The record-union., 1896-12-14
RAILROADS OF PERIL.
some Strange Kinds of Railroads Told
About Herein

The strangest, most periIous railway
IN the world is in the Himalayas. For
convenience sake it is called an aerial
railway, and this is no misnomer.
Think of sitting in a hoop suspended
from birch rope over a chasm, at
| the bottom of which-a fearful dis
tance down-runs a mountain torrent,
and making your way across by hitch
ing the hoop along the rope.
This is just how the passengers must
proceed to make the chasm crossing at
this, the oldest of railways on the
Thibetan frontier.
The invention Of the twisted steel
rope, has made the development of the
aerial railway practically safe and
commercially possible, and more than
1000 miles of line are now in working
order in Spain, Italy, South America,
India, the Cape, China and Japan.
The cable at Hongkong is one of the
only two aerial lines used solely for
passenger traffic, though it was built
for useful and commercial reasons.
| The length of the line is two miles
and the exact hight ascended 1,09O feet.
The difficulties in the construction of
the Table Mountain wire line were far
greater than in that at Hongkong. A
precipice and incline 800 feet in hight
interrupted the ascent midway.
| The summit of this precipice was
used as support, and the suspending
| wire leaped in a single span of ], 1,470
feet to the edge of the cliff, and thence
in another span of 400 feet to the fiat
top Of the mountain. The loads carried
across these CULTS average half a ton
each, and the line is used both for pas
senger and freight traffic.
| The rock of Gibraltar has also its
Wire line, though of slighter build and
far more striking in steepness. The
hight to the signal station is barely a
quarter less than the total length of the
line, and the wire runs straight to the
summit of a series of lofty trestles after
a first leap of 1000 feet in an ascent of
one foot in every one and half.
| Viewed against the sky, looking par
allel to the mountain side, it appears
like a telegraph wire stretched tight
from the tops of a series of miniature
Eiffel towers yet the soldiers ascend
in the little wooden boxes which travel
on it with equal safety and comfort.
The Hongkong, Gibraltar and Table
Mountain lines are worked on double
cable, along which one car ascends as
the other descends, the two being con-
nected by hauling rope.
But those are toys compared with the
complicated and ever increasing system
of aerial trains now working in the
great iron mines of Spain. Near Bilboa
the greater part of a mountain side is
quar"ied away at different levels to OBJ
| tain the fine iron ore, which is carried
to the railway by pipe lines, running
from the station at the foot of the
mountain to the mines along the sum-
NIT.
These nine lines carry on an average
1900 tons Of ore day, none of
which touches the level of the ground
till it has travelled some five miles
through space.
The appearance of the multiplex lines
of wire stretching from tower to tower
of light trellised iron and hung at inter-
walls with hundreds Of ore carriages in
constant motion, is one of the strangest
spectacles in modern mining enterprise.
The double line Of iron scaffolds,
where it leaves the terminus In the wall
| ley, looks like the support of some
lcSlOOIed WIIn wires
slung with rows of pendant buckets.
/ Higher up the mountain, where deep
ravines cut the face of the hill. the
treStles tower TO such a hight that the
travelling loads of ore look like little
black balls against the sky. When the
different levels Of the mines are
reached the lines of the wireway di-
verge and are carried to nine separate
points in the workings.-New York
Journal.