Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1908-02-20
PHONE FOR RAILWAYS
The Telegraph to Be Displaced
by 1t After March |.
WOMEN WILL BE EMPLOYED.

automatic BLOCK signals Will Be In
stalled and Many Small Telegraph
Stations Closed.
When train with little party of
passengers ON board recently pulled
slowly southwark out of the station of
Miami, on the extreme southeastern
coast of Florida, its unostentatious de-
parture marked a dramatic moment in
the history of q man and a railroad
and an event the bearing of which
upon the future relations of the United
States and her neighbors of the West
Indies can only be fully told by time,
says st Augustine (Fla.) special dis
patch to the New York Globe.
The train was the first over the ia
nous ''seagoing railroad" which Henry
NJ. Flagler has been pushing with all
the resources of the Florida East
Coast system, which he rules, literally
out over the sea toward Key West and
Havana When the trains began run
ming to Knights Key, Cuba was
brought half day nearer the United
States, and Havana was for the first
time placed In direct connection with
New York and Chicago.
The traveller can now board a Pull
man train in either of these cities,
whirl across a dozen degrees of lati-
tude direct to Knights Key and there
step from the train aboard a boat
which will land him in the Cuban capi-
tai, 115 miles distant within six hours
In another year, when the remaining
forty-seven miles to Key West have
been opened, the distance between Un-
Gle Sam and his island ward will be
still further reduced. Key West is but
ninety miles from Havana, and it is
planned to join the two by a ferry
service which shall take the trains
themselves straight through.
The conditions that confronted the
builders were these: From the southern
mainland of Florida in u long curving
line to the southwestWard the coral
fslets called the Florida keys stretch
away to Key West, the last of the
chain. Eastward lies the Atlantic,
westward the bay of Florida. Begin
ming at Homestead, twenty-eight miles
south of Miami, where the road ended,
they must build along the line of these
keys and across the scores of channels
and passages which separate them one
from another a road which should be
so solidly based as to withstand the
dreaded autumn hurricanes which
have their breeding place among the
West Indian islands. Some of the
channels are a few feet wide, some
thousands of feet and some miles. The
widest of all, the spanning of which
was the last piece of work In the com
pletion of the section now opened, is
five and a half miles across from is
land to island. Everything except the
rock for the roadbed and embank-
ments had to be transported from the
mainland, for the keys are mostly bar
rem and could furnish no supplies.
Even water had to be brought in
tanks, and the workmen had to be
housed IN floating dormitories over
much of the distance.
In spite of these difficulties and of
currents, jungle. rock, heat, mosqui-
toes and storms, the work. once begun.
has been pushed steadily on without a
halt until the end Is In sight. From
Homestead, where the extension be-
gins, II Is seventeen miles to the coast
at Waters Edge. This part of the con-
structlon is on the mainland, but 1t Is
through the strange south Floridian
region of low everglades and man
grove swamps, interspersed with high
er patches of rocky pine land.
From Waters Edge the road crosses
Jewish creek. uniting Barnes and
Blackwater sounds by a drawbridge,
and after sklrting Lake Surprise,
where thousands of tons of filling were
swallowed up in vain attempt to run
the road straight across the lake, it
lands upon the middle of Key Largo,
the largest of the keys. Fifteen miles
bring the southern end of Largo, and
there the road becomes really amphib-
ious. OF the seventy-seven miles re-
naming to knights Key more than
half is built over water on cement and
coral rock embankments or on con-
crete viaducts, supported on concrete
piers anchored to the rock bottom and
strengthened with piles. At the deep
er channels there are drawbridges to
admit the passage of vessels, and in
the embankments which cross the shall
lower passages are twenty-five foot wa
ter openings at frequent intervals.
From Key Largo the extension
crosses Tavernier creek to Plantation
key, which it traverses, thence over
another narrow arm called Snake
creek to Wlndlys island. then across a
wider passage to Upper Metacumbe
key. The longest viaduct yet reached
carries the road from Upper Meta
cumbe TO Lower Metacumbe, whence Il
still longer embankment takes 1t over
the wide channel to Long key, the next
stepping stone. Then from Long key
to Grassy key comes the longest leap
of the whole way. Between these two
thege are five and one-half miles of sea.
which are crossed by the famous ocean
viaduct," over which the rails are car
ried thirty-one feet above the maiE
surface level of the water. From
Grassy key number of small islets
and intervening passages are crossed
to the larger Key Vacca, from which,
by a narrow channel, the diminutive