Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1900-12-27
Misunderstanding" a Trans
continental Railway.
by II L CLEVELAND.

| by II L CLEVELAND.
When Bloemfontein passed from the posses
sion of the Orange Free State into that of the
English, Lord kitchener, the supply and en-
e!necring head of the English army found the
single track road from Bloemfontein to Johan
peshurg must be doublc-tracked. SO . eat
was the stock of munitions ofNwar at hand at
Blnemfontein. so urgent the need for them at
Johannesburg, that the old style, single-track
I line could not be depended upon to convey
them.
They say--those who were in Boemfontein
at the time-that the better part Of the nearly
so miles of double track was laid in forty.
eight hours-sone of it could not be laid at all.
owing to the mountainous character of tho
country. My Lord Kitchener, having hia rails
and ties at hand, with n few spikes, and much
good British muscle in store, placed the ties up-
i'll and d"wnhill wherever they would lay, laid
his rails upon them, drove his spikes, tanped a
little ballasted much less, and showed in his
trains of supplies. In one place the rails were
SO poorly held that human agencies were en-.
ployed to keep them i'll position while the cars
passed safely over. However, Johannesburg
got the supplies it needed, and the Kitchener
"double-track' will pass into history as the
quickest laid--withont survey or graling--in
the history of war railroad building
But such parallcling of an already established
single track with companion line would never
do for an American transcontinental railway.
having hundreds of thousands of human live s
Fand tons of products to carry, east and west
every year. The license of war permits a dou-
BILE or single track to be laid where engineers
would fear to tread even in times of peace
Providence or something else carries the trains
over to the enemy's front or incontncntly
dumps all. through the spreading of II rail or a
misplaced spike, into the ditch, to be later
looted by the enemv's foragers. The license of
peace demands of railway officials, from the
humblest construction lahorer to the highest
engineer-the most important president
severest fidelity to the laws of science in track
4 building
| One is not apt to think so as the "Colorado
Special or the Overland Limited" or the paci
\ tc Coast speeds across the plains of Illinois and
Iowa. One accepts this matter of course;
something which always has been n provision
4 for which laws of nature and only laws of ma
ture are responsible. Yet nothing is more I'm.
truc-nothing less matter of course" friend
riding one day with a railway magnate, over one
of his lines praised the ease of travel mt par.
ticular spot in the track; the absence of Earring
aud wretched shaking.
Yes said the President in reply. at feels
easy to you and is easy. but the engineer who
Strengthened out the kinks in that particula
spot for me was two years devsing his plans
and six months more getting them into effect
That smooth bit of track cost this system
T49o.ooo before it was transformed from one OF
i
| Track laying, rOndhed building the construc.
tion of bridges and cnlverts, converting !. single
line into a double track line, have passed into a
| foremost classification in the fixed sciences of
railway work. Men of extraordinary special
abilities are not only demanded. but sought for
by the railway corporations to take charge of
these undertakings Some one has called this
class of brainy builders--these radical oppon-
ents to the icnnoclasic sprit-"moncy savers y
/ The phrase is not misapplied. They arc rail
way economists of the hiahest order, raising 3,
profession once indexed with the ''drudgery'
department to the highest pinnacle os profcs-
si0nal standing. They are the men who in al
lparts of the world are leveling the mountain
heights, bringing the peaks down to the plains
spanning torrents, opening the four corners of
!! the earth to tho ingress of man. He, by the
fruit of their labors. is gradually recognizing
that, from pole to pole and ocean to ocean. the
ultimate purpose of the races of the world is
one. In other words. the comparatively un.
known, silent, industrious railway builder ia
making for the universal brotherhood of man
| All of which is not far removed from the
| story of the greatest double track construction
work now under way, ever undertaken by an,
railway in the word-grcatest. to this writing
in number of miles of single track paralelel
I'M total amount OF cut and fill in grades re-
dnced in degree, in curvature overcome, and in
expense incurred The feat, for such it must
be regarded by the public, has not only been
undertaken, but more than half completed b,
the Chicago Il North Western Railway on that
|p.rtion of it's transcontinental line extending
4 from Chicago to Omaha, Nebraska The tota,
trackage is 49s miles and carries the henvins.
transcontnental freight and passenger traiir
between Luke Michigan and the Missouri river
! 1t is old history how the North-Wcstcrn lin.
has grown from the infant GaIcna q Chicago
Union Railroad Company to its proportions %
today. That Is not part of this tale of "donhlc-
rnfskI
romance. although palpablc fact when one
passes over the line across Illinois and Iowa to
the bottoms of the Missouri. The old singh
track system of the North Western when frs,
placed land maintained after being placed for
fifty years. was located almost wholly with ref
erence to the sparse hut growing settlements of
| the Northwest-for quick access tn the lead and
coal mines and to the then developing wheat
fields Chicago in 1877 and thereafter was a
growing grain and produce shipping point, "A fit
terminal for a railway system, intending in time
to reach the Pacific.
| Gaena. in northwestern Illinois, was the cen
\ ter of the lead mine district and an important
| produce section; Clinton was "A Mississipp rive,
point desirable as a railway feeder; Boone 900
miles besond. was in close proximity to coal
fields and in the heart of n cerca-prodn cjnp
soil. Still farther on, Council Bluffs now out
stripped by Omaha. was apparently rising
metropolis on the Missouri The object of the
/
to reach these named points ~ soon as possible.
with as little MISREPRESENTATION expense with
as much lodging of hills great cuts and great
| fills as could be tolerated. Grades unless cx.
4 Extraordinarily out of proportion as To the main
line. were taken into small considerations Cur
vatnre WAS not studied to any great extent Tho
fair line was not popular for it was expensive
and neither skeptic bondholders nor ncredul-
GUS tinanciers would stand for it. railway in
| those pioneer times was built with the sole idea
of getting there as soon as possible. and then
lof becoming revenue producing with the least
delay.
| Said the engineer Of one of orr western rail
ways to his assistants about TO begin prelimin-
airy survcys:
| Follow the courses of the streams"
They did 80 and the track vas down in mar
vellouslv short time, although eventually the
new theory of railroad economists will probably
| demand the Strengthening and practical rebuild
ling of tho line. The president of one of our
prominent railways was riding over of his
lines with his division superintendent when a
bad curve in the track struck.
l by heavens" said the superintendent, ''the
engineer that located that track put all the curves
and jolts in that point
Well replied the manager quietly, when l
located that line did not know as much about
the business as do now
| As he had grown in the new methods of rail
way construction so the North Western line ha.
advanced, and the most remarkable evidence of
! this advancement the double-track work now
on. This by tho end of 1901 will give the
North Western donble-track transcontincntal
line from Chicago to Omaha GO-podnd rails
block signals, and almost AIRLINE right OF
way for the flight of its through trains iron
| Chicago to Denver. aan Francisco and Portland
| The system undergoing such an extraordinary
change without interruption of traffic, without