Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-18
NARRowEsT AND cRooKEDEsT.
Snakelike Railroad in Arizona Used Tor
Transporting Ores.

Transporting Ores.
From the Chicago Chronicle.
Between the mining towns of Clifton and
Metcalf, Ariz. there runs the steepest. mar
rowest and most tortuous railroad in the
world. Passengers as well as long trains
of ore are raced down dizzy grades, dragged
up steep inclines, swung around sweeping
curves, and carried in safety in snake
like course over one of the most picturesque
bits of mountain land in the country.
The compact and sturdy little engines
which draw the precious metal from the
mines in one town to the shelters In an
other, or which puff and steam up to the
front or back doors of the homes of mine
owners and workers, there to await the
mistress of the house she prepares to
take the entire family to market or make
an afternoon call, run on twenty-inch
gauge.
this railroad. which winds up to the very
peaks of high mountains, hangs suspended
over deep canyons, and boreS its glitfering
way through miles of solid rock, when the
twenty inches are put side by side with
the standard four feet eight and half
inches
From the mines to the smelling works 1T
is pretty much down grade. The plucky
little engine, with its train of eighteen or
twenty heavily loaded ore cars, each guard
ed by a miner in picturesque garb, who
taxes lnlS opportunity 10 secure Il uttle
fresh air and sunlight, hugs the mountains
for miles at stretch, then suddenly swings
into a desolate valley and tears along
river bank until it is forced to climb
slight incline to bridge which stretches
over yawning canyon. There are three
of these bridges from Metcalf mines to
Clifton smelling works. and the trestle
work ranges from 125 to 130 feet in height.
From mines to smeter is twenty miles,
SO circuitous is the route; the trains tear
down the mountain sides at the rate of
sixty miles an hour, with power at the
lowest possible gauge. Heavy brakes are
used on each ore car, and the locomotive,
although a powerful little puller, is seldom
called into service on this downward trip,
which is made for sixteen of the twenty
miles with brakes on full
Automatic dumping cars are used, and
twenty-four minutes from the time the
train starts from mine with Its load 1t
is ready to start on its backward trip
empty. Up, up, up, the train climbs, the
ascent never being less than twenty de-
grees. 1t reaches in sections such heights
that the brain turns dizzy at the mere
thought From a station in the valley, In
the little village of Metcalf, the cars seem
to be clawing the mountain sides in per-
fectly perpendicular line and as the Ian
terms swing out when the train takes
loop, the traveller seeing it for the first
time would be readily excused for naming
it some new mountain terror.
The trip back to the mines consumes
nearly four hours, for the little engine,
winch was Literally puSItd uoWIi Tie
tain by the weight of its train, is now
obliged to pull the empty cars up grades
which test it's timber to the fullest
An idea of how winding is the. route will
be gained when it is known that Clifton Is
but five miles from Metcalf as the crow
flies but as the railroad is obliged to wind
it's way it is tri1e over twenty miles, To
get the circuit oven within this limit whole
mountains of solid rock have been tun-
neled.
For nearly one mile the railroad carries
it's trains through inky blackness. Jagged
rocks are overhead and on each side. A
passageway was literally hewn and hacked
through these rock mountains, for 1t was
de emed dangerous to use dynamite In many
places, as the nature of the secret gas
pockets therein was unknown. Two and
a half years it took to complete this tun-
mel, but when it was finished it cut nearly
five miles off the route.