The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-06-14
REPAIRING THE PENNSYLVANIA.
Remarkable Scenes Witnessed Along the
Eastern Division of the Line.
phiIadaipbia Tiucao

Eastern Division of the Line.
Philadelphia Times.
After seeing a good deal of bridge build
ing and trestling since | left Philadelphia,
| shall never feel any risk in going over a
~trestie, no matter now high, that the Penn
sylvania division superintendents have
passed. They have done good work. The
main line from Altoona to Cresson, Galllt-
zen. and. in fact all the way to South Fork,
the beg inning of the reservolr-swept area,
is in good condition. AS day broke we
went around the great horseshoe curve at
limited express speed. The through trains
east and west following will simply trans
fer passengers to coaches, which the rail-
road have in great number to transfer the
few miles to the Ebensburg connection.
AS an impartial observer who has been
overit all mostly on foot and seen the repairs,
know ii to be all O. X. Miles and miles Of
new track have been laid. and every saw
mill and lumber concern in available dis
lance of any of the lines have been taken
to the Pennsylvania railroad, so that it
may be easy to replace old ties and wood
generally that was under water
hear that that the Montgomery s bridge
into Williamsport will be across to-
night. / can conceive of no more remarka-
BILE sight than the movement at daylight of
the armies of great railway organizations
to combat and overcome great disaster and
restore the interrupted travel and traffic of
the country. Linemen climbing poles like
monkeys had strung the telegraph TO
where. by the edge of the river, the opera
tor has his box of instruments in hand,
and wherever any of the generals aid-de-
camps moved, stenOgraphers were by their
side ready to put in motion a hundred
other agencies along the lines of the extern
siye system.
Here five hundred men with brand new
picks and shOvels on shoulder are marching
in regular squads like soldiers to where q
hundred carts and horses are already wait
ing to take the dirt, which is removed from
an embankment to another point to replace
a road-bed or to dump it to fill in where the
river has swallowed up the territory of the
rail.
1t is surprising to find that the men who
are doing the actual manual labor of re-
building bridges. relaying tracks and put
tins the railroad through, are not mere
meniaIs or human machinery. The digging
and hauling, it is true, is often done by
mensof mere muscle, mostly foreigners,
though even with them a hundred picks OF
shovels move with a unison and energy
that tell of some energetic intelligence that
has them in its grasp, but the work of re-.
building a railroad is done by keen-witted,
cleyer-handed Northumberland, self-re.
liant fellows who obey like veterans and
act promptly and with a full mastery OF
what they are about. / have seen carpen.
tiers who were squaring and shaping bridge
timber stop to go at shOveling dirt with
one accord and then with rubber boots ut
to their waists wade into a river to start a
t~restle.
Division superintendents and even higher
officials do not shout or swear at their men
They are on equal footing and are called by
name and they share a common mess and
the same dangers and exposure. They. are
men mostly who have homes and families
who do thorough earnest work, and are
fairly paid and treated as men in return
The bravery and grit of some of this elias:
of men and of the railroad officials who
have moved so much with them in .ths
work of restoring the telegraph and rail
way lines. the absence of which has made
communities helpless to relieve distant
distress, has been one of the finest features
that this food calamity has brought into
play.
l shall never be able to think of Franz
Thompson without comparing him in [:
a dress suit standing before the wavins
blaze of his quaint rural cabinet outside o.
Philadelphia. and seeing nm with a week.
! growth of beard. in a rubber coat and boots
standing on the severed outer span O.
| Montgomery bridge, with the electric ligh'
making the seething waters of the rive
look like Clover Club champagne, wherea,
all the commissary department then con
tanned was ham sandwiches and the waite
in the engine tank. Only last night | in
~cidentally learned that Mr. Petit and MI
Hutchinson. of this division, had not CLOSED
their eyes in forty-eight hours. 1t is b,
such sacrifices as this that such progress il
being made in overcoming the situation