The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1902-10-21
PROGRESS OF WORK
ON THE CANNON BALL
Work OH the Power House Is Pro-
crossing Rapidly--Track Is
Being Ballasted.

| Steam now aScendS from the exhaust
pipe at the power house of The Can
non Ball road The power being gem
| Grated is used only for propellng the
! latheS and other mechanism utilized
| by the machinists who are setting up
, the big electrical engines, but it tends
to show with what rapidity the work of
the new road is being pushed.
The passenger station on Mates
street is being plastered; the work on
the boiler plant is practically complete;
the electrical machinery is all on the
ground and in course of erection; the
machine shop is being equipped with
its tools and the first shipment of the
| trucks for the cars has arrived.
The ninety-seven acres comprising
the terminal property is undergoing a
| complete metamorphosis. The cutting
and filling necessary to level off the
tract has been going on steadily since
May and is rapidly nearing compile
tion
The job entails the cutting of nearly
100000 cubic yards of earth and rock
At present a large gang of men in
charge of Vincent II. O'Hara is at work
levelling the space between Roaring
Brook and the Delaware, Lackawanna
and Western right of way. A section
of the embankment twenty feet wide,
one hundred feet long and sixteen feet
deep was blasted away at one time yes
terday afternoon. Five siXteen-foot
holes We're used. The bottom half OF
the hole is filled with black powder.
which has an upward tendency, and
the top half with dynamite which tends
downward. With the five holes dis
charged simultaneously and the pow
der and dynamite coming in collision,
fifteen hundred cubic yards OF rock WAS
loOsened and so thoroughly broken that
it could be shoveled.
Another gang of men is engaged in
installing sewer system to drain ev-
cry part of the property. Forty-lnch
pipes, made of concrete, are being used
on the mains.
Concrete is being used very extern
siNely in the construction of the road
and its appurtenances. 1t would have
been used TO II greater extent but for
the recent scarcity of cement. On this
account the company Wda forced in one
instance to use block stone for IL bridge
abutment after the opposite abutment
had been built of concrete.
One half of the double track steel
bridge which is To span the Roaring
brook on the terminal property is in
place and the other half is being put
in place.
The roadbed between Scranton and
Pittston is being ballasted ON more
than half the length of this stretch the
ties and rails have been laid. The work
on the big viaduct at Avoca is three
quarters done and the grading is all
complete, except for short distance
within the city of Pittston. The grad
ing of the route between Pittston and
Wilkes-Barre is we'll under way and the
surveys for the line from Scranton TO
Carbondale are finished
George a, Lee, of Philadelphia the
chief promoter of the new enterprise,
was here yesterday in company with n
number of the officials looking over The
work, They expressed themselves as
we'll pleased with the progress being
made and hopeful that the coming year
will not he many days old before the
road will he in operation