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.
[Illustration: A RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION CAMP AMONG THE MOUNTAINS]
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration: THE HUGE STEAM SHOVEL WHICH TAKES SOME 3 TONS OF SPOIL
WITH EVERY BITE]
[Illustration: 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.
[Illustration:
_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.
[Illustration: 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.