Arizona republican., 1905-01-12
They Are RevOIutionizinq
 the Hermit Kingdom
BUILDING A RAILROAD
It Was Begun Years Ago in Anticipa- tiOn of the Needs ofWar-What Has Been Already Accomplished and What Is Expected to Be Done.

-N -NCOrreSpondence of the Associated Press)-The first of January the Jap anese will be able to run trains from
 Fusan to Seoul The military line to
 Wiju will be completed as far as Ping Yang. and in Manchuria the I'm
 perial engineers expect to open rail way communication between Liao Yang and Antunghsien. In March ground will be broken for the Seoul Gensan line. Surveyors have already started work and it is hoped that the road will be fir he'd by the end of 19O5. In connection W tn the Seoul Chemulpo line it will form the trans -peninsular route between the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Japan. The trunk line from
 Fusan to the y lu and from Antung to Liao Yang vii, bring Japan into di- rect touch with the China Eastern railway, the Sib, ian route and Europe
 From the mOp eat war was declared rapid transit 'om Fusan through Korea to the scene of hostilities in Manchuria. became a military neces- sity. This the Japanese had forseen. Even before the completion of the Che mulpo line. the first railroad in the Hermit Kingdom" the company en- gagged in this work had secured the concession to build a railway also broad guage, to the southern coast.
 This was in the autumn of 1898. Eigh-
 teen months late work on the "Kei- F'u" railroad was formally commenced at Yongtongpo. a small town some six miles from Seoul nd from which point the new road was to branch from the ChemUlpo line.
 Toward the end of last year the inn pending war gave a fresh impetus to the work which lad been progressing slowly. though s, eadily. since 1900. Thousands of coo. .les7 were put to work where before there has been but, hun dreds. The Japanese government be- sides guaranteeing he 25.O00,O00 yen capital already 'floated subscribed an additional 2,50O.0OO on condition tho road should Joe caNlpI :ted by the end of I96f If this was not done the com pany agreed to repay the amount sub scribed with interest. The bonds had 9 face value of fifty yen and the sub scriptiOns were payable in ten install ments- At present the stock is quoted considerably below par. It was neces- sary to borrow 1000O,0O0 yen from Tokio banks to carry on the work, the 6 per cent interest on this loan being paid by the government through the railroad administration. In the middle of August 1904. it was estimat- ed that an additional 2.30O.OOO yen was needed to complete the line. The inn perial department of communications on investigation reported that with various. economies 1.5SO,OOO yen would suffice This sum the government loan ed the company on easy terms; no payment need be made for the first five years; at the end of that time the subsidy was to be repaid in annual in- stalments of 5O,000 yen, on condition that such an outlay did not interfere with an g per cent dividend. With this constant official help the road has been practically completed six weeks ahead of time, though the formal opening will not take place until January 1.
 Before the war began, regular trains had been running some twenty miles over the northern, and. some twelve miles over the southern branch. In February, 1904, the lines had been ex- tended as far as Usan, thirty miles south of Yontongpo. Workmen in ever increasing numbers were put on the embankment the grades and the bridges. From Yontangpo south and from Usan north everything was hustle and hurry Great loads of ties from the Hokkaido and rails from England and America were brought into Che mulpo and Fusan. At these ports they were reloaded on flatboats and lowed along the coast and up the little streams to the points nearest the rail- road. Here the materials were landed and piled on bullock carts then drag sed across the country to their des- tinations.
 The terminal points at either end af-fn md f1 rfb a By the beginning of June a regular passenger service had been established | to Mitsuyo, thirty-six miles north of | Fusan, construction trains running | about twenty miles farther to Taiku. l Here a mountain spur blocked the road | and it was found necessary to run a 4000 foot tunnel. There has been no delay on this account, however, as a switchback has been constructed to carry the trains over the mountain. There are altogether twenty-four tun- nels with a total length of 16,300 feet, quite short and most of them occurring in this same stretch of hill between Waikan and Kantoku. Here, too the grading has been sleeper than elsewhere. In some places it is as much as one in fifty while at no other point on the line does it exceed one in eighty Though there have been many streams to cross none of them are of my great size The principal difficult y has been. in almost every instance he necessity of building 9 much long { 1T structure than the mere stream would seem to warrant owing to the ( foods during the rainy season. The ' 99 bridges large and small have to- { al length of 23,S0O feet. :
 Tn going over the line in June our I rain left the regular embankment for C he first time at Usan about ten miles i eyond Suwon. A four span bridge { 7as under construction. The piers had 9 cen compIeted and the workmen were !