The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1894-03-12
A PERUVIAN RAILWAY.
Expensive TO Run and Repair Because OF
High Hills and Many Freshets

Expensive TO Run and Repair Because OF
High Hills and Many Freshets.
The 0roya road is very remarkable
piece of engineering work, executed, per
haps, not wisely but too well. 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 II road for it wen hang the
track from balloons" This remark illus
irates the boldness and almost reckless
ness with which the line has been built,
md even now, fine rs 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 mountain peak,
an immense volume of water, mud and
bowlders dashes down, and half an hour
later all is calm again; but the railway
track has disappeared, or one al the
bridges will be found twisted into Knot
half mile away from its 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-
pensive 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 have % 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 drag
this weight from Lima to Chicla the loco
motive burns sever. tons Of first class En-
glish coal The maximum gradients are
per cent. and the maximum curves l2O me
ters radius. This radius is found in all the
tunnels, Of which there are forty between
Lima and Chicla the longest measuring
20G meters. The number of bridges is SIX
teen, the longest being the Nerrugas via
duct. The total distance from Callao to
Chicla, where the rails end, is S6j6 miles.
The Oroya line, on which the Peruvian
loan in 1870 of KS, 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 transan-
dine province Of Junin, and the survey and
much of the earthwork and tunnels were
executed before the money gave out in
1873. The summit tunnel through the
Paso de Galera, between l,l0O and 1900
meters long, is open, and from the plains
it appears to be- an interesting piece of
work, being on a vertical curve, with SO
per cent. gradients on the Pacific slope of
the Cordillera, and just enough for drain
age on the Atlantic S,ope, where the line
runs for 90 kilometers with gradients of
from ? to per cent, and then for the rest
of the distance to La Oroya, 43 kilometers
over easy ground.
The summit tunnel of the Paso de Gal.
era is the tifty-eighth from Lima it is dis
tant from Callao by the rails lO4 miles,
and stands at u height Of ASA meters, or
| Is, 700 feet above the level of the sea, thus
making the Oroya the highest of all the
projected transandine railways Theodore
Child in Harper's.