Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1867-07-11

"Of the tie-getters and wood-choppeT'
there are 500 Their axes are resoerdir.
in the Black Hills, over Laramie Plains
and in the passes of the Rocky Mountains
They have 100, 900 ties in ttese hills await
ing safeguards for trains to haul them.--
Then fellow the tie-layers carefully per
forming their part Of the work.
"Now 60 back twenty miles on the roaC
and look at the immense construction trains
loaded with ties and rails, and all thing!
needed for the work. Il is like the grand
reserve of an army. Six miles back are
other trains of like character. These art
the second line. Next, near the terminus
and following it hour by hour, are the
boarding cars and construction train
which answer to the regular battle line
The one is the camp; the other is the am
munition used in the fight. The boarding
cars arc each eighty feet long. Some are
| fitted with births; two are dining halls;
one is kitchen, store room and office.
The boarding cars 20 in advance
They are pushed to the extremity of the
track; a construction train then runs up,
unloads its material and starts back to
bring another from the second line. The
boarding train Is then run back till 1t has
cleared the unloaded material.
The trucks each drawn by two horses,
ply between the tfark-layers and their sup
plies. One of these trucks takes on load
of rails, about forty, with the proper pro-
portion of spikes and chairs, making aload
when the horses are started of on fall
gallop for the track-layefs. On each side
of these trucks are rollers to facilitate run
ming off the iron.
"The rails within reach, parties of five
men stand on either side. One in the rear
throws rail upon the rollers, three in adj
vance seize it. and run out with it to the
proper distancc. The chairs have, mean
while been set in the last rails placed. The
two men in the rear. with a single swing,
force the end of the rail into the chair, and
the chief of the squad calls out Down ia a
tone that cQaalc the Forward 10 an army.
Every thirty seconds there came that brave
Down Down, on either side of the
track. They were the pendulum beats OF
a mighty era; they marked the time or the
march and the regulation step.
If il is asked: How does the work
get on 2 again let the facts answer. On
the 9th of May, 1866, but forty miles of
road were completed. In hundred and
eighty-two working days thereafter, two
hundred and forty five additional miles
were laid and put in prime condition. every
rail and tie and spike having been brought
up from the rear. Seven saw mills furnish
the ties and lumber. All bridges are franz
ed, the pieces numbered, and set up where
wanted without the least delay. The bridge
at Loup Fork is 800 feet long, and as fine
a Howe truss as can be found in the land.
While our train was running the sixty
miles from North Platte, over q mile of
track had been put down, and one train
passed over It. From one O'Clock till four
in the afternoon, a mile and two hundred
feet were added TO this while the party was
looking on.
WESTERN CAR SHOPS,
".ifter the return of the party to Omaha,
it visited the extensive shops ofthe railroad
company at that point
The depot grounds, upon which they
are situated, contain forty acres, specially
devoted To these buildings, and to passen-
ger and freight trafiic. Within five years
il is estimated that the whole OF This space
will he needed for the business of the road.
The engine house will hold twenty-one
locomotives. There arc two others further
west. Thirty-two engines are already in
use on this road, whose terminus is in the
desert, and twenty three more are on the
way, and already wanted. Those last ceh-
structed are coal burrcrs. The fuel to
move them is to come from tlc Black Hills.
In few years it is confidently expected
that the iron to support these very works
will be obtained from the same point
Think cf importing iron for Omaha from
the West.
Passenger cars are in process If con
struction equal to the best. Emgrant cars
were being built, and the frames of an
hundred freight cars were ready to be put
together. Several travelling postoffice cars
are already finished. For stations on the
route, the distributing boxes will be mark
cd North Platte Fort Laramie, Salt
Lake sacramento and 'SanFrancisco;
while the closed pouches at no distant day
will he labeled China, ThrOugh, India,
Onicial,' Sandwich Islands, Russian
America and Japan And the cars are
built as if the service were already secure.
Every particle of the work in all the multi
farious kinds demanded, shows implicit
faith in future Of grand proportions for
the road"