Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1892-09-07
OUR NEW RAILROAD.
The Progress Being Made on the santa
 Fe, Prescott & Phenix Line.

 The Progress Being Made on the santa
 Fe, Prescott & Phenix Line.
 A correspondent of the Albu- querque Democrat, writing from Ash Fork, says: "The Great South west, and particularly the Arizona end of it, is awaiting with growing interest the final completion of the Santa Fe, Prescott X Phenix ailway, the railway line which must not only connect two great railway systems, but anneal the interests of the great commonwealth of Arizona, the north and south, and open up to development wonderfully rich country intervening, country teeming with mineral wealth, graz ing lands that have no superior val leys where fertility is unsurpassed, 1 and what is more to the point, create market for every product. G"The building of 6 railway line | through the mountains of Arizona is beset with many unforeseen ob- | strucsions. The mountains are | high and preeipitous, the canyons are deep and broken, and water is not alway plentiful, until developed by artifce. Laborers must needs be imported, as we'll as most all sup plies, and it is not always possible to procure the best quality of either, and often rs difficult to keep on hand sufficient quantity, for with 1 meat and vegetables the hot climate plays havoc, and with the ordinary green laborer the whisky knocks them out.
 "Without exception the most eco nomical and, at the same time, the broadest gauged calculations, and the cleverest piece of engineering ever inspected by the writer is right here on this little connecting link of railway. While expense is not spared to shorten the line and in sure a superior roadbed, every point of vantage has been calculated with care and precision and some really remarkable feats have been deduced. | At one point where the road winds down the mountain toward the south about half way between Ash
 Fork and Prescott, four miles and one half of track are required to cir cumvent 1000 feet distance and in the entire distance there is not a curve out of proportion nor grade greater than a standard maximum grade followed, the entire distance in question. To secure such results some very heavy rock cuts and deep fills were required; one cut in solid
 rock is sixty-fve feet half of its length of HOO feet, while ninety foot fill was required in one in- stance, a portion of which Is solid masonry at the base, built on an everlasting granite formation.
 There are twenty-seven miles of track graded, twelve miles of which is ready for the steel, which is al ready here and which will be put down, beginning tomorrow, as fast as 100 men can lay it. Between 500 and 700 men and a requisite num- Der of teams are at work grading and blasting cuts, and half as many more could be utilized could they be secured; in fact, Mir. c. J. Lan- try, western manager for B. Lantry & Sons, the great railroad contract ors. who are building the line, start ed east Thursday last to secure more men and teams.
 "The bridging is completed to the end of the first twelve miles, and will be as far as the first rock cuts, twenty-seven miles, within the next three weeks, at the end of which time the steel will be laid to the first now unfinished bridge and by October 1st to the top of the mountain.
 A car load of hand cars and push cars arrived at Ash Fork on Satur- day, and, together with the twenty odd other supply cars. the trains de- signed for construction work, the ten boarding cars, and half-dozen or more office cars, occupying the dozen side-tracks north of the huge commissary buildings, make quite a town by themselves, while on the south side of the track a half-dozen saloons and as many restaurants and other refreshment houses, adds glamour to the scene. Ash Fork is a typical western railroad termi- nus, such as are depicted so graphi- cally in the yellow backed variety of dime novels, where one may get game of any kind and at any time.
 -Four several engineering parties are now at work bet Teen Prescott and Phenix, and two others will be l in the field south of the latter place to locate the line to connect with the Guymas line of the Santa Fe at Nogales, via Florence and Tucson. "The builders of this road, B. Lantry & Sons, are the parties who recently constructed that wonderful railway line from Manitou to the top of Pike's Peak, and the princi- pie contractors of the Atlantic & Pacific, and in fact the entire Santa Fe system. and have built more miles of railway, and the most diff cult at that, of any firm in existence. Mir. R. R. Coleman, who laid most of the track of the Santa Fe system, has charge of the track laying.
 "The Ash Fork, Prescott < Phe- nix railway. when finished will be one of the finest in the west, and one of the most important.' hence must be paying investment from the start.
 "The friends of the road should not be impatient at the seeming tardiness in the construction work, for only a limited number of men may, at one time, work in a rock cut, and equally limited must be the force on the big fills for there are many of each to overcome. The impression prevails that Prescott