Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1891-04-10
A RAILWAY.
Expensive to Run ana Repair Because Of
High Hills and Many Fresl,ets.

High Hills and Many Freslhets.
The Oroya road is a very remarkable
piece of engineering work. executed, per-
haps, not wisely but too we'll. The diff
culties surmounted are enormous. The
constructor, an American, Henry Meiggs,
used to say, | was told, at certain arduous
points, "The line has to go there, and if
we can't find a road for it We'll hang the
track from balloons This remark illus
trates the boltiness and almost reckless
ness with which the line has been built,
and even now, fine as the work is, it is in
constant danger of destruction in many
parts. Every year sections of the line,
bridges and viaducts are swept away by
floods and landslips which cannot be fore
seen.
A ~waterspOut bursts on Il mountain peak,
an immense volume of water, mud and
powders dashcs down, and half IN hour
later all is calm again; but the railway
track has disappeared, or one of the
bridges will be found twisted into a knot
half a mile away from it's proper place.
For this reason the line must always be
very expensive and difficult to keep in re-
pair. The working of it is also very ex-
pensivc on account of the high price of
coal and the quantity wasted by the con-
tinuous firing required to force the train
up the steep gradients.
AS it is, the locomotives nave 90 inch
cylinders, and the steam pressure all the
way has to be kept at 40 pounds to the
square inch. The maximum train is five
cars, weighing eight tons each and carry
ing ten tons of cargo: and in order to dcag
this weight from Lima to Chicla the loco
motive burns seven tons of first class En-
glish coal. The maximum gradients are 4
per cent. and the maximum curves 100 me
tiers radius. This radius is found in all the
tunnels, of which there are forty between
Lima and Chicla, the longest measuring
296 meters. The number of bridges is six
teen, the longest being the Vcrrugas via
duct. The total distance from Callao to
Chicla, where the rails end, is SCI miles.
The Oroya line, on which the Peruvian
loan in 1870 Of IS, $50, 900 sterling was ex.
pended, was not finished for want of funds,
and the portion of it that was completed
has never paid. The original idea was to
carry the line to La OrOya. in the trans;ln
dine province of Junin, and the survey and
much of the carthWorh and tunnels were
executed before the money gave out in
1873. The summit tunnel through the
PasO dc Galcrl, between LOO and 1,2N(
meters long, is open, and from the plain!
it appears to be an interesting piece O.
work, being on Il vertical curve, with 81
per cent. gradients on the Pacific slope O.
the Coldil!cr9l, and just enough for drain
age on the Atlantic s,ope, where the line
runs for g. kilometers with gradients o.
from 2 to + per cent, and then for the res,
of the distance to La Oroya, 43 kilometer.
over easy ground.
The summit tunnel of the puso de Gal
era is the iifty-eighth from Lima: it is dis
tant from Callao by the rails 1O4 miles
and stand at a height Of ,Sl4 meters, O.
Is, 100 feet above the level of the sea, thu!
making the Oroya the highest of all thu
projecfed transandine railways. -Theodor'
Child "A lIarpcr's.