THE RAILWAY CONQUEST
OF THE WORLD
[Illustration:
[_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
CHAP. PAGE
I THE RAILWAY SURVEYOR’S ADVENTUROUS LIFE 1
II THE ROMANCE OF CONSTRUCTION 12
III THE BORING OF THE GOTTHARD TUNNEL 30
IV THE RAILWAY INVASION OF CANADA 46
V THE FIRST TRANS-CONTINENTAL ACROSS THE UNITED STATES 59
VI THE LONGEST “TOY” RAILWAY 76
VII THE WONDERS OF THE TYROL 88
VIII THE RECLAMATION OF ALASKA 102
IX THE HOLY RAILWAY TO MECCA 117
X THE HIGHEST LINE IN THE WORLD 128
XI CECIL RHODES’ DREAM--FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO
(I. NORTHWARDS FROM CAPE TOWN) 139
XII CECIL RHODES’ DREAM--FROM THE CAPE TO CAIRO
(II. SOUTHWARDS FROM CAIRO) 152
XIII GRIDIRONING THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS 162
XIV THE IRON HORSE IN AUSTRALASIA (I.) 175
XV THE IRON HORSE IN AUSTRALASIA (II.) 186
XVI ACROSS SIBERIA BY RAIL 198
XVII THE LEOPOLDINA RAILWAY 214
XVIII THE FIRST CANADIAN TRANS-CONTINENTAL RAILWAY 224
XIX A RAILWAY OVER THE SEA 240
XX THE LAND OF REMARKABLE RAILWAY BRIDGES 250
XXI WHERE THE SNOW-PLOUGH WORKS IN SUMMER 260
XXII FROM BUENOS AIRES TO VALPARAISO OVERLAND 270
XXIII A LITTLE-KNOWN CENTRAL AFRICAN RAILWAY 281
XXIV THE INVASION OF THE FAR EAST
(I. EARLY DAYS IN CHINA) 289
XXV THE INVASION OF THE FAR EAST
(II. MODERN DEVELOPMENTS IN CHINA AND JAPAN) 297
XXVI THE CONQUEST OF THE CASCADE MOUNTAINS 308
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
_To face page_
Where the Union Pacific Railway strikes across Salt
Lake _Frontispiece_
Building the loftiest bridge in the world 6
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. 7
A Railway Construction Camp among the mountains 16
Building a high bank on the Delaware, Lackawanna and
Western Railway, U.S.A., by modern methods 16
The huge steam shovel which takes some 3 tons of spoil
with every bite 17
The drag-line shovel which scoops up the earth in the
cutting as it is pulled along 17
The Pecos Viaduct on the “Sunset” Railway, the highest
structure in the United States, the track being 321
feet above the water below 24
The track layer, whereby the metals are laid at a speed
of 3 or 4 miles a day, crossing a heavy timber
trestle 25
The Göschenen entrance to the St. Gotthard Tunnel 32
The wonderful Wassen Loop on the St. Gotthard Railway,
showing three tiers of track 33
The compressed air locomotive which hauled workmen and
rock blasted from the mountain in the cutting of
the Loetschberg Tunnel 36
What the working face in the heart of the mountain is
like 36
The lofty Amsteg Bridge, 184 feet high, spanning the
Maderan Valley on the St. Gotthard Railway 37
No. 2, “The Toronto,” the first railway engine built in
Canada by James Good in 1853 48
The Niagara Cantilever Railway Bridge under construction 48
“The Eighth Wonder of the World” 49
The bridge as reconstructed 49
The magnificent single span bridge across the Niagara
River below the Falls 50
A view of the iron tube, 2,290 feet in length and 23
feet in diameter 51
The 2000 h.p. electric locomotives hauling the
“International Limited” through the tube 51
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 62
The timber trestle across Salt Lake, by means of which
the Union Pacific saves 57 miles 63
Building the Otavi line through the German South-west
African Bush 80
The passage of the first train, gaily decorated for the
occasion, over the “toy-like” Otavi Railway 81
The workmen cutting and blasting a narrow path on the
steep mountain slopes for the Karawanken Railway 92
The massive steel bridge which carries the railway
across the Drave River to approach the tunnel
through the Karawanken range in the background 93
The northern entrance to the Karawanken Tunnel 93
The Tauern Railway, showing winding character of the
line 96
The entrance to the Tauern Tunnel 96
One of the huge loops on the Tauern 97
The first hour’s work: navvies preparing the grade
along the main street of Skaguay 106
By railway to the Klondike--the White Pass and Yukon
line under construction 106
The dismal tract of swamp and river through which the
Alaskan Central Railway makes its way 107
The wonderful horseshoe timber trestle, 1,240 feet
long, varying from 40 to 90 feet high, on the
Central Alaskan Railway 112
A wash-out caused by the Placer River in flood 113
The obliteration of the line by a landslide 113
A striking piece of railway building in the Yarmuk
Gorge 118
A bird’s-eye view of a chasm in Palestine, through
which the line follows a winding path on the left 119
A masonry bridge on the Holy Railway, showing
solidity of construction and mountainous character
of the country 119
A heavy steel bridge in course of erection between
Haifa and Deraa, the branch from the main sacred
line to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea 122
The engineering wonder of the Hedjaz Railway--the
sudden descent into “The Devil’s Belly” 123
The railway in the domain of the Genii 124
The lonely path of the Pilgrim’s line through the
silent, rocky and sandy wastes of Arabia 125
Meiggs’ masterpiece--the V-switch by means of which
the railway is lifted from one level to another,
showing turntable and method of operation 130
The Infiernillo Bridge 130
A horseshoe curve in a tunnel 131
The first Verrugas Viaduct, which was destroyed by a
cloudburst and rock-slide 134
The highest tunnel in the world under construction 135
A British locomotive in the realm of perpetual Andean
snow, 15,865 feet above sea-level, on the Oroya
Railway 136
Looking through the tunnels on the Oroya Railway 137
The greatest bridge in the world 144
Setting up the world’s railway building record in Africa 145
Construction train on the way to the railhead crossing
a temporary timber bridge 154
The longest bridge in Africa, 1,300 feet in length,
across the Kafue River 154
The “Hanging Bridge,” one of the railway wonders of
the Denver and Rio Grande, in the Royal Gorge of
Colorado 155
The railway two miles above the sea 166
A “double-header” climbing the cliff of Animas Canyon
on the Denver and Rio Grande Railway 167
Crossing the continental “divide” on the “Moffatt” road 170
The Moffatt Railway playing “hide-and-seek” among the
tunnels in Gore Canyon 171
The gigantic snowplough, the largest yet built, which
keeps the higher levels of the “Moffatt” line
through the Rocky Mountains free from the heavy
falls of snow 172
A deep cutting 173
Boring one of the ten tunnels 173
Before the explosion 180
The blast 180
The cliff-face dislodged 180
The cliff-face broken up 180
The Puttapa Gap Bridge, 200 feet in length 181
The Hookina Creek Bridge 181
The entrance to the tunnel, 1,096 feet long, through
the Darling Range 188
The dearth of suitable water was the serious problem in
the early days of the Coolgardie gold-fields. As
the railway could not haul supplies from the coast,
this novel condensing plant was erected 189
How the Western Australian Eastern Railway cuts through
the Darling Range 194
The Leopoldina Railway is a maze of curves, twists and
bends, owing to the rugged character of the country
traversed 195
A steep bank showing the central rack rail 216
Train on the rack section of the Petropolis division,
showing the curious type of locomotive adopted 216
Rebuilding a bridge on the Leopoldina Railway 217
A flood on the line 218
A derailment caused by the train colliding with a cow! 218
An interesting engineering achievement 219
Bridge over the Parahybuna River, showing height of
river in flood and force of water surging round the
piers 219
The bridge over the Parahybuna River at Campos under
construction 220
The Parahybuna River Bridge completed. Total length
1,113½ feet 220
The rockbound shore of Lake Superior severely taxed the
engineers in the building of the Canadian Pacific
Railway 221
The “Gap,” the eastern entrance of the Canadian Pacific
Railway to the Rocky Mountains 226
Where the “Big Hill” was cut out on the Canadian
Pacific Railway, between Hector and Field 227
How the Canadian Pacific line creeps round towering
precipices along the Fraser River 230
In threading the Fraser River Canyon the engineers
were compelled to hug the waterway, though it
involved the boring of numerous short tunnels 231
The steel arch bridge across Stoney Creek in the
Selkirk Mountains 234
The railway traversing the tumbled Thompson River Canyon 235
The Cisco cantilever bridge carrying the Canadian
Pacific Railway across the Fraser River 238
The Key West “Limited” passing over Long Key Viaduct at
full speed 239
Building the grade. The dredger cutting its own path
and dumping removed spoil in centre to form the
embankment for the track 244
The embankment completed, with the canals dug by the
dredgers on either side 244
How the embankment was built on the keys 245
How the reinforced concrete arches were built within
wooden moulds 245
The training-bund or wall to narrow the Ganges by 3000
feet for the Curzon Bridge, showing railway approach 252
Erecting the piers for the Curzon Bridge 253
The training-bund under construction by native labour.
At the extreme right a pier is being built for the
bridge 254
General view of the pier-building operations for the
Curzon Bridge across the Ganges at Allahabad 255
The Gokteik Viaduct under construction 256
View of the Gokteik Viaduct 257
Train emerging from Reinunga Tunnel, 5,217 feet long,
in distance, showing snowscoop-plough on locomotive 262
Myrdal Station, showing entrance to Gravehals Tunnel,
17,420 feet in length 263
Myrdal Station in winter, showing depth of snowfall 263
A view on the Bergen Railway in winter, showing
screens to protect line from drifting snow, and
snowsheds 266
Mules carrying water in barrels 267
Load of railway metals on a mule’s back 267
Railway building in Nyasaland, Central Africa 282
A typical bridge on the Nyasaland Railway 283
The novel lift bridge over the Shiré River at Chiromo 283
The iron horse in Central Africa 284
The bascules being lowered by cables and winches from
either cliff-face 285
The bascules lowered, showing the French engineers at
centre making the connection 285
The Faux-Namiti Bridge completed 302
The line skirting the seashore near Okitsu, Tokaido, on
the Japanese Government railways 303
The most striking example of Japanese railway engineering 306
Two railways racing to the Pacific coast through the
Deschutes River Canyon 307
The “switchback” by means of which the Great Northern
Railway of the United States negotiated the Cascade
Mountains before the boring of the Cascade Tunnel 310
Building a steel trestle across a rift 311
Building the biggest embankment on record by hydraulic
sluicing 314
The “Merry-go-round” devised to expedite raising an
embankment 120 feet high 315
A lofty embankment in course of construction. In the
centre it is 120 feet high. Construction camp in
foreground 315
Building the Chicago, Milwaukee and Puget Sound Railway
through the Bitter Root Mountains 318
Carrying the Chicago, Milwaukee and Puget Sound Railway
across the Columbia River 319
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.
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: 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.