THE INVASION OF THE FAR EAST
II.--_Modern Developments in China and Japan_
The Chinese, once they were awakened to the possibilities of the
railway, were not content to permit their country to be covered with
foreign-built lines. They decided to become active participators in the
movement--in other words, they acquired all the knowledge they could,
and then undertook constructional engineering. Their aptitude for this
work finds an excellent expression in the Pekin-Kalgan railway, 125
miles in length. This road was built throughout by Chinese effort, the
engineer-in-chief being His Excellency Chang-Tien-Yow, who is to-day
the foremost Chinese engineer in this field in China. He was educated
in the United States, where he acquired valuable knowledge concerning
this branch of engineering, and completed his training under Mr.
Kinder, the builder of the oldest railway in the Celestial Kingdom.
The road is excellently built, and the engineer displayed his ingenuity
in coping with the problem of carrying the line through the Nankow
Pass. This pass guards the entrance of the main road through the Great
Wall, and to overcome the obstruction a gradient of 1 in 30 had to be
introduced for a distance of 13 miles. At the foot of the pass three
Mallet locomotives of British construction are maintained, and they
crawl to the summit of the pass, at an altitude of about 1,500 feet, in
two hours--a speed of about 6½ miles an hour.
The alignment of the railway up this pass is noteworthy. The road
clings for the most part to the side of the mountains, crossing deep
rifts and wide clefts, as well as cutting through spurs and humps and
compassing massive crags. Four tunnels were found to be unavoidable,
one, 3,580 feet in length, burrowing 200 feet beneath the Great Wall.
When the summit is gained, the railway enters a flat plateau, the only
difficulty here, as on the flats around Pekin, being the preservation
of the road from the attacks of floods. That this is no slight factor
is proved from the fact that in the vicinity of Pekin a wash-out
which overwhelmed the line cost no less than, £32,000, or $160,000,
to repair. The completion of the work, however, offers convincing
testimony that the Chinese, under competent supervision, are perfectly
capable of building railways without the aid of foreigners, and that no
fault can be found with their work so far as solidity and durability
are concerned.
For centuries the Chinese have been famed for their prowess in matters
pertaining to civil engineering. At times this skill pursues a quaint
course, but probably the most extraordinary illustration was in
connection with the Shanghai-Nangchow-Ningpo railway. By an imperial
edict a Chinese official was appointed as engineer-in-chief.
At one point it was necessary to throw a bridge across a river. How
it was to be accomplished passed the comprehension of the engineer.
But he evolved a solution which, to say the least, would be difficult
to equal in originality. He built the bridge on dry land, on one bank
of the river. When this was completed satisfactorily, he diverted the
waterway, so that the river ran beneath the bridge through a new,
specially-built channel, and the old one was filled up! In another
instance, where a similar situation presented itself, a pier in the
centre of the waterway became necessary. The river ran swiftly and the
water was deep. The engineer knew nothing about coffer-dams, caissons,
or other methods which the foreign engineer would have adopted. As
the men could not work on dry land to build the bridge, he proceeded
to provide them with this requisition. Hundreds of tons of spoil were
dumped into the river at the point where the pier was to be erected
until an island was formed, and on this the necessary constructional
work was carried out.
Possibly the greatest and one of the most important lines, however,
is the Pekin-Hankow railway, which is 760 miles in length, and which
eventually will be an important link in the great road that is
under construction, whereby through communication will be provided
from Kowloon via Canton, Hankow, Pekin, Mukden and Harbin to the
Trans-Siberian railway. This line was carried out with Belgian and
French money for the most part, and £5,000,000, or $25,000,000, was
sunk in the enterprise. The undertaking was commenced in 1900, but
the Boxer Rebellion interfered seriously with its progress. The
insurrectionists expended their full fury upon the railway, and
inflicted damage to the value of nearly £1,000,000, or $5,000,000,
which, however, was paid over by the Government as compensation. It
has been built cheaply, and does not compare, in point of solidity,
with the English-built lines. At the same time, however, there are some
outstanding engineering achievements. The most important is the bridge
across the Yellow River, which consists of 102 spans, giving a total
length of nearly 2 miles. It proved a particularly trying structure to
erect, owing to the treacherous character of the river-bed, while the
scouring action of the water, which is particularly severe, demanded
elaborate protective works around the bottom of the piers. After
various schemes were tried and had proved futile, large mattresses of
brushwood interwoven with rushes were fashioned, and laid around the
feet of the piers, hundreds of tons of heavy pieces of stone being
dumped on these to keep them in position. This has been found more
or less successful to prevent the soft silt from being washed away,
and to protect the supports to the bridge from being undermined. The
structure, however, is scarcely strong enough for heavy traffic, and
consequently trains upon arrival at the ends of the bridge have the
large locomotives uncoupled, and are drawn across the river by special
light engines retained for the purpose.
One of the most important lines from the commercial point of view,
however, is the Canton-Kowloon railway stretching from Kowloon, in
British territory, to the busy centre of Canton, and thence continued
northward to Hankow to provide connection with the other great systems
of the country, and also with Europe by means of the Trans-Siberian
railway. This project has passed through many vicissitudes. The British
& Chinese Corporation received official sanction to build a road
between Canton and Kowloon as far back as 1898, but the project became
shelved. An American syndicate, which had secured the concession to
connect Canton with Hankow, asserted that they had secured rights to
carry the line from the former point to the coast. Such action would
have dealt a serious blow to British commercial supremacy, and the
money was subscribed to buy out the American concession, which in the
meantime had been sold to a Belgian syndicate, and regained.
The section between Kowloon and Canton, 100 miles in length, was
divided. The Hong-Kong Government was held responsible for the 23
miles through British territory, while the balance of the line through
Chinese territory was carried out by the Chinese Government.
The English section proved tremendously difficult. The country
traversed was exceedingly rough and mountainous. The difficulties
encountered proved so abnormal that the cost of the undertaking has
exceeded the original estimates by nearly 150 per cent. Some idea of
the arduous character of the work may be gathered from the fact that
nearly 2½ out of the 23 miles in British territory are represented by
tunnels. The most arduous enterprise of this class was the Beacon Hill
tunnel, 7000 feet in length, driven through the heart of the mountain
ridge that rises up 3 miles from the coast. The tunnel is perfectly
straight, and ranks as the largest work of its type in the Chinese
Empire.
It is driven through a depth of disintegrated granite on either
approach, where heavy timbering became necessary until the solid rock
was gained. Water was encountered and gave considerable trouble. At
first labour was a serious problem, as the natives could not be induced
to toil underground, and coolies had to be imported from India. After
the work was well started, Chinese labourers, who had been working on
the South African gold-fields and had returned home, were available,
and proved highly useful workmen, especially when the wrestle commenced
with the hard, solid rock.
The tunnelling task, however, was equalled by the work in the cuts
and on the fills. Some of the cuttings are of enormous depth, and the
engineers have had to guard against the danger of heavy landslides,
which, with wash-outs, are two of the greatest menaces to the railway
in China. Heavy earthworks were required, because the line follows
roughly the coast-line, which is serrated, and to preserve alignment
it was necessary to strike straight across these indentations where
the water in many places proved to be very deep. The treacherous
character of the sea-bed, which for the most part is a silt, demanded
the provision of massive foundations upon which to raise the grade,
and months were expended while a huge fleet of junks dumped hundreds
of tons of rock into the water. Occasionally the work as completed
was washed out by heavy rains, while now and again the typhoon left
evidences of its wrath. A noticeable feature in the grading was the
amount of work performed by women, who had recourse to their native
basket slung on a pole for the conveyance of excavated earth to the
fills.
The railway, however, has been built upon the most solid lines, and
although its cost has proved so high, the money appears to have been
expended to advantage. The traffic, although not so extensive as it
will be, is increasing promisingly, and there is no doubt that when
Hankow is reached a heavy volume of business will flow over this
highway. The Chinese are proceeding with their section, and it is
anticipated that not many years will elapse before the two points are
connected.
The French engineers are erecting monuments to their railway
engineering skill in the Flowery Land, the province of Yun-nan being
the centre of their activity. The Yun-nan railway experienced a very
chequered career through its early stages, for in endeavouring to
connect the French possession of Lao-Chay with Yun-nan-Sen, the capital
of the province, they had to break down enormous obstacles. The country
is exceedingly mountainous, the height of the ridges being paralleled
by the depth and precipitous nature of the gorges. Still the heavy
and extensive bridging necessary proved no deterrent to the French
bridge-builders, who are masters in this art, as the many remarkable
structures in France testify conclusively.
The one factor to be feared seriously was the climate. This corner of
China is one of the most unsalubrious in the whole empire. Even the
natives cannot withstand it, and their ranks are decimated heavily
by tropical diseases. The labour question was one of everlasting
perplexity, and the promoters of the enterprise found that skilled
workmen, even of north China, evinced no desire to contribute to a
distinguishing feat amid such miasmatic surroundings. The absence of
transport facilities hit the undertaking sorely, and the engineers were
compelled to make the best avail they could of the existing vehicles of
conveyance--mules and the heads of natives.
The most difficult section of the line was in the valley of the Namiti.
Here it was a stern fight for supremacy with physical obstacles for
mile after mile. The weight and dimensions of every article had to be
restricted within severe limits to facilitate handling and carriage
by the primitive systems extant, and when the question comprised the
component parts of steel bridges, the problem demanded searching
deliberation. It was found, however, that the mules could handle
weights up to about 600 pounds, and that the natives could struggle
along with loads varying between 200 and 300 pounds, but neither man
nor beast could cope with anything exceeding 7 feet in length.
[Illustration: THE FAUX-NAMITI BRIDGE COMPLETED
The structure, 220 feet long, spans a wedge-shaped fissure and is 350
feet above the water. The bridge is approached on either side through a
tunnel.
RAILWAY BUILDING IN CHINA]
Such handicaps would appear to militate against the achievement of
any startling engineering performances. Yet, as a matter of fact, the
French engineers displayed a striking instance of their remarkable
ingenuity and capacity to meet awkward situations. The Namiti gorge
disputed the progress of the line. It is a deep, wide, V-shaped
fissure, one side dropping down perpendicularly for several hundred
feet. The line pierced its way through one bluff, and had to jump
across the rift to enter the opposite wall of rock. It was a matter of
200 feet across, and the rail-level had to be carried 300 feet above
the river below.
[Illustration: THE LINE SKIRTING THE SEASHORE NEAR OKITSU, TOKAIDO, ON
THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT RAILWAYS]
The situation demanded a novel solution. Erection by false-work was
out of the question, as also was a cantilever bridge; and, again, the
question of transporting the material to the site had to be borne in
mind. Monsieur Georges Bodin, the presiding engineer of the Parisian
Société de Construction des Batignolles, however, rose to the occasion,
and evolved an unusual type of bridge, and at the same time elaborated
a novel method of carrying out its erection.
The bridge consists of two essential parts forming leaves, or bascules.
When set in position they have the appearance of a widely-opened,
inverted V. To carry out the task of erection, first a shelf was
excavated in each cliff-face at the requisite height to carry the
anchorages below the tunnel-mouths overlooking the gap. The top members
of each bascule were riveted up, laid vertically flat against, and
fixed firmly to, the cliff-faces. From this foundation each bascule was
completed.
While the mantling of the steel-work was progressing, other gangs
were busy at work cutting out large niches in the cliff-face, some
height above the tunnel portals, and on these platforms powerful
winches were erected. Each of these carried heavy chains measuring 900
feet in length. The transport of this essential piece of tackle was
interesting. Large gangs of coolies were disposed in Indian file 7 feet
apart, and the chains were trailed over their shoulders like a gigantic
serpent. In this way they wound around crags, climbed steep bluffs and
threaded narrow defiles for some 13 miles. These chains were passed
around the winches and the outer ends were attached to the upper points
of the bascules.
When each bascule was completed it was pinned firmly to its anchorage,
the lashings securing each leaf of steel to the rock face were knocked
away, and the two arms were held merely by the chains. Gangs of
coolies were stationed at each winch under the supervision of a French
engineer, and at the word of command the chains were slowly paid out,
causing the bascules to heel over towards one another. Care had to be
exercised that the lowering proceeded evenly from either side until the
two arms met at a point. Workmen then swarmed up the arm on either side
and rapidly drove in the pins and rivets which secured the two leaves
firmly in position. The whole task of lowering and securing took only
four hours, which was a noteworthy achievement.
Two short steel towers were now erected on the haunches, or central
part of each bascule, to support the steel deck of the bridge, the
members of which were brought up to the mouth of the tunnel and
launched by being pulled out over rollers. With the spanning of
the Namiti gorge, the most difficult part of the railway line was
completed. When the enterprise was undertaken it was computed that the
railway could be completed for £3,840,000, or $19,200,000, but by the
time this gorge was spanned a revision in the estimates showed that the
cost would approach £6,620,000, or $33,100,000.
In Japan, the strides in railway development within a comparatively few
years have been quite as notable as in China. In the former country,
however, the conversion from primitive means of communication to steam
locomotion commenced at an earlier date, and was attended with greater
success. As in China, the railway invasion of Japan was fathered by an
Englishman, Mr. H. N. Lay, who visited Tokio as a guest of the then
British Minister, the late Sir Harry Parkes, in 1869. He approached
the Government and stated that he was prepared to furnish the funds
necessary to commence the railway conquest of the country.
He made his offer at a peculiarly appropriate moment. The military
regency which had ruled the country for so many centuries had drawn to
a close, and the new Government welcomed the proposal. Foremost among
the supporters of the project were the present Count Okuma and the
late Prince Ito. Mr. Lay undertook to raise a loan of; £1,000,000, or
$5,000,000, and this was accepted, while Mr. Lay was entrusted with
the carrying out of the scheme. The promoter of the enterprise secured
the services of Mr. E. Morell as engineer-in-chief, and in 1870 the
work commenced. But friction arose between the English capitalist and
the Government, who did not approve of the financier’s methods. The
agreement was nullified, and the Oriental Bank was established to carry
out the undertaking, Mr. Morell being retained in his engineering
capacity.
He set to work in grim earnest. The question of gauge had to be
settled first. This vital detail was threshed out in all its bearings,
a gauge of 3½ feet was selected, and the building of the first line
between Tokio and Yokohama--a distance of 18 miles--commenced. Once
the fashioning of the grade began, other schemes were put forward.
Among them was a line from Kobe to Osaka, a distance of 20 miles,
which was put in hand, while an extension of the latter line to Otsu
was surveyed. The first railway in the country was opened on October
14, 1872, amid elaborate festivities, in the presence of the Emperor.
Within six years of Mr. Morell’s arrival, no less than 70 miles of line
had been laid and opened. This was a highly satisfactory and energetic
start for a young country, and the success of the experiment spurred
the Government to more ambitious schemes. These, however, were doomed
to temporary derangement owing to internal troubles, and the rebellion
in South Japan in 1877, which drained the imperial exchequer to such a
degree that no funds were available for railway-building operations.
Among these early enterprises was a trans-insular railway to connect
the Pacific coast of the island with the shores of the Sea of Japan,
with ferry-steamers on Lake Biwa to connect the inland break in
the railways due to that sheet of water. By this time the Japanese
engineers considered themselves competent to build railways, for they
had proved apt pupils under Mr. Morell’s training. Native talent
found its first opportunity on the Kioto-Otsu undertaking. This was a
peculiarly difficult enterprise, but the Japanese engineers rose to
the occasion, though English engineers were retained to advise them
and to design the bridges. On this line tunnelling had to be carried
out, and this was the first occasion on which the Japanese engineers
were faced with this work in their own country. Still they succeeded in
complying with the original plans to perfect satisfaction, and had the
pleasure of learning, when the road was opened in 1880, that the cost
of construction was less than the estimates.
The completion of this undertaking marked the decadence of the foreign
engineer in railway-building in Japan. Native engineers were found to
be capable of fulfilling the difficult position of assistants, and
consequently only a few British engineers were retained in the capacity
of advisers or consultants.
Private enterprise also entered the field, and numerous schemes
were sanctioned. The first of these was the Nippon Railway Company,
organised through the instrumentality of the late Prince Iwakura,
a strong advocate of railway expansion, mainly for the purpose of
assisting the peers to secure a profitable investment. It took several
years of ardent campaigning to enlist the sympathy of the latter
in such a project, but at last they fell victims to the Prince’s
persuasion, and the Nippon Railway Company was born.
[Illustration: THE MOST STRIKING EXAMPLE OF JAPANESE RAILWAY ENGINEERING
The conquest of the Usui Pass, showing heavy tunnelling and the rack
rail in the centre of the track.]
This company projected the building of no less than 510 miles of
railway. The two greatest contributions to this scheme were the
Tokio-Takasaki railway, on which the Government guaranteed a profit of
8 per cent. for ten years, and the Tokio-Sendai section, guaranteed
similarly for fifteen years. Numerous other private companies followed,
many of which received liberal Government subsidies. But while private
initiative was displaying considerable energy, the Government railway
enterprise slackened, and threatened to collapse, until Prince Yamagata
proposed that trunk lines should be laid along all the main routes
of the country, when the movement received a fresh impetus. Thus in
1883 there was renewed national activity in construction, and although
many of these undertakings were beset with difficulties of a physical
character, they were pushed through to completion.
[Illustration:
_Copyright, 1911, Kiser Photo Co., for
Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway_] [_See page 310_
TWO RAILWAYS RACING TO THE PACIFIC COAST THROUGH THE DESCHUTES RIVER
CANYON
The Hill line describes a horseshoe curve on one side of the river,
following the waterway. The Harriman line, on the opposite side of the
river, tunnels through the projecting tongue of rock.]
One of the most notable of these early achievements was the
Takasaki-Naoyetsu line, which was commenced originally to facilitate
the transportation of constructional material for another road. The
engineers were baulked by the Usui Pass, and this gap was left open,
the two sections on either side of the range being opened for traffic
in 1887. The intervening division was undertaken subsequently, being
deferred from time to time in the hope that an easier location than
had been plotted would be found. Though the engineers searched the
mountains diligently, they failed to secure any improvement free from
heavy work, and at last the mountain division was taken in hand. The
grades were so steep, however, that the rack had to be introduced,
the Abt system being selected. The engineers found this section
particularly trying, as they had to drive no less than 26 tunnels
through mountain spurs in a distance of 7 miles, while the deep clefts
in the mountain’s flanks called for massive masonry bridges. This
work, however, was completed in 1893, and it served to provide through
communication between Tokio and Naoyetsu.
It is doubtful whether the iron road ever has made such a phenomenal
growth in other parts of the world within a short time as has
characterised its development in the East. In China there was not a
mile of line in 1877. To-day over 10,000 miles of railways have been
built, are under construction, or are projected. In Japan the network
has grown from 18 miles in 1872, to 5,141 miles at the end of the 1910
fiscal year, of which total 4,634 miles belong to the State, and 597
to private companies, while the former at that date had 2,790 miles in
hand, and private enterprise about 160 miles.