The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1886-10-01

LIVELY RATLR0ADING.
EXCITING WORK FOR THE ENGINEERS
OF THE CALUMET BRANCH.

EXCITING WORK FOR THE ENGINEERS
| OF. THE CALUMET BRANCH.
| A Road that Winds Around @ Mountain
and Rises 400 Feet In a Mile-The
Way the Train Comes Down-A Leap
Into Canyon 1000 Feet Deep.
"It's short seven miles from Hecla station
in Browns canyon on the Denver and Rio
Grande railway. to Calumet in the noun
|. tains, said former employe of that road,
"but when you get to Calumet you are just
half a mile higher up in the world than you
were, al Hecla- That little branch has the
heaviest curves and the steepest grades of any
railroad that uses the ordinary drive wheel
locomotive to run its cars in the known world.
A grade of 2t0 feet to the mile and a fifteen
degree curve-and that's almost like taking
the same track back when the cars round it
are common on what is known as the Noun
tain division of the Rio Grande road; but the
Calumet branch hasn't grade on it less than
100 feet to the mile, and twenty-five degree
curve isn't any trick at ALL That little road
winds up the face of ne mountain gulches for
all the world as if it were an immense snake
twisting and coiling itself in the most cacri-
cious manner.
ToBoGGANING ON THE RAIL
u worked on the perpendicular string of
rails for three weeks. They called it carry
ing the hod' out there when you hire out to
work ON the Calumet branch, for it's about
as near like climbing ladder from the side
walk to the top of building as anything you
ever saw. I might have worked longer at it,
because rather like the excitement but one
day when we started from Calumet to whisk
down to Hecla with locomotive, seven cars,
an engineer, fireman and seven brakemen,
and arrived there with one car and the brake
man that was ON it in just ten minutes-the
car being the one rode on and the brakeman
myself concluded that would engage in
something where there was less risk, and went
out with a party hunting Sioux Indians
You see, the water brake on the engine and
the steam brake on the cars got little out Of
kilter when we were about half way down,
and the hand brake didn't seem to answer the
the twist very well, and from that time on q
streak of lightning couldn't have caught on
behind us, One after another tho locomotive
and six of the cars shot off of the curves and
took a short route to the bottom Of the
canyon. / don't know how it ever happened,
but my car stayed on the rails, end dropped
down into Hecla like meteorolite
"Well no: they don't make business of
carrying passengers on that Jacobs ladder Of
a road, but guess they'll let any one ride 1t
he thinks he can bold his breath long enough
to make the trip down the gulch. Calumet
isn't much of place, being principally a
hematite iron mine The ore is very rich,
ard the Bessamer furnaces at Puebla must
have it. don't know who ever struggled up
there and found the mine, but there it is,
seven miles away and half a mile high. They
couldn't build a gravity road to it because
the route up the canyon is so everlastingly
crooked There wasn't one railroad engineer
out of hundrea, hardly, that thought loco
motive could ever ascend and descend the
mountain and handle the cars safely, but
there was no other possible way to get at the
mine, and they cut the road along the face of
the canyon and began to experiment. The
road is q narrow gauge one. When they
first began to operate the road, if it wasn't a
little the liveliest piece of railroad property
in the universe then there is no evidence of
the fact in about $500, ,O0Q worth of old iron,
incapacitated locomotive boilers, car wheels
and timbers, smokestacks, air brakes, hand
brakes and sundry other disintegrated speci-
mems of rolling stock that lie heaped at the
+ bottom of the canyon all along the seven
miles of this cloud-sweeping line
CRASHING TOGETHER IN MID AIR
''The train men couldn't get the hang of
tobogganing on sleds down this gulch along
at first, and there wasn't day passed but
spectators down below would catch sudden
glimpse of train up the face of the noun
tain as it dashed like a thunderbolt from the
mouth Of some rock cut, flying with the
speed of the wind, kept straight on its course,
unable to follow the windings of the track,
and leaped headlong from the precipice, loco
motive and cars crashing together i'll mid air,
grinding themselves into million fragments,
and laundering down in one great heap of
ruins at the bottom of the canyon, at least
1900 feet below. Then they knew at Hecla
that the brakes had lost their grip, and that
the train had refused to wait for repairs. The
fellows generally managed to jump when
they found the air brake had gone back on
them, and there were more broken bones car
ried down that mountain, on their way to
Hecla to be mended, the first year this lively
road was opened for business than they gen.
orally lug off of fair sized battlefield This
Calumet branch is so unpopular with the
officers of the Rio Grande that only two of
them ever experienced ride upon it from
the clouds to the earth. That was some years
ago, and they never tried it again. Now,
when the other officers want to enjoy the
trip, they sit down and listen to the story of
the two who tried it, and turn pale and 60
home satisfied.
'Well, after awhile, they got the way of
moving trains successfully on the road. They
found that first, they must use locomotives
of extraordinary weight, and, second, they
must man the trains only with men who
would stand at their posts at all hazards
There is IL brakeman on every car. The cars
are something like coal cars and carry five
tons of ore each They are equipped with
air brakes and strong hand brakes The loco
motive drivers are checked by the powerful
half to make the trip from Hecla to the mine
summit. The down trip is made in about IF
teen minutes When the train starts from
the mine every brakeman stands with his
hainls on hi, brake. The air brakes are tight
ly set The water brakes get their tightest
grip on the locomotive wheels. The locomo-
tive itself runs with the throttle reversed |
Vet against all this friction the train thunders
down the mountain, shooting around the
sharp curves, and dashing through narrow
rock cuts many OF them curved almost double, |
at the rate of q mile every two minutes. The
men wllu man the hand brakes must be SIM
ply bundles of muscles and nerves. Their posi-
tive instructions are to work their brakes |
whenever the air brakes fail, and to stand at
their post in the face of every risk and dam
ger 1t happens not o few times in the course
Of O year that these fearless fellows have to
control as best they can some runaway train,
and stick to 1t against the very likely chance
that the newt curve they strike will topple
them cars and all, over the brink OF an abyss,
the depth of which the eye can scarcely pene-
trats, and which yawns directly beneath the
flying train | believe these brakemen have
succeeded in taking every runaway during the
past year safely down to Hecla Junction. ~
New York Sun -s--sf
Paradise of the Philanthropist.
Journalism is the paradise OF the philan-
thropist From the platform he reaches hun
lreds, but through the press hundreds Of
thousands 1t is estimated that about, twen-
ty-fiye years are requisite for an idea to "get
sroundn and find its equilibrium in average
brains; but the daily newspaper can, il it
will, reduce this period to ten years. The
by this process, goes not at stage
coach, but at lightning speed. To fuse public
sentiment into sympathy and weld it into or
raalization. we must have the glowing forge