams of mud poured down the conduits. The hill disappeared like magic under the scouring action of the harnessed water, to reappear in a symmetrically-shaped ridge around the woodwork, which grew rapidly in height until the level of the railway was gained. The embankment thus formed was found to be as solid and stable as if built by dumping, and the whole task was accomplished in a few weeks. While the work was in progress the chief engineer and his lieutenant visited the spot and watched the building of the embankment by hydraulic sluicing with intense interest. Its complete success in this initial experiment secured its adoption, and in a short space of time, where the conditions permitted, all the trestles among the mountains were buried beneath a ridge of earth built up by a jet of water.

While I was being shown some of the most impressive pieces of railway engineering among the Cascades, my cicerone, an English engineer and railway-builder, after describing the features whereby the Great Northern railway is taken down to the coast, remarked, “I wonder what Brunel would have done among these mountains? I guess he would have revelled in the difficulties they offered.”

There is no doubt that the great engineer would have found the ascent of the steep slopes and the crossing of the great gulches an extensive field for the exercise of his genius. His work among the vales of Cornwall and along the rugged seashore of Wicklow, Ireland, indicate this fact only too plainly. In these two districts are to be found the nearest approaches to spectacular work that these islands can afford. True there are no wonderful loops and great terraces winding up and down mountain-sides, but there is the daring and lofty spanning of yawning valleys, and the driving of a narrow pathway along steep rocky slopes.

For something like half a century Brunel’s spidery timber viaducts of Cornwall constituted one of the sights of that county. The location, with its grades and curves, as carried through Cornwall, has been assailed by many critics, but it must be remembered that when Brunel penetrated the English Riviera, railway operation was very different from what it is to-day. Engines and train loads were light, while money was by no means plentiful. The engineer was compelled to achieve his object at the most moderate cost, but the very fact that he was hampered in this connection served to influence him in the accomplishment of monumental work. His timber viaducts were remarkable for the novel character of their design and their extent. In the course of sixty miles he had to span no less than thirty-four valleys in this manner, the aggregate length of the wooden structures being about four miles. The engineer adopted timber as a constructional material because it was cheaper than iron, and American oak was used extensively. Some were of great height, the St. Pinnock viaduct, for instance, carrying the train 153 feet above the bottom of the valley, while others attained great lengths, the Landore viaduct measuring 1,760 feet from end to end.

These evidences of Brunel’s work, however, are disappearing under the exigencies of to-day. Timber is being replaced by steel and granite to meet the increased weights and speeds of trains. The location through the county also is undergoing revision, the sharp curves introduced by Brunel being eased or eliminated, while the grades are being flattened. Consequently in a few years the name of Brunel in Cornwall will be naught but a memory. Fortunately other evidences of his handiwork abound on this system notably in the Saltash, Chepstow and Maidenhead bridges, as well as the Box and Foxwood tunnels.

In Ireland, however, a far more daring expression of his skill is offered. This is the stretch of line along the seashore between Bray and Wicklow, which now forms part of the Dublin & South-Eastern railway. This was the first stretch of iron road to be opened in the Emerald Isle, the original one and three-quarter miles being operated in the first instance by the system of atmospheric propulsion, whereby the train was hauled along the metals by suction.

When it was decided to connect Wicklow with Bray, the trying character of the country lying between the two points, and especially of Bray Head, demanded a masterhand to effect the location and to carry the building operations through to success. It was a matter of sixteen miles, but they proved perhaps the most trying sixteen miles of railway construction ever attempted in this country. It was stated that Bray Head would defy conquest, for it was approachable only through very rocky country, and it is quite possible that the gloomy outlook was responsible for tempting Brunel to achieve something bold and striking. There was no need to have carried the line in this direction, a fact which is realised to-day, for by making a detour inland an easier location could have been found, and the present generation would not have been called upon to pour out heavy sums of money to keep their line intact. Brunel’s vanity has cost the railway company several thousands of pounds since the line was opened. It is only by superhuman effort that the railway is not devoured by the sea, over £40,000, or $200,000, having been expended in defence works over this sixteen miles of line during a period of ten years alone.

Apart from this unsatisfactory feature the line is a constant source of anxiety. A little to the south of Bray is Bramstone tunnel and a wild ravine. This gulch attracted the engineer. Instead of avoiding it, he bridged it with a wooden viaduct 300 feet long by 75 feet high. Before it was quite completed it was destroyed in a single night, the demolished timbers being carried out to sea. A few years later, while a train was crossing, the engine left the metals and precipitated a sensational accident. Investigation revealed the fact that it was due to the action of the waves, which, battering against the piers of the viaduct, had so vibrated the structure as to throw the rails out of gauge.

Thereupon it was decided to abandon the viaduct and drive the line directly through the rocky promontory. The traveller still can see traces of the original route in the decaying approaches to the gap formerly conquered by a timber trestle.

Brack, photo]

THE PECOS VIADUCT ON THE “SUNSET” RAILWAY, THE HIGHEST STRUCTURE IN THE UNITED STATES, THE TRACK BEING 321 FEET ABOVE THE WATER BELOW

Still it was a grim fight with Nature for every foot of the way. A mere ledge suffices to carry the track, and this gallery is often at a level of seventy feet above the sea beneath. Here and there the line is enclosed by a roof recalling the snow-sheds of the Selkirks or Cascades, to protect the rails from stones bouncing down the cliffs. Curiously enough, the method in which Brunei drove his line along this forbidding wild shore recalls the staggering feats accomplished in the American mountains, and indeed a journey over this railway will provide a thrill in miniature such as results from a toil through the mountain backbone of the New World. The dislodgment of massive boulders and landslides are so frequent that flagmen have to be retained to keep a vigilant eye on the track and to warn passing trains. At places long walls have been erected high on the hillside to arrest the descent of the movements of loose rock on the one hand, while on the other the cliff face has been cut into terraces to break the force of the waves, and together with retaining walls and groynes, seek to counteract the insidious erosion of the sea.

THE TRACK LAYER, WHEREBY THE METALS ARE LAID AT A SPEED OF 3 OR 4 MILES A DAY, CROSSING A HEAVY TIMBER TRESTLE

When Bray Head has been passed the physical character of the country changes with startling suddenness from jagged rock to clay. Here the engineer was brought to fierce grips with his adversary. The clay is honeycombed on all sides with springs, and there is a constant war between the engineer and Nature for supremacy. Building the line was exacting indeed, but the puzzles which had to be unravelled then are equalled by those attending the preservation of the road. The battle was waged relentlessly for some years, but the sea won; the engineers were compelled to re-lay their track some distance inland.

The shareholders in the railway are paying dearly for Brunel’s colossal error. Indeed, it is a poor return for an outlay of over £400,000, or $2,000,000, which were sunk in this sixteen miles of line. It may be wonderful engineering, but it is not business. The railway company are anxious to abandon this location and to rebuild the line along the route it should have followed in the first instance. At the present such a result is not financially possible, but its realisation is merely a question of time.

One inspiriting phase of the railway-builder’s work is the race against time, and in the fulfilment of such a task many an astonishing performance has been achieved. When one of the great American railways was pushing its way to the Pacific coast, it required a tunnel to be driven for two miles through the Cascades. It was a daring piece of work, and the railway company, after considering the scheme, decided that it could be accomplished cheaper and more quickly under contract than by direct labour. Upon the advice of their surveyors they set the time for its completion at twenty-eight months. Considering the remote situation of the work the feat was considered absolutely impracticable, and no recognised contractor could be prevailed upon to incur the risk.

The company, however, was convinced that some daring spirit existed who could, and would, fulfil their requirements, so they advertised for tenders. When these were perused it was found that one man was willing to meet the time-limit and at a price far below competitors. His bid was accepted. That man was Bennett, and he lost no time in setting his carefully-laid plans in motion.

He was over three thousand miles from the country in which the tunnel was to be driven, yet before the ink on the contract was dry he had wired to his assistant on the Pacific coast to hurry forward all requisite appliances, while he himself purchased an elaborate plant of the most modern type to be shipped to the railway point nearest the site. From this station he had to transport every ounce of material for a distance of eighty-two miles through the roughest and most broken mountainous country it is possible to conceive.

There was no road, so he had to blaze one through the deadfall and littered rock, fording creeks and streams and toiling through viscous mud. The wagons sank above the axles, and had to be hauled through the muskeg by block and tackle. In this way, by sheer physical effort, he gained the mountain which was to be pierced. It took him a solid six months to get his forces and artillery to the spot, leaving him scarcely twenty-two months in which to hew the passage through the solid rock.

So pressing was time that he never permitted an hour’s cessation day or night. An agent on the coast recruited men by the score and dispatched them up country in large corps. As they arrived they were divided into six-hour shifts on either side of the mountain, and in this way toil was continued unbrokenly throughout the whole twenty-four hours. When he had settled down to work in grim earnest wages were absorbing money at the rate of nearly £2,000, or $10,000, per week.

Preliminary to embarking upon the contract he had prepared careful calculations showing him how much rock it was requisite to remove every day to effect completion in time, and he made up his mind to hold to this table by hook or by crook. A tunnel face is not a spot where much leeway can be made up, for only a certain number of men can be crowded upon its limited area. But he met this disadvantage by spurring the drillers to superhuman effort by the offer of an attractive bonus. In this way he was able to maintain the advance he had calculated per day until the heart of the mountain was gained, when owing to the extreme hardness of the rock the men could not help falling behind the scheduled progress. Now and again, however, when they encountered a softer stretch of material they were able to make up lost time.

The months sped by; the contracted time for completion loomed nearer and nearer. Determined not to be beaten, Bennett urged his drillers harder and harder, offering fancy wages for additional effort. The strain wore him almost to a skeleton; he scarcely slept, so haunted was he by the determination to fulfil his side of the bargain. Checking and rechecking of the finished work convinced him that the opposing parties could not be far apart in the heart of the Cascades.

One morning the men on one side paused momentarily in their drilling. They could hear the faint muffled chink, chink of drills. It was the party advancing from the west. With a loud cheer, answered by a ghostly sepulchral hurrah, both parties bent to their tasks with redoubled energy. Before long a gaping hole was revealed in the heading. The two forces had met—the tunnel was pierced. Without hesitation they set to widening the breach out to its appointed dimensions, and at last, with a sigh of relief, threw down their tools. The tunnel was finished practically, and there were seven days or so to spare.

In another instance a railway company required a bridge to be opened within a certain period. Its accomplishment on time meant the accretion of a large sum of money to the treasury, and accordingly a bounty of some £5,000, or $25,000, was offered to the firm building the bridge. The latter in turn offered a portion to the men responsible for the actual work. Under the incentive of this offer the riveters and erectors strove might and main. The odds were against them hopelessly, but general co-operation enabled the work to go forward with great speed. By maintaining this high pressure the huge fabric assumed its definite shape in quick time, and the last rivet was driven home with a resounding cheer a few minutes before the expiration of the stipulated time.

Yet railway construction has its farcical side, especially in America. Conflicting interests often clash, and then lively times ensue. In Canada it has been no unusual sight to see an existing railway rush a large gang of workmen to a point threatened with invasion by a rival. Their presence ostensibly is to improve the line in possession, but in reality the men are drafted there to thwart the competitive enterprise. This is the “fighting gang,” and it is rightly named, because the opposing forces often meet and a free fight results.

When these tactics are waged by opposing railway magnates the struggle is often bitter and long drawn out. It was so when J. J. Hill and Harriman came to close grips in Oregon. The former great railway-builder decided to carry a line down to the coast along the bank of the Columbia River. Harriman construed this act as an invasion of his preserves, and spared no effort to defeat the “Grand Old Railway-Builder of the West,” as J. J. Hill is called popularly. Directly Hill’s proposals became known, Harriman, to secure his legal status, revived a defunct project known as the “Wallula Pacific railway,” which had been incorporated so many years before, and yet had accomplished so little, as to be forgotten. Hill was coming down the north bank of the Columbia, and suddenly Harriman discovered that his moribund project was to follow the same course. The result was that two rival constructional forces appeared on the scene, one bent on building a line, and the other determined to prevent its realisation. A hail of rock rained from one camp to the other, and the grade was demolished as rapidly as fashioned. One day the Hill navvies were in possession, the next, through being outnumbered, they were driven out and the Harriman army held the position, only to evacuate it when the former reappeared with reinforcements. No blood was spilt, but it came perilously near it when a navvy on one side threw a piece of rock harder against an opposing workman than the latter appreciated. Injuries were numerous, and one day the aspect became so threatening that a pitched battle appeared certain. At times, however, the battle became Gilbertian. The rivals merely played catchball with pieces of rock, tossing the missiles at one another with considerable banter and amid a rain of jokes.

For eighteen months this state of affairs prevailed, and then the courts deciding against Harriman, he was forced to retire from the scene. Directly he did so, his gangs of navvies walked over to the opposite camp, because from their point of view Hill’s money was just as good as that of Harriman. It was immaterial to them for which side they worked, so long as they were paid for it. The result was that the two gangs which had been engaged in more or less deadly strife, now worked harmoniously side by side to carry the Hill line into Portland. Such tactics as these, however, come somewhat as an interlude to the grim tussle with Nature which is the railway-builder’s invariable lot.

CHAPTER III
THE BORING OF THE GOTTHARD TUNNEL

The little country of Switzerland, as is well known, is a tumbled mass of snow-clad mountain ranges. On the Italian frontier, however, this natural barrier becomes more rugged and defiant, some of the peaks towering 10,000 feet or higher into the clouds. For centuries this frontier chain so successfully walled in the Helvetians that they could not pass into Italy without making a wearisome detour. Travelling from one country to the other before George Stephenson demonstrated the possibilities of the steam engine running on rails, therefore, was a journey not to be lightly undertaken, for it occupied weeks. An effort to ease this situation was made so far back as the thirteenth century by the blazing of a footpath over the St. Gotthard, but it was a mere dangerous and dizzy trail. Little wonder, therefore, that it was not favoured by other than the more adventurous.

It was not until about a century ago that the first vehicle lumbered over this rugged hump. Then the demand for closer communication between the two countries prompted the ambitious Helvetians to embark upon a costly and momentous enterprise—the building of a postroad over the mountain. They cut a roadway 18½ feet wide, with an average grade of 10 per cent. to a height of 6,936 feet up the flanks of this snow-topped giant, with its deep rifts, rushing rivers, and faced the terrors of the avalanche. It is a striking piece of work, for at places the road clings, limpet-like, to perpendicular walls, describes sharp twists and turns sudden corners. Although the people could ill afford the expense of the undertaking, they carried it to completion, confident that untold benefit would accrue from its provision.

They were right in their surmise. That mountain road changed completely the direction of the stream of traffic flowing between Switzerland and Italy. The novelty of the route, the magnificent panoramas unfolded from every foot of its length, appealed to the tourist and traveller and they bravely essayed the “pass.” To-day that mountain road is trodden but seldom. It has fallen into desuetude; the railway has killed its utility.

So soon as the iron horse invaded the little country it was sought to carry it into Italy via the St. Gotthard; not over the mountain crest, but through its base. Every engineer nursed the ambition to overcome that frowning knot with the steel highway. For years brilliant minds lived, dreamt, and died obsessed with this one great idea. Even in 1846, when the first railway was opened from Baden to Zurich, preparations were made to carry the line onward through the mountain chain. To the Swiss people, boring through a mountain for nine miles or so appeared no more difficult than burrowing through a hillock for as many yards. It was only a question of time and expense.

An “Alpine tunnel fever” set in with terrible malignancy, and there was fierce rivalry and jealousy created between the various railway companies, cantons and towns as to who should have the honour of completing this remarkable link. Fortunately the Government itself preserved a cool head, turned a deaf ear to entreaties, refused concessions, and discouraged any possible hope of financial aid. The last-named factor proved the greatest stumbling-block, but there is no doubt that if the money could have been obtained for such an enterprise an attempt to tunnel the Alps would have been made in the ’fifties.

Though the ambition was scotched it was not killed by any means, for a few years later the same scheme was revived and more keenly discussed than ever. The French and Italian nations resuscitated the project by co-operating in the effort to pierce the Col de Fréjus, popularly known as the Mont Cenis tunnel. The first stroke of the pick-axe upon this momentous enterprise was made in August, 1857, and the two chief engineers, Grattoni and Sommeiller, pledged themselves to complete the task with the assistance of the French and Italian governments. In the face of the most terrible difficulties that could be conceived, equipped with tools which appear puny and futile in comparison with those used for such work to-day, they cut, blasted, and excavated their way through 7½ miles of dense rock. Boring from either end, the rock-hogs broke down the last wall of rock on Christmas Day, 1870, and in September of the following year a shorter and more direct route between the two countries was opened to traffic.

The progress of this tunnel was watched with the closest interest by the Helvetians. This piercing of an Alpine mountain was something new in railway engineering. The wiseacres croaked that it would never be completed; that Nature would spring some sudden surprise upon the engineers in the depths of the mountain which would arrest the whole enterprise. But as the two headings slowly but surely approached one another, and the engineers broke down their obstacles as they arose with commendable pluck and determination, the sceptics became silenced.

THE GÖSCHENEN ENTRANCE TO THE ST. GOTTHARD TUNNEL

Work was commenced at this point on June 4, 1872. The huge task was completed and the line opened for traffic on May 22, 1882.

The pride of the Swiss was wounded. If the French and Italians could accomplish such a herculean and apparently impossible task, why was a similar idea beyond their powers? The “conquest of the Alps” broke out with renewed vigour. It became more than a personal issue; it blossomed into one of economic, political and commercial importance. Consequently, before the Cenis Tunnel was opened for traffic, the preliminary arrangements for burrowing through the St. Gotthard had assumed concrete shape. But it had been a wearisome enterprise. The promoters had to battle against intrigue and jealousies innumerable on the part of private individuals, companies seeking for the same concession, towns and departmental governments. But the project became one of even more than national importance; it became an international question. The provision of such a route would bring northern Europe into closer touch with Italy and her ports on the Mediterranean. That fact was realised, and when the company incorporated to carry out the work announced that the task was far too risky for private resources, the governments of the countries most intimately interested in the fulfilment of the project promised tangible assistance in the form of substantial subventions.

THE WONDERFUL WASSEN LOOP ON THE ST. GOTTHARD RAILWAY, SHOWING THREE TIERS OF TRACK

The path of the tunnel through the heart of the mountain was plotted by Mr. M. O. Gelpke, C.E., and this in itself was a great achievement. Fifteen stations were scattered over the mountain slopes for the manipulation of the survey instruments, and many of these were situated unavoidably in positions very difficult, and often impossible, of access. Borings were made to ascertain the rock strata which would have to be pierced by Professor Fritsch of Frankfort, and from the result of these essential investigations it was computed that the work, including the necessary railway line on either side of the great tunnel, could be completed for a sum of £7,480,000, or $37,400,000. The money was raised by guarantees of £1,800,000 ($9,000,000) from Italy, £800,000 ($4,000,000) from both Germany and Switzerland, and by the issue of shares and mortgage bonds to the extent of £2,720,000, or $13,600,000. As a further contribution to the task, the Swiss Government undertook to supervise actual construction.

The financial arrangements completed, the company had to search for a man to bore the tunnel. For this purpose tenders were sought for the whole contract. The terms of the latter were severe, as were also the technical conditions. The tunnel was to carry a double track, to have a height of 19.68 feet to the crown of the arch, and a maximum width of 26.24 feet, with a minimum width of 24.93 feet. The tunnel was to be quite straight, with the exception of a slight curve at the southern end, where, for a distance of 474 feet from the entrance, a curve of 984 feet radius was to be introduced to gain Airolo station. The rise from the northern entrance was to be about 1 in 172 to the summit level 3,781 feet above the sea, followed by a drop of 1 in 1000 to the southern end. These gradients falling on either side from the centre were necessary for drainage, and were estimated to be just sufficient to ensure the water flowing to the portals.

Seven tenders were submitted for the enterprise, the lowest being that of L. Favre, a well-known engineer of Geneva, who had completed many notable railway works in Europe. He undertook to complete the tunnel for £2,000,000 ($10,000,000) within eight years. His nearest competitor, an Italian company, wanted twenty-five per cent. more, but would not guarantee completion within less than nine years. Monsieur Favre was supported by a body of influential capitalists, and the contract was awarded to him.

Having sanctioned the project, the Government was determined that it should be completed, and resolved that the engineer should be held to his self-appointed time limit. The penalty it stipulated was exacting. For every day over the ninth year Favre was to forfeit £200, or $1000, for six months, and then double that penalty per day until completion. A year was thus allowed over and above what he demanded to cope with any unforeseen contingencies that might arise during the progress of the task. Similarly, M. Favre was to receive a premium of £200, or $1000, a day for every day he was in advance of the stipulated period. His Italian competitor, while agreeable to the forfeit, stipulated that it should not be enforced until after the eleventh year, which terms the authorities refused to entertain. To ensure securing the forfeit money should the engineer be late, Favre was compelled to deposit a sum of £320,000 ($1,600,000) with the Government before a stone was moved.

No undertaking of such a magnitude as this tunnel, although protected adequately by severe restrictions, ever has been carried out in the face of so many vicissitudes; no engineer ever has been so harassed as was M. Favre. From the moment the tender was signed and sealed troubles commenced, some incidental to the task, others purposely thrown in his way by jealous outside interests. In the first place, the Government undertook, according to the terms of the contract, to have the approaches to the tunnel completed so that he could commence operations without delay. This was not done. Further opposition was then encountered from another and unexpected quarter, which assumed such proportions as to jeopardise the whole scheme. Italy, having contributed about a sixth of the cost, and who therefore had an important voice in the matter, demanded that half the work should be granted to the Italian engineers who had been engaged upon the Mont Cenis tunnel. This was a bitter question, and it took M. Favre two weary months to adjust it.

These hindrances at last settled satisfactorily, work was commenced on the northern side of the Alps at Göschenen on June 4, 1872, and at Airolo, the southern portal, on July 2 of the following year. The preliminary preparations were of a gigantic character. Though M. Favre had sublet the constructional contract for the tunnel itself, he was primarily responsible and nursed it as the engineer-in-chief. Huge plants had to be installed at either end for supplying the various demands for power for a thousand-and-one purposes. At the northern end water turbines were laid down, driven from the river Reuss, a head of water of 279 feet being available. At the Airolo end a similar installation was established and operated under a water head of 541 feet from the Tremola. Subsequently, it was found that this latter supply was inadequate. But M. Favre was a man of infinite resource. He promptly built a viaduct 12,000 feet in length, tapping the Tessin River, and thus overcame the water power difficulty. Small towns sprang up at either end around the respective portals to house the machinery, the workmen, and innumerable other details.

As tunnel-boring operations upon such a scale as this were in their infancy, this engineer-in-chief perforcedly had to break a great deal of new ground; to carry out considerable pioneer work. Hitherto, the usual tools at the service of the excavators were the pick-axe, shovel, chisel, and sledge-hammer; but such implements as these in a work of this magnitude were akin to forging a mighty crank shaft with a blacksmith’s hammer. New forces had to be created. The Mont Cenis had demonstrated this fact, and in the course of its realisation a new tool appeared. This was the mechanical percussion rock drill, operated by compressed air at a pressure of 112 pounds and upwards per square inch. To furnish the requisite energy to the tools elaborate air-compressing plants had to be laid down. These were designed by Professor Colladon, and they were capable of compressing 1,596 cubic yards of air to a pressure of eight atmospheres every minute, the power being stored in huge cylindrical reservoirs, not unlike mammoth steam boilers, from which the conduits extending to the working faces on either side were charged.

The scene in the tunnel was impressive in the extreme. At the working face a little gallery was bored, about eight feet wide by the same in height, at the roof of the tunnel. The drilling machines were mounted on travelling carriages, with their perforating chisels jutting ugly and business-like from the front. With the pent-up force of eight atmospheres behind them, they rapped against the solid rock and slowly but surely made a perforation. At frequent intervals there was a slight stop, the chisel point was withdrawn and a jet of water, drawn from a tender hauled up in the rear, was directed into the hole, when the chisel instantly resumed its monotonous round. At intervals, a chisel, with its cutting edge blunted from continual hammering at the iron-like mass, was taken out, thrown on one side, and another inserted in its place, to continue the attack on the rock. Progress was laboriously slow, or comparatively rapid, according to the nature of the material encountered. When the rock was of a granitic nature, then advance was only at the rate of an inch or two per hour; on the other hand, when soft, clayey material was tapped, then the chisels bored their way at the rate of as many feet in the same time.

THE COMPRESSED AIR LOCOMOTIVE WHICH HAULED WORKMEN AND ROCK BLASTED FROM THE MOUNTAIN IN THE CUTTING OF THE LOETSCHBERG TUNNEL

WHAT THE WORKING FACE IN THE HEART OF THE MOUNTAIN IS LIKE

The gang and drills cutting the path for the line through the Loetschberg Tunnel recently completed.

BORING A GREAT ALPINE TUNNEL

Photo by E. Goetz, Lucerne]

THE LOFTY AMSTEG BRIDGE, 184 FEET HIGH, SPANNING THE MADERAN VALLEY ON THE ST. GOTTHARD RAILWAY

Three men attended to each machine, and by means of levers and wheels the height of a drill could be adjusted to a nicety. Movement was difficult, for the space was cramped. In the murky gloom the outlines of the men could be faintly discerned. The fitful glimmer of the oil-lamp which each carried—electric lighting had still to be invented—fell upon their semi-nude bodies and swarthy faces. The streaming perspiration mingling with the grime and dust, which strayed over their skin in fantastic streaks, gave the men a fiendish appearance. The temperature was that of an oven. As the men drew nearer and nearer to the heart of old Gotthard, the heat rose until the men laboured in an atmosphere of 90° or more. The only sounds were those of the hammering of the drills as they bored into the rock, and the hissing of the escaping air after it had completed its allotted task in operating the chisels.

At long intervals there came a heavy silence. The holes had been bored to the requisite depth. The machine was drawn far back into the boring. Explosives were slipped into the holes and tamped home. From a safe distance the charges were fired. A dull, smothered roar, a rending and crumbling, and another gap was torn in the bowels of this monarch of the Alps. The excavators hurried forward, cleared away the tumbled debris, and brought the lumbering drill carriage up to the fresh working surface.

Day in and day out, week after week, month by month, this round continued. It was monotonous, and the work was hard. The stifling atmosphere and the conditions told severely on the physique of the workmen. Congestion of the brain, irregular action of the heart, anæmia, or one of numerous other obscure maladies, was the reward for their labour. Their faces assumed a deathly pallor; working in cramped positions gave them an unsightly stoop, and deprived their legs of movement, so they tottered rather than walked as they returned from the scene of their toil at the end of the shift.

The pay was wretched, ranging from half-a-crown to five shillings (from 60 to 125 cents) per day of eight hours, out of which they had to board themselves! Needless to say, but few Englishmen or western Europeans figured on the pay-roll, for none would accept such starvation pay for such terrible work. The labourers were Italians for the most part, and yet nearly one and all, by subsisting on miserable food, consisting for the most part of a kind of meal porridge, cheap and yet limited in quantity, saved a part of their earnings and sent it home to their needy families in sunny Italy. The average number of men employed was about 4000, half at either end, but at times it ran up to as high as 7000. The mountain claimed 310 lives, killed by accident alone, and 877 injured, before it was conquered; but, considering the conditions, it is remarkable that the casualty roll was not heavier.

In the wake of the small heading gallery came the other gangs. These rigged up the timber and other supports to the roof and excavated the small opening to the full dimensions of the tunnel. Last of all came the masons, setting the masonry lining, from 18 to 30 inches thick, in position, for the tunnel is lined throughout. In passing through the granite rock there was but little fear of a collapse of the roof, but in the treacherous clay advance had to be made warily, and heavy timbering resorted to, in order to prevent the soft soil caving in and burying all in its sticky embrace.

The material for the headings and lining, as well as the workmen and tools, were carried to and fro upon a small railway, the locomotives of which were driven by compressed air—steam was impracticable, because it would have fouled the workings; while on the short distance between the inner end of the railway and the working face haulage was done by horses. The privations suffered by the navvies was only equalled by those experienced by the animals, the mortality of which ran up to as high as twenty-five per cent. of the number employed.

Water was a constant menace, and at times retarded progress seriously. On the south side it was particularly troublesome. Time after time the drills or detonating charges would tap one of these subterranean streams, and the water would pour out in a cascade. These rivulets were of varying volume, but in one stretch, where the rock was extremely friable, it was considered too dangerous to use the mechanical drilling machine, so the men had to cut their way forward by hand. In so doing they released a vast underground pocket of water, which rushed out at the rate of over 3000 gallons per minute. At one spot it was only by superhuman effort that headway was made, for the men were half submerged in these torrential outbursts, escape from which was only possible by penetrating farther into the mountain.

In 1876 another terrible calamity overtook Louis Favre. It was discovered suddenly that the railway, far from costing the estimated sum, would approximate over £11,500,000, or $57,500,000. Somebody had blundered, and badly too. A deficit of over £4,000,000, or $20,000,000, appeared certain. What was to be done? The development of such a contingency never could have happened at a more inopportune moment. Times were hard; money was scarce; financial crashes loomed in every quarter of the Continent; and, to make matters worse, war was raging. Never in the history of engineering had such an extraordinary and unaccountable mistake been made in the estimates.

The discovery came as a thunderclap. The stock of the company ran down like a thermometer plunged into ice. Those who had supported the enterprise in the face of hostile criticism began to doubt the wisdom of their optimism. A gloom settled everywhere. It appeared as if the gigantic achievement would become numbered among the great unpaid; would be another contribution to those unfinished enterprises characterised as follies.

But Monsieur Favre kept going. There was the daily penalty staring him in the face if he did not finish within time. Any prolonged delay spelled ruin to him and to those who had financed his task. To make matters worse, the Swiss departments who had the most to gain from the completion of the railway steadfastly refused to extend the slightest assistance.

Matters reached a crisis. Either the money must be found, or that already spent must lie buried in the mountain. An International Conference was called to consider the situation, where, as prominent cities and railways who hoped to reap something from the completion of the tunnel promised support, Germany, Switzerland and Italy agreed to increase their subventions. Much of the projected work originally contemplated was postponed indefinitely in order to reduce the first cost.

This readjustment of the financial situation enabled work to be resumed energetically. But Favre was harassed sorely still. Payments for work became irregular, and every possible obstacle that could be placed in his way was forced to the front by intriguing opponents. Efforts were made even to create a rupture between him and the International Society, but Favre’s unflagging perseverance and determination resisted all such machinations, and he plodded along resolutely.

However, these worries and his feverish anxiety to succeed in his enterprise told upon his health. He never lived to see his great achievement completed. On July 19, 1879, while inspecting the progress of the work at the headings, he was seized with an apoplectic fit, to which he succumbed in a few hours. Literally in harness, this guiding spirit and clever engineer passed beyond the veil when the tunnel, the crowning effort of his life, was rapidly approaching completion.

His mantle fell upon his right-hand assistant, M. Hellwag, an accomplished German engineer, and he pushed forward the scheme with an energy characteristic of his late chief. But friction again rose. Swiss engineers were jealous of this appointment, and at last in sheer disgust the new engineer-in-chief threw up the work. He was hounded from his post, despite the fact that on another section of the railway he had overcome ingeniously the negotiation of sharp ascents within short distances, which otherwise appeared impossible, by the invention of a spiral tunnel, wherein the railway burrows into the mountain side, describes therein a complete circle, and emerges again immediately above the portal by which it entered.

On Saturday, the 27th of February, 1880, while the workmen on the Göschenen side were tearing the vitals out of the peak, they were surprised to find large masses of rock falling about their ears without any effort on their part. They stopped. The situation seemed uncanny. They listened intently, and then heard the familiar sound of a muffled roar, indicating blasting in the heading. The workmen on the Airolo side were upon them. Terrified lest the next concussion might bury them beneath a mass of rock, they hurriedly retreated and waited. Presently one espied the point of a chisel ploughing through the rock towards him. He grasped its extremity, but as quickly dropped it, for it was so hot that it burned his hand. Frantically these men rapped upon the last remaining wall of rock to inform their comrades on the other side that they were through. With lightning-like rapidity the news flashed through the Göschenen workings that the men from the Airolo side might be seen at any minute, and that the task of eight weary years was consummated practically.

As quickly the news flashed from Göschenen to the Airolo portal to cease work, since it was decided that the last blast tearing away the final thickness of rock should be the occasion of great jubilation. The whole country was excited. Officials hurried to the scene, and the countryside from far and near flocked to the two mouths of the tunnel. There was no sleep for any one in the constructional camps that Saturday night. The men were in a perfect state of frenzy. In the darkness the preparations for the culminating move were hurried forward. It was arranged that as the men on the Airolo heading had first pierced the last partition of rock, they should have the honour of blowing the gap which would afford access from one side of the mountain chain to the other through its base.

At seven o’clock on the Sunday morning a train started from each end laden with invited guests to witness the final operation. Amid many huzzas they disappeared into the dark, yawning mouths of the great bore. When each party reached the heading the machines were already at work. Only a foot of rock stood between those who had journeyed up from Airolo and the others who had travelled from Göschenen. The distinction of making the breach a thousand feet under the village of Andermatt nestling in the sunshine on the mountain slopes, and with the little lake of Sella 3000 feet above one’s head, was given to two Piedmontese workmen, Neccaraviglia and Chisso, who had toiled in the Cenis, and afterwards in the Gotthard, since its very commencement. The last charges were rammed home, and at 11.45 on the Sunday morning eight rumbling detonations heralded the piercing of St. Gotthard. Ere the smoke had cleared away the men sprang forward. There was the final breach, about three feet in diameter. Engineer Bossi sprang through the gap, and emotionally embraced his confrere on the other side, followed by his workmen, who shook hands with their comrades. It was a strange scene in the depths of the Alps, and the wild vivas of those assembled, to the memory of Louis Favre, reverberated weirdly down the shaft on either side.

The excavations of the works to the full dimensions and the lining up of the last section proceeded with great rapidity, and on May 22, 1882, amid great festivity, the tunnel was declared open. It had taken ten years to complete, but had Favre been left to his own devices, and had he not been exposed to financial harassing and intrigue, and had not his successor Hellwag been driven from his post, it would have been finished in the time the engineer contemplated. At that time Favre’s skill, pluck and unflagging devotion to his task were not appreciated, but recognition of his genius was afterwards extended by the erection of a monument to his memory at the Airolo entrance to the tunnel. It is safe to assert that it was due to his enterprise and grim determination in the face of adversity that the St. Gotthard tunnel became an accomplished fact, and resulted in the reduction of the journey between Northern Europe and Italy by thirty-six hours.

In addition to the tunnel, 172 miles of line had to be built to connect the Swiss with the Italian railway systems. From the body of this frowning clump 31,800,000 cubic feet of rock were torn by means of 2,200,000 pounds of dynamite.

The remaining sections of the railway named after the tunnel abound in interesting features from the technical point of view, the most notable, possibly, being the remarkable spiral tunnels to which reference has been made, and the successful application of which in this instance has been reproduced upon other railways where similar conditions prevail. The best examples, possibly, are those by which the Biaschina gorge is negotiated, since here there are two of these tunnels side by side, the railway almost describing a figure 8 in corkscrewing from one level to the other. Exclusive of the Gotthard, there are no less than 76 tunnels and galleries, aggregating 29 miles, as well as 1,384 other structures, 324 being bridges and viaducts over 39 feet in length. In one stretch of 7 miles, in skirting the south-eastern arm of the Lake of Lucerne, the railway passes through 9 tunnels, ranging from a mere 85-feet burrow to others 6,512 feet in length. Among the Gotthard fastnesses the railway work becomes bolder, the bridges are lofty, while the line zigzags in a remarkable manner. It is a case of tunnel, cut and bridge all the way. Up to 1880, when the railway was finished practically, constructional work provided regular employment for 10,757 men.

So rapidly did the volume of traffic upon the railway swell, however, that it became extremely difficult to handle it, as there was only a single line, except in the tunnel and at one or two other points. The provision of another track became imperative, and in 1886 it was commenced. This was not a simple matter, as the new work had to be carried out without interrupting traffic in any way—that is, so far as the main through service was concerned. With the exception of the Gotthard and four smaller tunnels, all the other structures had to be excavated out to carry the second pair of metals, while, similarly, all bridges had to be increased in width. In order to finish the work as rapidly as possible, the task was divided up into a number of small, separate contracts, each covering a few miles. Vehicles for the conveyance of constructional material were provided and supplies were hauled free of charge by the railway, while explosives for blasting were sold at cost price.

The most difficult works were carried out by the company itself by its own engineers and labour. In this comprehensive widening system over 100,000 cubic yards of rock which had been excavated from the St. Gotthard and dumped in the vicinity of Airolo were reclaimed, to be used in the building of embankments, revetments and retaining walls. The tunnel widening was carried out almost exclusively at night and on Sundays, since the smoke from passing trains would have impeded such work during the day. The quickest methods of widening were adopted, and in the approach to the Bristen tunnel an excellent expression of this is afforded. Instead of trimming back the mountain-side to provide space for the second pair of rails, a gallery was built projecting from the mountain and supported on heavy masonry pillars, giving the appearance of a colonnade.

In the handling of unavoidable night trains an elaborate protection system was adopted in connection with the tunnels, to prevent disaster to the trains themselves or to the working gangs. No trains were permitted to enter a tunnel until assurance had been made doubly sure that there was no constructional train standing on the only line to court collision, and that the workmen were safe. Each working squad was covered amply by electric and other signalling devices. Similarly, all metallic structures that required moving were handled on Sundays, when traffic was at its lowest ebb, between the scheduled movements of passing trains, so that the latter might not be delayed. It was estimated that this work would occupy nine years, but in reality it was accomplished in five and a half years, and the total cost of widening the whole mileage to a double line was only £500,000, or $2,500,000.

CHAPTER IV
THE RAILWAY INVASION OF CANADA

The news of the victory of Stephenson’s “Rocket” in the historic railway locomotive contest at Rainhill on the Liverpool & Manchester railway in 1829 scarcely had filtered round the world, when the idea of transporting passengers and merchandise by steam power along two parallel rails occupied the earnest attention of enterprising spirits in Canada. They realised that the new method of locomotion was certain to play an important part in the opening up of British North America. As a result of deliberations, a small body of prominent business men in Montreal applied for a charter to construct a railway from La Prairie to St. John’s in the province of Quebec, which was granted in 1832 under the seal of William IV.

It was an unpretentious enterprise, for the projected line was only some fourteen miles in length. It was named the Champlain & St. Lawrence railway, the idea being to link Lake Champlain, whence New York could be reached by water, with the St. Lawrence. The first section of the line was opened in 1836, though it was not operated by steam. The rails were of wood, and the vehicles were hauled by horses. This system obtained for only one year, however. The first winter sufficed to demonstrate to those concerned with the enterprise that such primitive methods were far from satisfactory. Consequently the “wooden flanges,” as the rails constituting the track were called, were torn up to make way for iron rails, and the steamengine took the place of the animal motor.

A year or two later the objective of the promoters was attained. Lake Champlain was brought into communication with the St. Lawrence at Montreal by a railway some fifty miles in length, the inland sheet of water being tapped at Rouses’s Point at the head of the lake in United States territory. It is stated that Jay Gould, who afterwards became one of the greatest railway-builders and magnates in the United States, gained his first insight of the construction of railways upon this line, by being associated with the location survey. From this humble beginning was woven the huge railway network of Canada, which now gridirons the country in all directions, and aggregates some 25,000 miles.

Other projects were formulated in rapid succession for a comprehensive invasion of the eastern corner of the country. Foremost among these was the Grand Trunk Railway Company, conceived in 1852, to build a trunk road between the Atlantic seaboard and the Great Lakes, which at that time was practically the western commercial limit of the Dominion. It was an English enterprise, and, moreover, was strongly imperial from the sentimental point of view, for it was planned to thread Canadian territory entirely.

The famous firm of railway constructional engineers, Messrs. Peto, Betts & Brassey, fresh from their triumphs on the Continent, were willing to carry out the work. They had an extensive accumulation of plant lying idle, and at the time were seeking for fresh worlds to conquer. Canada presented just the opportunity they desired, and they were ready to provide all the railways that Canada would require for some years to come. The faith in this firm of constructional engineers was so great that British financiers were open to provide any amount of money that might be required.

The negotiations were prolonged, as rival interests opposed the scheme vehemently. The preliminaries passed through many vicissitudes, but the compact between the English financiers and the Canadian authorities was ratified and sealed, at last, for the construction of a main line between Montreal and Hamilton, a distance of about 373 miles, which the Provincial Government undertook to finance to the extent of £3,000, or $15,000, per mile. Hamilton was selected as the western terminal point because therefrom another line extended to the Lakes, while a railway was creeping up from Portland on the Atlantic coast to Montreal. By the construction of this central section, 964 miles of through continuous railway would be provided for the benefit of the population.

But the undertaking proved to be one of the most difficult that the engineers, despite their wide and varied experience, had been called upon to fulfil up to this time. The country traversed was very sparsely populated, the forests were dense, and in winter, under the combined adversities of snow, ice, and intense cold, the situation was terrible. Labour was scarce, wages were high, and material was found to be expensive. In the end it was found that the average cost per mile approximated £8,000, or $40,000, so that to link Montreal with Toronto entailed an expenditure of £2,664,000, or $13,320,000. Moreover, it was one of the largest contracts that the engineers ever had carried out, while the physical conditions harassed them to such an extent that when they balanced up their books they found they had incurred a loss of about £1,000,000, or $5,000,000. The wide gauge of five feet six inches was adopted, and this factor developed into as keen a bone of dissension in Canada as it did in Great Britain, and as in the latter country it was finally abolished, so in Canada it was abandoned in favour of the standard gauge of four feet eight and a half inches, though the conversion cost the Grand Trunk railway a matter of £1,000,000 ($5,000,000).

NO. 2, “THE TORONTO,” THE FIRST RAILWAY ENGINE BUILT IN CANADA BY JAMES GOOD IN 1853

Photo by courtesy of Pennsylvania Steel Co.]

THE NIAGARA CANTILEVER RAILWAY BRIDGE UNDER CONSTRUCTION

It was built round the suspension highway bridge so as not to interrupt communication between the two banks.

Yet in building this line the contractors set up an engineering monument which for years ranked as the “eighth wonder of the world.” Montreal was on the north bank of the St. Lawrence, while the link connecting the metropolis with the Atlantic seaboard followed the southern bank of the river. The two sections of line were interrupted by the rolling waterway, which at this point is nearly two miles wide. The spanning of this gap, so as to bring Montreal into direct railway touch with the coast, had been one of the great obstacles to the incorporation of the railway in the first instance, but Messrs. Peto, Betts & Brassey undertook to forge this link. At that time it was so formidable an undertaking as to be thought absolutely incapable of realisation. Indeed, when a suggestion for bridging the St. Lawrence at this point was advanced for the first time, it was laughed to scorn.

“THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD”

The wonderful tubular bridge, 6,592 feet long, built by Ross and Stephenson across the St. Lawrence River to carry the Grand Trunk Railway into Montreal.

THE BRIDGE AS RECONSTRUCTED

The continuous tube carrying a single track was converted into an open truss girder bridge to take two sets of metals, tramway line, road and pavement.

However, its construction constituted a vital part of the contract. Accordingly, the contractors lost no time in attacking the undertaking when they secured a foothold in the Dominion. The river was surveyed minutely up and down for a considerable distance, while detailed soundings were made to discover the extent and nature of the foundations requisite for the piers. After infinite labour a suitable site was discovered, and a great measure of credit for the location is due to Alexander M. Ross, who was one of the engineers to the undertaking, George Stephenson acting as consulting engineer. Ross carried carefully prepared and detailed plans of the structure he had formulated to his coadjutator in England, and Stephenson admitted, when first submitted to his notice, that “the idea was certainly startling.” However, he complimented Ross upon his daring, and as the latter engineer had won his spurs in England before he departed to Canada on behalf of the group of capitalists financing the Grand Trunk railway, his work received greater consideration from the eminent engineer than might have been the case otherwise. The result was that when Stephenson went to Canada to consider the subject on the spot he concurred with Ross in the general scheme, and the design was elaborated conjointly.

When the location was settled definitely, the project was assailed vigorously by bridge designers in America, but this animosity was inflamed from the fact that they had prepared alternative proposals for bridging the waterway at a different spot. The rival engineers emphasised the danger from ice, and commented strongly upon the risk, in fact serious danger, arising from this cause, to the full brunt of which Stephenson’s bridge would be submitted. Some critics even went so far as to state that the structure never would be completed, or if so, would come down under the first packing of the ice. Stephenson, however, treated his American detractors with contempt, and, to the mind of the latter worthies, appeared to fly deliberately in the face of Fate by concurring with Ross’s recommendations. That was nearly sixty years ago, but the piers have given no sign of collapsing yet.

The resident engineer and superintendent of the constructional work, Mr. James Hodges, realising the monumental character of the undertaking—for it was a larger bridge-building scheme than ever had been attempted up to this time—spent many hours together wrestling with difficulties as they developed, for the unexpected confronted them at every turn. The ice was one of their greatest perplexities, because during the winter the river is frozen so solidly that it will support the weight of a train, and, indeed, a track has been laid across the waterway in winter to maintain communication between the two banks. When the ice broke up, the floes became jammed and piled against the temporary works around the piers in an inextricable mass to such an extent that it demanded unremitting vigilance to guard against a collapse of the dams under the enormous pressure exerted upon them.

The depth of the river and the current were two other factors which had to be taken into serious consideration, for some of the piers are sunk in twenty-two feet of water, while the velocity of the current is about seven miles an hour. The working season was very short, averaging about twenty-six weeks during the year, and during this period every available man had to be crowded on to the work. When construction was in full swing, between 2000 and 3000 men found employment.

Photo by permission of the Pennsylvania Steel Co.]

THE MAGNIFICENT SINGLE SPAN BRIDGE ACROSS THE NIAGARA RIVER BELOW THE FALLS

Length of span, 550 feet; height above 226 feet.

The bridge consisted of a huge rectangular tube, similar to that spanning the Menai Straits, carrying a single track. From end to end it measured 6,592 feet by 16 feet wide, 18 feet in height, and weighed 9,044 tons. It was divided into 25 spans, 24 of which were of 242 feet each, while one was of 330 feet. The piers were built massively in masonry, the stone being obtained from quarries in convenient proximity. The ironwork was prepared in England, each piece being marked carefully for its position in the structure. The bridge had a gradual slope upwards from either bank to the centre, where the height from the bed of the river to the top of the tube was 108 feet. For its erection 2,250,000 feet of timber were required in connection with the temporary work, the piers and abutments demanded the use of some 3,000,000 feet of masonry, and 2,500,000 rivets were used to secure the component parts of the ironwork together. In addition to the bridge proper, some 2,500 feet of approaches on either side had to be fashioned, so that the total length of the work was 9,144 feet. The contracted price for the structure was £1,400,000, or $7,000,000, but it was completed for £100,000 ($500,000) less. Of this total the masonry and temporary work absorbed,£800,000, or $4,000,000, and the ironwork £400,000 ($2,000,000).

A VIEW OF THE IRON TUBE, 2,290 FEET IN LENGTH AND 23 FEET IN DIAMETER

THE 2000 H.P. ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES HAULING THE “INTERNATIONAL LIMITED” THROUGH THE TUBE

The “link that binds Two Great Nations,” the St. Clair Tunnel, under the St. Clair River.

While the work was in progress the railway company found increasing traffic, as the sections of completed line were opened, so emphasised the urgency of securing through communication across the river that the contractors were approached, and a bonus of £60,000 ($300,000) was offered to them if they would complete the work a year earlier than was stipulated in the contract. The engineers redoubled their efforts, and on December 17, 1859, the great bridge was opened, though the official ceremony took place five months later, when King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, opened the Victoria Bridge, as it was christened, in the name of Queen Victoria, during his visit to the Dominion.

Stephenson died before his great work was completed. For a quarter of a century or more it constituted one of the sights of the North American continent. As the country became more settled and the volume of traffic flowing to and fro across the river increased, the railway experienced a very great difficulty in handling it over a single line. At last the inadequacy reached such a point that some improvement was imperative. A second bridge would have been too costly, and after considerable reflection it was decided to replace the tubular bridge by one of larger dimensions.

A minute examination of the existing structure was made, and it speaks volumes for the work of Stephenson and Ross, as well as of the contractors, that the bridge appeared as sound and as fit for another century or more as it did on the day it was first opened. The piers had been built so solidly that they did not show the slightest trace of the terrible buffetings and pressure to which they had been subjected by the ice during some fifty winters.

Consequently it was decided to remove the tubular structure and to erect in its place an open truss bridge, 66 feet 8 inches wide, carrying a double track, a roadway for an electric tram-line, space for vehicular traffic, and a pavement for pedestrians. The engineers designing the new structure came to the conclusion that the striking stability and condition of the masonry piers would carry the new bridge with but slight alteration. As a result of this conclusion it was decided to erect the new structure around the old bridge, cutting away the latter span by span, so that there was no interruption to the train service.

This appeared to be a simple expedient, but when the engineers commenced operations on Stephenson’s handiwork they found that it was built of far tougher material than they had expected. The rivets defied withdrawal, so excellently had they been driven home, and one of the engineers showed me one of these securing pieces, which he had preserved as a memento of British handiwork of some seventy years ago. As a matter of fact, as he related, it was far easier to build the new structure than it was to destroy the old, and the cutting away of the old tubular bridge span by span was found to be an exceedingly laborious task.

However, it was achieved, and there was not the slightest interruption in the traffic, which testifies to the skill and care with which the engineers laid their plans. Nor was it attended by any untoward incident, though what might have proved a terrible accident was averted very narrowly during reconstruction, as was related to me by one of the engineers. It was Sunday morning, and they were rebuilding the central part of the bridge. Special men had been stationed at each approach to the bridge, and elaborate instructions had been drawn up for controlling the passage of trains by flag-signalling. Sunday was selected for the most difficult portions of the work, as on that day the trains were few and far between.

On this Sunday morning the work had advanced so satisfactorily that the old tubular span had been removed, and there was a wide gap in the continuity of the ironwork carrying the metals, showing the murky river swinging along at a merry pace below. Everything was ready for completing the new span, when one of the engineers, happening to glance shorewards, observed a train entering the bridge and coming along at a brisk speed. Something had gone wrong; the flagman had misunderstood instructions or had given a wrong signal. The train was speeding to its doom, for there was the yawning gulf. But the engineer never lost his presence of mind. Realising the situation, he threw down his instruments, and ran along the track towards the advancing train waving his arms frantically and yelling like one bereft. The engine-driver, unlike the majority of his ilk on an American railway, concluded that something must be amiss, and applied his brakes sharply, pulling up a short distance from the brink of the abyss. It was a narrow escape; had the engineer hesitated a minute, disaster swift and sudden would have overwhelmed that train.

When the new bridge, with its 22,000 tons of steel, was completed for traffic it was renamed, but as the reconstruction coincided with the Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign, the revision comprised merely the perpetuation of that auspicious event, and to-day the structure is known as the Victoria Jubilee Bridge. From first to last the structure has cost £1,800,000 ($9,000,000), of which reconstruction absorbed about £400,000 ($2,000,000).

As the Grand Trunk increased in importance, subsidiary and tributary railways were absorbed. Nor was the original idea of a trunk line overlooked. This end was achieved by pushing towards Chicago, the busy centre of the Middle States. Continuity of rail in this case, however, was interrupted by the St. Clair River, the narrow strait which connects Lakes Huron and Ontario. In the early days communication was maintained by means of ferry-boats, which handled complete trains, but as the river is extremely erratic, with strong currents varying in velocity according to the direction of the wind, and is congested with shipping, the ferry service possessed many shortcomings. When the strait was obstructed with floating ice, the situation became far more serious.

Accordingly, in order to remove these disabilities, a bold solution was elaborated in the form of a tunnel beneath the waterway connecting Sarnia on the Canadian with Port Huron on the United States side of the St. Clair River. It certainly was an audacious remedy for a perplexing problem. The river is 46 feet deep and is nearly half-a-mile wide, so that the tunnel had to be planned at a great depth. However, no better alternative could be offered, for a bridge was quite out of the question, so in 1886 the St. Clair Tunnel Company was formed as a subsidiary undertaking of the railway, to complete a subaqueous link of communication, with Mr. Joseph Hobson as chief engineer.

As the topography of the land on either side is tolerably flat, the question of the approaches had to be settled, and a heavy grade at either end could not be avoided. Technical difficulties were encountered at the very start. A trial shaft was sunk on the Canadian side to a depth of 98 feet, while another shaft on the American side was carried down to 92 feet. The preliminary shafts were elliptical in shape, measuring 4 feet by 8 feet in diameters. When the requisite depths were obtained, galleries were driven at right angles beneath the river. These efforts proving satisfactory, it was decided to build the complete tunnel from either bank from shafts, as in the case of the Blackwall tunnel. The shafts were each 23 feet in diameter, and they were so built that there was a circular ring, the lower face of which carried a knife-edge digging into the ground. The soil was excavated from beneath this knife-edge, and as the brick-wall lining of the shaft was built upon the upper surface of the knife-ring, it was considered that the superimposed weight would drive the knife downwards as the earth beneath was removed.

But these carefully-laid schemes and anticipations went astray. Exasperating failures and mishaps occurred, and at last the engineer changed his plans; the shaft method was abandoned. Instead, he decided to drive the tunnel from either end through the approaches. For this purpose the plant and machinery were removed inland from the shafts for a distance of 1,900 feet on the Canadian, and 1,800 feet on the American bank respectively. Two huge cuttings were driven downhill until the tunnel level was gained, when the burrow beneath the river was commenced. The tunnel itself consists of a circular iron tube or pipe of sufficient diameter to carry a single track. It is 19 feet 10 inches in diameter, is built up of cast-iron rings, and weighs complete 56,000,000 pounds, or about 25,450 tons. Boring was effected from either end by means of the hydraulic shield, and in less than three years the task was finished.

The length of tunnel beneath the water is 2,290 feet, while that under dry land represents another 3,748 feet, making a total length of 6,932 feet. To this must be added 5,580 feet of approaches, which brings the total extent of the work to nearly 12,000 feet, or 2¼ miles. It cost £540,000, or $2,700,000, and has always ranked as a noteworthy achievement in this particular branch of engineering.

Owing to the steepness of the approaches on either side special locomotives had to be built to handle the traffic through this artery. They were powerful creations of the railway engine designer, and when they appeared were the largest steam locomotives in the world. They could haul a train weighing 760 tons, though at times the pace was slow.

But traffic between the United States and Canada increased by leaps and bounds, owing to the provision of this tunnel, with the result that in a very few years the railway authorities found that the tube was quite overtaxed. A solemn conclave was held as to the best ways and means of meeting this development. The track could not be doubled; so the question was how to increase the existing hauling capacity of a single engine. Steam could not meet the question, so was ruled out of court. Then an engineer suggested electrification, and advanced a report to show how the weight of each train might be increased by nearly 25 per cent. with quicker working, and consequently would facilitate the passage of a greater number of trains in a given time.

This engineer, Mr. Bion Arnold, was authorised to proceed with his scheme and to complete his plans for the electrification of the tunnel. He did so, and as a result a specification was drawn up requiring the haulage of a train weighing 1000 tons over the 2¼ miles in 15 minutes, with a maximum speed of 25 miles and a minimum speed of 10 miles per hour respectively. When the plans were made known it was realised that the project comprised the most ambitious electrical undertaking that ever had been attempted up to that time in railway operations, especially as it was insisted that the electrical system should be of a type which constituted its first application to heavy steam railway working. This is what is known as the single-phase alternating current system with overhead conductor.

The invitation for tenders was awaited with keen anticipation throughout the world, as it was conceded to offer a unique opportunity to the electrical engineer. Consequently keen competition was evinced to secure the honour of carrying out such a remarkable undertaking. The contract was secured by the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company, and was carried to a successful conclusion at a cost of £100,000 ($500,000). The locomotives now used on this service are among the most powerful in the world. They weigh 135 tons, and develop about 2000 horse-power, which enables them to haul a 1000-ton train up the heavy approach grades at a minimum speed of 10 miles per hour. Moreover, since electricity was adopted, the tunnel has been kept free from the dense clouds of smoke and steam which originally converted the tube into a veritable inferno, and, what is far more important from the railway company’s point of view, the electrical system is able to meet three times the volume of traffic that exists to-day, so that there is ample provision for the future. As it is, the 2¼ miles of line beneath the teeming St. Clair River is the heaviest electrically worked section of railway in the world.

Another link with the United States, however, was incumbent to bring the manufacturing centres around Buffalo into closer communication with the Dominion. Yet there was only one point where this link could be provided—across the gorge through which the Niagara River, after tumbling over the lofty cliff, seethes and boils on its way to Lake Ontario. A suspension bridge met the exigencies of highway traffic for some years, but here again improvement was demanded. Accordingly, a new bridge was planned, and this constitutes one of the most graceful structures spanning that fearful rift.

The old bridge fulfilled its services faithfully for forty years, and when demolished was found to be possessed of several years of life. The new bridge is a splendid work, and its close proximity to the Falls offers a striking comparison between the handiwork of Nature and that of the engineer. The bridge leaps across the gorge in a single span, and when one is speeding over the structure in the train, one is at an elevation of 226 feet above the raging waters below. The span is of no less than 550 feet, and the ends are secured to massive anchorages sunk into the face of the cliffs. It is wrought throughout of steel, and is approached from either side over a single truss span 115 feet long, giving a total length of 780 feet.

But the bridge serves a dual purpose. The upper level or deck, 30 feet in width, carries two tracks for the railway’s need, but below this is another deck, 57 feet wide, which has a central carriage-way flanked on either hand by a broad pavement, so that the bridge provides vehicular and pedestrian accommodation between the opposite banks. In order to provide this improved connection between the two nations, a sum of about £100,000 ($500,000) had to be expended. The improved facilities it offered so appealed to the public on both shores that they celebrated its opening in 1897 by a three days’ carnival.

As time sped by, the Grand Trunk railway gradually but surely swallowed its competitors, until at last it was left in undisputed possession of the Province of Ontario, from the railway point of view. To-day it has over 8000 miles of intricate steel ribbon stretched between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic coast, while between Montreal and Chicago the fastest trains in the Dominion hurtle to and fro over a double track 840½ miles in length, which is the longest continuous stretch of double track under one management in the world, and upon which some exhilarating speeds are attained.

When the British capitalists committed themselves to an expenditure of over £9,000,000, or $45,000,000, for the construction of less than 500 miles of line through virgin territory, it is doubtful whether in their rosiest dreams they ever anticipated that it would grow into a huge organisation aggregating a third of the railway mileage of British North America within sixty years.

Development is still being maintained; new territories are being conquered. A new long and sinuous arm, 3,556 miles from end to end, is being stretched out from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, to bring the eastern into direct touch with the western seaboard. The whole has grown from the insignificant little wooden road that was laid between La Prairie and St. John’s in the Province of Quebec eighty years ago.

CHAPTER V
THE FIRST TRANS-CONTINENTAL ACROSS THE UNITED STATES

“There were difficulties from end to end: from high and steep mountains; from snows; from deserts where there was a scarcity of water, and from gorges and flats where there was an excess; difficulties from cold and heat; from a scarcity of timber and from obstructions of rock; difficulties in keeping a large force on a long line; from Indians; and from want of labour.”

This was the terse story related to the United States Congress by Collis P. Huntington, one of the moving spirits of what, at that time, was a tremendous undertaking—the construction of the first railway across North America whereby the Atlantic was linked with the Pacific by a bond of steel. But that concise statement concealed one of the most romantic stories in the history of railway engineering: of grim battles every hour either against the hostile forces of nature or of mankind.

It was in 1863 that the first sod was turned in the construction of the first line which was destined to bring San Francisco within 120 hours’ journey of New York, and which changed completely the whole stream of traffic flowing round one-half of the northern hemisphere. But for some years before the spade was driven into the earth to signal the commencement of this enterprise, the idea had been contemplated and discussed in a more or less academic manner. It was such a vast scheme, the commercial possibilities of success appeared so slender that the most daring financiers of that day shrank from fathering it. Capitalists concluded that they might just as well pour their money down a well as to sink it in such a project as this.

The public, however, regarded the idea from a totally different standpoint. East wanted to shake hands with the west over the mighty mountains and vast plains. To pass from New York to San Francisco, or in the reverse direction, in those days was a perilous journey. One either had to make a protracted and dangerous voyage down one side of the American continent, round Cape Horn, and pass up the opposite coast-line for some 10,000 miles; to brave the peril of traversing the fever-ridden Central American Isthmus; or to embark upon an overland journey of some 3,000 miles through country where long stretches of parched, waterless desert gave way to lofty, snow-capped mountains, with the Indians in open warfare.

When California seethed in the famous Gold Rush, and adventurers flocked to this magnetic hub from all parts of the world, the absence of a connecting link was experienced to an acute degree. The gold-fever-stricken pioneers had to gain their objective as best they could, and with the best means of locomotion they could afford. In a single year 100,000 gold-seekers trailed across the continent.

The traffic produced by the discovery of gold set Collis P. Huntington thinking. Here was a heavy volume of traffic slipping through the fingers. Why should it not be handled by a railway? This was his argument, and as he was a dreamer of commercial conquest, though not in an idle manner, he decided to remedy the deficiency. Looking into the future, he saw that a line not only would meet the immediate demands born of the gold rush, but that it would develop into a great highway between Europe and the East, as well as the Antipodes. He discussed the idea with kindred spirits, Leland Stanford and Thomas C. Durant, and they became enthused with the project. But the question was how to obtain the money requisite for construction? To appeal to the public was useless, and no assistance could be anticipated from the financial world. So they approached the Government, and their endeavours proved so successful that the country decided to subsidise the undertaking.

When the Government’s sympathy had been secured in a practical manner, the next step was to discover an engineer who could superintend the survey and conduct constructional operations. The country did not possess many Stephensons, and the work in contemplation was of such an unprecedented character that no ordinary engineer would prove equal to the task. Happily, however, there was in San Francisco a railway engineering genius whose ability was being wasted for lack of opportunity. This man was Theodore D. Judah. He was a born engineer, and his skill in railway engineering had achieved a peculiar distinction up and down the Pacific coast. This work was his sole hobby, and the greater the difficulties to be overcome, the more enthusiastically and determinedly he threw himself into the task. His efforts in this direction were so strenuous that he was regarded generally as a crank, and his great dreams of railway conquest provided a continual source of amusement. He was always diving into the mountains, reconnoitring the passes with a view to their suitability for carrying the steel highway, and openly admitting that his greatest ambition in life was to be given the chance to lift the metals over the gaunt Sierras frowning upon the Pacific coast, and to drop them on to the plains rolling eastwards from the opposite slopes.

On one occasion he resigned his position upon a new railway line that was being built around San Francisco, and, unaccompanied, forced his way through the rocky barrier, making a mental note of the configuration of the country as he proceeded in case of something turning up, laboured across Nevada’s dreary wastes of alkali, skirted Salt Lake, and at last gained the Missouri. As a result of his frequent peregrinations among the mountains, his eye became trained expertly in spying out the suitability of the country for the iron road, and he became known under the sobriquet of “The Railway Pathfinder.” It was a picturesque nickname, but it was one which described his personality to the full. That his wanderings were not in vain is proved by the fact that nearly every pass through the mountains which he stated to be adapted to carry a railway has been pressed into this service since, in order to gain the Pacific coast.

Indeed the pioneer trans-continental railway owes its birth to Judah. For years he had advocated the project, and emphasised its practicability. When Huntington and his colleagues were ready to commence operations they sent for Judah, convinced that he was the very man for whom they were searching, to plot the path for the line and to take command of the forces in the field. The Railway Pathfinder, realising that the ambition of his life was within reach at last, hurried eastwards. There was a short consultation which sufficed to prove to the promoters that Judah was the man to carry the enterprise to success, and there and then he was placed in supreme control of the construction. The difficulties among the mountains were what the promoters feared the most, but the pathfinder regarded them so lightly that their apprehensions vanished. He had spent so many months among their silent fastnesses that he knew the range through and through. His plans were daring and feasible, his reasoning lucid, and his enthusiasm infectious. In order that the directing hand in the field might not be trammelled or harassed by business or administration details, a special emissary was deputed to attend to these secondary but vital essentials, so that Judah might be able to concentrate his energies and ability entirely to plotting and pushing the line forwards.

THE MASSIVE BRIDGE OF THE UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY OVER THE MISSOURI RIVER AT COUNCIL BLUFFS, FROM WHICH POINT THE FIRST RAILWAY ACROSS THE UNITED STATES WAS COMMENCED

According to the arrangement with the Government, the railway was to commence from the eastern bank of the Missouri River at Council Bluffs. The selection of the eastern bank as the starting-point involved the erection of a huge bridge as the first step in the undertaking. Such an idea appears somewhat curious at first sight, as one would have thought, naturally, that the western bank would have been selected as the obvious eastern terminal. But the Government recognised one point. The railways were spreading their tentacles slowly but surely from the Atlantic coast towards the Missouri River. When they gained its banks a break in the through rail communication would develop, as the eastern railways were in their infancy, and far too poor to undertake the construction of an expensive bridge across this wide waterway to link up with the line stretching to San Francisco.

THE TIMBER TRESTLE ACROSS SALT LAKE, BY MEANS OF WHICH THE UNION PACIFIC SAVES 57 MILES

There are 12 miles of woodwork, for which 2,824,700 lineal feet of timber was required. The track is 19 feet above the water.

Construction was commenced from both ends of the line. San Francisco was the Pacific terminal, but as the Golden Gate was connected already with Sacramento, the capital some miles inland, the latter place was the point to which the constructional forces were dispatched. The arm driven eastwards from the Pacific was known as the Union Pacific railway, while that forced westwards from Council Bluffs was designated as the Central Pacific. The two arms were to meet about half-way across the continent.

Judah hurried to California and was soon in the turmoil of his task. The great difficulty on this section was in regard to the supply of the constructional material. Everything had to be sent round by water via the most southerly point of the continent, and as this was a voyage occupying several weeks, extreme care had to be observed to send forward supplies in a steady, constant stream, so that no delays might arise from lack of material. But storms raged, while the negotiation of Cape Horn is a difficult feat at the best of times. The boats were caught in the terrible embrace of wind and wave, and, upon emerging from the conflict, struggled, battered and torn, into the nearest port for repairs. Despite these heavy drawbacks, which no human foresight could determine or avoid, practically no dearth of supplies ever was experienced at the railhead among the mountains. In fact, Judah prosecuted his task so vigorously that before many months had passed the first railway conquest of the Sierras, considered invulnerable for so long, was announced far and wide.

How was it accomplished? The pathfinder followed the easiest path open to him. Distances between points might have been shortened, but time was money. The builders had urged this emphatically upon Judah, so that opportunity to indulge in stupendous engineering feats was denied him. Yet the very conditions which were imposed enabled the pathfinder to display some master-strokes of genius unconsciously. So long as a natural path for the metals was available, he followed it. If his advance were disputed by an obstacle he either removed or ran round it. The hump was levelled and the depression was filled. The rivers were followed so far as practicable along their puzzling meanderings. He lifted the track several thousand feet towards the clouds to gain the railway summit of the range, and then dropped over the other side. In one place among the snow-clad peaks he had to hew a narrow shelf out of the solid rocky mass to wind round the huge shoulder of a mountain. The wall of rock sheered up on one side to a dizzy height; on the other way it dropped for over a thousand feet into the river surging below.

The San Francisco division teemed with complex and highly troublesome perplexities, but one and all arose from the resistance of Nature. Yet they were slight in comparison with those which the engineers experienced as they pushed forwards from the Missouri River. Here it was the hostility of man which harassed them. The Indians, driven from the eastern States by the march of civilisation, resisted its further approach into their domain. Fierce opposition was anticipated, but the results proved far more serious than the most gloomy forebodings. At every turn the savages swept down upon the little band toiling in the solitude of the wilderness, and these organised onslaughts became fiercer and fiercer as the base of operations was left farther and farther to the rear. For every spike that was driven, clinching a rail to its wooden cushion beneath, an arrow sped from an Indian bow, to be answered by the sharp crack of a rifle from the railway building forces. History does not record how many navvies fell victims to the noiseless weapon of the savages, or how many Indians entered the Happy Hunting Ground by way of a bullet. Yet the total of lives would outnumber the spikes driven to secure the metals for the 1,800 miles between the Missouri River and the Golden Horn.

A conclave with the Red Men was urgent before the engineers stirred from the bank of the Missouri. Council Bluffs is a famous spot in the history of the New World, because here the Indians were wont for centuries to meet to settle tribal disputes. It was here that Collis P. Huntington and his colleagues met the Red Men to discuss the terms and treaty for the acquisition of the necessary land to found the city of Omaha.

At that day the nearest point to which the railway had advanced towards the river from the east was Des Moines. The first locomotive required for constructional purposes upon the Central Pacific, and which weighed some 60 tons, had to be hauled across country on the deck of a trolley by teams of horses. When the trans-continental railway was taken in hand, however, the eastern railways were pushed forward with great speed to reach Council Bluffs, in order to carry the thousands of tons of supplies of every description requisite for building purposes.

The scarcity of one commodity was felt severely. In this country one may travel for miles and not see a single tree. This hit the railway hard. Every baulk of timber, whether it was required for a fire, a shack, or a sleeper, had to be brought over enormous distances. By the time a sleeper was laid it often cost as much as $2.50, or ten shillings!

The route between east and west is popularly known as the “Overland Route.” How it received this name is a little story in itself. Among those who arrived at San Francisco in the glorious days of ’47 to make money out of the gold-rush was a Dutchman, whose topsy-turvy English was characteristic of a foreigner possessing only an imperfect acquaintance with our tongue. He opened a saloon, which became a most popular resort. Whenever a stranger entered the rendezvous, Boniface’s curiosity was aroused. The new arrival was asked inevitably by which of the three routes he had gained the Golden Gate. “Did you come the Horn around, the Isthmus across, or the land over?” the Dutchman inquired. “The land-over” signifying the wagon-trail across the States, so appealed to the fancy of the railway-builders that they always referred to the trans-continental as “the land-over route,” which in course of time became twisted into the more correct designation under which it is known to this day.

The level character of the country west of the Missouri River lent itself favourably to rapid construction, as well as easy alignment. At one place it was found possible to lay the track as straight as an arrow for 41 miles. The grade grew quickly, and the rails advanced in a continuous black-grey line across the prairie with striking rapidity, when the Indians refrained from endeavouring to arrest its progress. However, the raids of the Red Men became so devastating eventually that it appeared as if work must be brought to a standstill.

At the critical moment another man appeared on the scene, and his efforts contributed very materially to the completion of the line. This was Major Frank J. North, one of the most daring frontiersmen that those troublous times with the Indians produced in America. He was Fenimore Cooper’s mythical “Pathfinder” in the flesh, and he came to be just as greatly feared by the Red Men. When the railway engineers failed to make headway against the Indians, he offered his services, which, needless to say, were accepted gladly. From that moment the protection of the grade became his one object in life, and his capture became the one absorbing ambition of the Indians. He had roamed the plains for years, leading a rough-and-ready frontier life, had become familiarised with the Indians, their habits, customs and ways; could anticipate their every movement and knew how to counteract their subterfuges. He was versed thoroughly in their ways of warfare, was a born fighter, and was possessed of indomitable energy and pluck.

In order to protect the railway-builders he raised four companies of friendly Pawnee Indians. With these trusty scouts he would creep out stealthily at night from the constructional camp, make his way with impunity to the tepees of the Cheyennes or Sioux, and ascertain their projected operations. Sometimes he would surprise an Indian camp, and scatter the inmates who were on the warpath to the four winds. His marauding expeditions became so audacious that the natives were compelled to withdraw a respectable distance from the grade. He became so universally detested among the foe that the mention of North’s name was sufficient to provoke the most dismal howls of execration and vicious snarls of vengeance.

At times he was absent so many days from the railhead camp that the engineers wondered gravely whether or not he had met an untimely end. Then when they were on the point of giving up hope of seeing him again, he would trot unconcernedly into camp, with his Pawnee shadows, as if returning from a hunt, but his general appearance and self-satisfied air told the navvies that he “had been at the Indians again.” He provoked the hostile Red Men to such an extreme pitch that they turned out in tremendous force sworn to his capture or death. Four times a pitched battle was fought, with tremendous losses; four times the Indians drew off, leaving North flushed with victory. At last the enemy became so disheartened that it withdrew, retreated for miles from the line, and there was a sullen interval in the conflict.

North, however, was not to be lulled into a false sense of security. He divined that some ulterior move was projected. So it proved. The Indians, instead of concentrating their energies upon the destruction of the forces at the railhead, decided to attack the long line of communication at various points, to surprise and destroy the supply trains. A guerilla war broke out, and this baffled North, for he could not bring them to a pitched battle.

The Indians clung like limpets to the grade, and woe betide any stragglers who fell into their hands, for they were cruelly tortured and put to death. Time after time, as the supply train was puffing along slowly, the plain on either side suddenly would reveal hordes of ferocious savages, who had crept through the tall grass unobserved to within a few feet of the track. The men on the train secured any shelter possible behind the transported goods, and blazed away furiously. Brisk skirmishes and opportunities to display marksmanship occurred nearly every day to relieve the tedium of swinging hammer, pick-axe and shovel. Major North happened to be attacked in this way one day, though the enemy were unaware of his presence. But they were so dismayed at the spirited reception that they received that they broke and fled, with North in pursuit. He chased them for hours, and inflicted such losses that the tribe surrendered. A few days later a large number of the vanquished enlisted under the railway-builder’s banner, assisted in the building of the grade, and became law-abiding citizens.

There was one point which was a tempting prize to the Cheyennes. This was a depot 372 miles west of Omaha. Its safety was entrusted to North’s friendly Indians, and they proved too watchful to enable a raid to be made with success. The Cheyennes were determined to secure its capture, and, quietly gathering reinforcements, one day made a supreme attempt to rush it with a thousand men. It was a desperate battle that ensued, but the defenders, being entrenched, secured the advantage, and after fighting desperately for several hours were left in possession of the hundreds of tons of supplies.

These tactics had to be pursued for some 500 miles, but the engineers in time became wearied at the daily round of working and fighting. Besides, they were approaching the Rocky Mountains, where the physical difficulties would be so great as to demand their entire concentration in order to lift the metals over an obstacle 8000 feet above the sea. It was realised, also, that the broken slopes would give the Indians every advantage to prosecute their guerrilla warfare to distinct advantage. The outlook was so depressing that a halt was called. The situation was urged upon the Government, and, as a result, General Grant decided to interview the Indians in person, with a view to placating them. He made a hazardous and exciting journey along the railway to the heart of the enemy’s country. There, with pow-wow and peace-pipe, an honourable treaty was drawn up; the Indians promised to abandon their opposition, and to permit the railway to go forward.

Another difficulty the builders had to battle against was the scarcity of labour. The Californian Gold Fields were too magnetising to cause the men to stay long on the grade. They preferred to woo the fickle goddess of fortune in a scramble for the yellow metal, to a steady, daily round of toil at a regular wage. As a last resource the sheet-anchor of the railway-builder had to be called in—the Chinaman. The Orientals stuck to the work, and under their efforts the line progressed with greater speed than had been possible before their advent. At one time the rails were laid so speedily that the teams could not bring up supplies fast enough to meet the needs of the graders and track-layers.

The permanent way was crude. It was a pioneer line in very truth. The earth was thrown up roughly, the sleepers were dumped on its crown, and the rails were hastily spiked to their bed. The line was little better than what one sees hastily improvised for the transportation of spoil on large engineering works. It writhed and twisted among obstructions in a fantastic manner, for the engineers, having neither funds nor time at their disposal, merely ran round or over humps, whichever method was the quicker. Speed and comfort were negligible considerations. The line, once communication with the coast was established, could be overhauled and strengthened later at leisure. Consequently, travelling was rough, the oscillation was severe, and the danger of derailment always existent. It was these conditions that prompted a phlegmatic Englishman, who essayed the journey shortly after the line was opened, to remark that “the train travelled more smoothly when it was off the rails!”

Some idea of the speed with which work was prosecuted, the innumerable drawbacks notwithstanding, may be gathered from the fact that the whole 1,800 miles of line were built and opened to traffic within six years from the turning of the first spadeful of earth at Sacramento. For the greater part of this distance the monthly average was 50 miles—truly a magnificent feat. In order to maintain this high pressure, 25,000 men and 5000 cattle teams were required, and the total cost of the work was $115,000,000, or, roughly, £23,000,000.

The dawn of the year 1869 saw the two advancing arms racing towards the Great Salt Lake. The Central Pacific, upon encountering this inland sea, debouched to the north and plunged into the broken Promontory Range. Here, at an altitude of 5000 feet, the two arms met, and, amid the wild huzzas of over a thousand people, the last gap was closed, and golden spikes were driven into a sleeper of polished laurel by Leland Stanford and Thomas Durant, the presidents of the respective divisions, to admit the passage of a train, waiting close by with steam up, to pass from the Central to the Union Pacific Railway. The precise point at which the opposing armies met is indicated by a board standing beside the track, the inscription on which runs—

LAST SPIKE,
COMPLETING FIRST
TRANS-CONTINENTAL RAILROAD
DRIVEN AT THIS POINT,
MAY 10, 1869.

The occasion was one of great rejoicing, especially among the citizens of San Francisco. The town went mad with excitement. The festivities commenced two days before the golden spike was driven, and was continued for two days afterwards. Literature contributed its quota to the commemoration of the historic event in the form of a poem from Bret Harte.

In crossing the prairie stretches the railway constructional forces were indebted appreciably for their support to the buffalo, which roamed the plains in tens of thousands. The slaughter of this animal was tremendous to provide fresh meat for the camps, and hides for the clothing of the workmen against the blasts and severe cold of winter. Their existence was providential, especially when the Indians succeeded in capturing and destroying the supply trains bringing up provisions. Water often was a serious problem. For stretches of over a hundred miles at a time not a drop could be obtained from the parched land, and specially-built cars had to be pressed into service to transport this indispensable commodity.

Some idea of the solitude of the country may be gathered from the fact that during a continuous 600 miles not a single white man or homestead was seen. Before the line was completed a pony express plied between Sacramento and Salt Lake City, and the journey under normal conditions occupied three and a half days. To-day the distance is covered in about one-third of the time.

In the course of a few years the traffic on the Overland Route assumed such proportions as to be beyond the capacity of the ill-laid track. The grades were too heavy and the curves too sharp, while rails and bridges were too light. Extensive reconstruction was taken in hand. Banks were abolished, curves were straightened, bridges were rebuilt, the permanent way was re-ballasted, short sections were cut out here, or introduced there, to reduce the mileage—in short, the whole line was rebuilt practically at an expenditure of millions to bring the great highway up to the model of present-day practice.

One of the most important of these improvement works was that known as the Lucin Cut-off. This was a daring piece of engineering forced upon the railway by rival lines, which, possessing easier grades and a better-alignment, could haul heavier loads at a speed beyond the capacity of the pioneer road. This adverse factor was experienced very severely around the north end of Salt Lake, where the line plunges into the rugged and broken Promontory Range, to overcome which such heavy grades had to be introduced as to reduce the speed of trains to a crawl of 12 miles per hour.

At first it appeared impracticable to ease this situation, but the chief engineer was called in and urged to find a means of extricating the company from the predicament. After several months’ survey around this sheet of water he prepared plans which he submitted to his directors. They were extremely audacious. He suggested the abandonment of 373 miles of the old line completely, as it was beyond improvement. In its place he proposed 326 miles of new track, which not only showed a saving of 57 miles in distance, but gave no ruling grade exceeding 21.12 feet per mile. At one point he was baulked by the configuration of the country in the Pequop range, where a grade of 74 feet to the mile was found unavoidable. Moreover, he showed a saving of over half-a-mile in vertical height, the climb on the westward run being cut down from 4,550 feet to 1,535 feet, and on the eastward journey from 4,456½ feet to 1,444 feet.

The salient feature of the scheme, however, challenged particular attention. Instead of running around Salt Lake he advocated a route across it, giving a line as direct as the bird flies from shore to shore, supported on earthen embankments where such could be erected, and in other places upon a timber viaduct. Some idea of what this scheme represented may be gathered from the construction of a bridge from Dover to Calais—a project that has been promulgated—for the distance was about the same.

The engineer was prompted in his belief as to the practicability of the suggestion from his personal investigations. Popular fancy had clothed this stretch of salt water in many legends, one of which was that its depths were unfathomable. This fallacy was scattered to the winds when soundings were taken, for the water was found to be comparatively shallow at the point it was contemplated to cross the lake. Collis P. Huntington hesitated from embarking upon the scheme when it was first unfolded, partly on account of its estimated cost, but more because of its unusual character.

However, when E. H. Harriman secured the control of the line, he entertained no qualms. His engineer said it was feasible, so it must be done to avoid that laborious haul over the hills to the north. Work commenced forthwith, and was pursued with great vigour. When the bank of the lake was gained, the engineer pushed the earthen embankment as far into the water as he could, so as to reduce the extent of the trestling. The distance from shore to shore was 27 miles, but as he took advantage of a peninsula which juts well into the water from the north bank, four miles of the line were built on dry land.

To commence the embankment from the water’s edge an ingenious expedient was adopted. Heavy planks loaded with weighty bags of sand were floated out on the proposed location, and upon this novel permanent way the temporary rails for the ballast cars were laid, and the spoil dumped into the lake until the embankment appeared above water-level. Then the section of floating track was pushed still farther ahead, and the same cycle of operations repeated until the limit of the earthwork was gained. As the embankment grew in height the light rails were replaced by a heavier type, over which rumbled cars carrying 40 tons of ballast apiece, and which was pitched pell-mell into the water on either side. The embankment was then left for a while to permit settling to take place. In time it became as solid as a jetty.

The trestle section proved the most trying, not so much on account of the technical questions involved, but owing to the difficulty in obtaining timber. The wood had to be brought hundreds of miles from the forests of Texas and the north-west. Extensive stretches of trees were purchased and saw-mills were erected to cut the logs to the desired dimensions on the spot. Upon arrival at Salt Lake the wood was dumped into the water, large log booms being formed, so that the material might become seasoned thoroughly.

Work was delayed considerably by the lack of supplies of timber, from storms which swept this inland sea, and which at times wrought considerable damage. At one or two places, although careful soundings were taken, the lake bed proved fickle. When the pile-drivers were set to work, banging the massive uprights into the solid earth, progress would be painfully slow for a time, and then suddenly the pile would descend with uncanny rapidity. The cause was discovered readily. The lake bed is covered with a thick crust of salt and soda deposits, the accumulation of centuries, packed so hard as to give the semblance of being solid rock when sounded. Yet it was only a shell or crust covering unstable soil below. Driving the piles broke up this rind, and then a solid foundation could not be found.

Attempts to remedy this state of affairs were made by pitching rock into the water to provide a solid floor to support the timber uprights. This method proved so slow and expensive that the engineer devised another solution of the difficulty. He ran out a light trestle and dumped rubble overboard around its foundations until the woodwork was buried completely, and a solid earthen embankment was produced to carry the rails.

The actual extent of timber trestling aggregates 12 miles, and this erection spans the lake practically at its narrowest central part. Some of the pile-drivers were carried on floating pontoons, while others were mounted on the track above, the permanent way being pushed forward as rapidly as the timber work was completed. Owing to the depth of the water, some of the upright members are as much as 110 feet in length. They are disposed in rows of five at right angles to the track, and connected by massive longitudinal members, on which is laid three-inch planking, superimposed with a layer of ballast. It was while building the timber work that the greatest depth of water was reached—from 30 to 34 feet.

The trestle was erected with striking rapidity, the record being the completion of no less than 5,317 feet of track in six working days. Had it been possible to bring the timber up more quickly, a greater length of line could have been laid in the time. At rail-level the viaduct is 16 feet in width, and the track is so smooth and solid that the “Overland Limited” can hurtle along at full speed without producing the slightest vibration.

By the time the viaduct was completed, 38,256 piles had been used. This represented no less than 2,824,700 lineal feet of timber which had been torn from the forests. If these logs had been placed end to end they would have formed a continuous line for nearly 535 miles.

So straight did the engineer plot and build the Lucin Cut-off, that even if he had complied with Euclid’s definition of a straight line, it would have been necessary only to have deducted 1,708 feet from the 102.91 miles of track which he laid. In addition, he abolished 3,919 degrees of curves. To understand what this means it is only necessary to remember that each degree represents a segment of the circle. By dividing the above total by 360, the number of degrees to the circle, a result of 11.88 circles is obtained. In other words, on the old route between Lucin and Ogden, the train not only traversed the distance between the two points, but described nearly 12 circles as well. For 36 miles the track is dead level and for another 30 miles the rise is so slight that one has to walk half-a-mile to rise his own height. By the time the task was completed a round £1,000,000, or $5,000,000, had been expended. It appears a huge outlay to reduce working expenses and to increase revenue, but it affords a striking illustration of the boldness of guiding railway spirits in America.

CHAPTER VI
THE LONGEST “TOY” RAILWAY

The Principality is a land of many surprises to the visitor, for it possesses innumerable attractions. Yet it is doubtful whether any feature arouses more interest in North Wales than the strange little railway which runs from Portmadoc for a distance of 13¼ miles among the mountains. Certain it is that no tourist would think of omitting a journey over what is known colloquially as the Festiniog “Toy” Railway, for it is one of the great sights of North Wales.

For several years it held a unique position among the great systems of the world as the narrowest gauge line in operation. The metals are laid only 23¼ inches apart—less than half the distance between the rails forming the roads of the greater proportion of steel highways bounding the globe—and yet it has a traffic which many a more important railway would have just cause to envy. Visitors disembarking from the London & North-Western express at Portmadoc, and seeing the diminutive engine and trucks drawn up alongside on their own road and completely dwarfed by the towering rolling-stock of the standard-gauge line, cannot repress a smile, for the engines, cars, trucks and wagons are no larger than are used upon the larger-sized model railways devised to-day for the amusement and education of the young.