The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-11
RAILWAYS IN KOREA
JAPANESE HAVE BEEN BUSY IN
 THEIR CONSTRUCTION.
Rapid Transit from Fusan to the Scene of Hostilities fin Manchuria a Mil- itary Necessity FOreseen by
 Niikado's Government.

(Correspondence of Associated Press. ) Tolsio, Dec. 5.--By the first of Jan pary the Japanese will be able to run trains from Fusan to Seoul. The mill itary line to Wiju will be completed as far as Pingyang. and in Manchuria the imperial engineers expect to open rail- way communication between haoyang 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 finished by the end of 1905. In connection with the Seoul -Chemulpo line 1t will form the s-peninsular
 route between the Yellow Sea and the Sea of Jepan. The trunk line from Fusan to the Yalu and from Antung to Liaoyang will bring Japan into direct
 touch with the China Eastern Railway the Siberian route, and Europe. From the moment war was declared rapid transit from Fusan through Ko-
 req to the scene of hostilities in Man churia, became a military necessity. | This the Japanese had foreseen. Even before the completion of the Chemulpo | line-the first railroad in the Hermit Kingdom"-the company engaged in | this work had secured the concession to build railway also broad guage,
 to the southern coast. This was in the | autumn of 1898. Eighteen months la ter work on the "Kei-Fu" Railroad was formally commenced at Longtong- DO, a small town some six miles from
 Seoul, and from which point the new road was to branch from the Chemul- DO line.
 Toward the end of last year the im- pending war gave a fresh impetus to the work which had been progressing slowly, though steadily. since 1900. Thousands of coolies were put to work where before there has been but hun
 dreds. The Japanese government be- .vaAo trHor ha capital already floated, subscribed m additional 2,5OO,000 on condition the
 road should be completed by the end
 of 1904. If this was not done the subscribed with interest. The bonds had a face value of 50 yen and the
 subscriptions were payable in ten in-
 At present the stock is quoted con- siderably below par. It was necessary
 to borrow 10.000,000 yen from Tokio
 banks to carry on the work, the per cent interest on this loan being paid by the government through the rail- road administration. In the middle of August, 1904, 1t was estimated that an
 additional 2,Soo.oO yen was needed to
 pertinent of Communications, on in-
 Vestigation, reported that with varl-
 ous economies 1,S50,0O0 yen would suf- flee.
 This sum the government loaned 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 he repaid in annual instalments
 of 50.OO0 yeil, on condition that such an outlay did not interfere with an
 per ceit dividend With this constaQt
 official help the road has been practi-
 time. though the formal opening will not take place until January l.
 Before the war began. regular trains
 had been running some twenty miles
 GA nEfh miles over the southern branch In
 February, 1904, the lines had been ex-
 tended as far as Usan, thirty miles south of YongtOngpo. Workmen in eyer-increasing numbers were put on the embankments, the grades and the bridges From Yongtongpo south and from Fusan north everything was bus
 Great loads of ties from the Hok- kaido and rails from England and America were brought into Chemulpo and Fusan. At these ports they were reloaded on fatboats and lowed along the coast and up the little streams to the points nearest the railroad. Here the materials were landed and piled on bullock carts then dragged across the country to their destinations.
 The terminal points at either end were moved farther and farther afeld. By the beginning or June regular to Mitsuyo, thlrty-six miles north of Fusan. construction trains running about twenty miles farther to Tatku Here a mountain spur blocked the road and 1t was found necessary to run a 4,000 foot tunnel
 There has been no delay. however. on this account as a switch back has been constructed to carry the trains over the mountain. There are alto Rether twenty-four tunnels with to- tai length of 16.300 feet. generally quite short and most of them occur ring in this same stretch of hill coun- try, between Waikan and Kantoku.
 Here, too. the grading has been steeper 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 any great size. The principal diff culty has been, in almost every in stance, the necessity of building much longer structures than the mere stream would seem to warrant, owing to the floods during the rainy season. The 299 bridges large and small have to- tai length of 23.0OO feet.
 In going over the line in June our train left the regular embankment for line first time at Usan, about ten miles beyond Suwon. A four-span bridge was under construction. The piers had been completed and the workmen were driv- irv fhe niles preparatOrY to swinging