The Washington herald., 1908-03-17


body OF sturdy. keen-eyed. capable men.
soldiers OF fortune. advance guard OF the
great army OF American civilization.
This is the American Railway Engineers
and Maintenance OF Ways Association.
Il is composed Of men who have done
marvellous things in the way OF railroad
building. and who mean 10 do more
They are the men who have pierced
wildernesses where few other men have
dared 10 60 who have braved the dangers
or hostile Indian lands. who have breast
ed streams that were deemed impassable,
who have hung for hours over the sheer
face OF precipices instrument IN hand.
risking life. limb and health that new
railway might cross the continent and
open up new lands. new homes. new cities
for the ever-restless. ever-pioneering pop
ulation OF the country.
When. in the spring Of 1sos. an enter
prising inventor laid a small wooden
railway track in the yard OF the Bulls
Head Tavern. Philadelphia. and invited
al the city 70 come and see how great
weight could be moved over this with
small power. Americas railway system
had its beginning A little tramway
was built at a Quincy Mass. quarry in
1896 and the Mauch Chunk SWitchback
in 1927 and then. when the ungainly
"Stourbridge Lion" puffed along the Car
bondale road in 1S2S railroading was well
on its way 10 that great supremacy that
il now enjoys n 1880 the United States
had tWenty-three miles Of railway. In
1910 there were ISIS miles: IN 1890. there
were 166. .706. now the United States has
slooo
every one Of these miles. before the track
was laid. walked men with compass
and sextant TO ind the nearest and best
way for the road 10 follow.
Until recently the East offered less spec
tacular engineering feats than the West.
fer the western railways had the Great
Divide TO cross, and Il presented appar-
emily unsurmountable difficulties. The
Appalachian system was more ameEi-
able to mans uses. and with the excep-
t!on Of the Hoosac Tunnel, in New Eng
land. the series OF tunnels and wonderful
loops Of the Southern road over the
Swannanoa Pass Of North Carolina. and
the incline road up Mt Washington. Look
out Mountain and in the Catskills, the
skill of the eastern engineer was not so
sOrely taxed until the bridging or the
Florida Keys called into force all his in
ventive genius.
II was the far-sighted Flagler that
looked across the sea from Florida to-
ward Cuba, realized the future poss!-
bilities OF the island trade. looked dowa
and saw the half submerged stepping
stones Of coral reef ami limestone. and
decided TO build railway far out toward
c CIba on these natural pillars. With forty
one Of these keys for foundations. the
road is being built, until II Will reach
within ninety miles Of Cuba, and put New
York in touch with Havana in fOrty-eight
hours. An army of men are ar work. the
cost Will be 5000. .000 and the passenger
OF the future who looks from his train
window along concrete viaduct and steel
rail viii rarely stop TO consider the su-
pTcme achievements OF the men who sur
veyed this route. and in whose brains
the minute Of detail for combating wind
and sea were all planned out. Like a long
Roman aqueduct. the road stretches out
into the waters. and in few years It Will
be reckoned only as a laudable achieve
ment very Ike that Of the Lucin cutoff.
two are very ike. the Lucin cutoff prob
ably entailed more work. for where the
Florida Keys offered natural foundations
of good limestone, the men who built
103 miles Of trestle and I'LL from Ogden
to Lucin. across the upper end Of Great
Salt Lake. had a more treacherous sea
bed to contend with. When the Union
Pacific built its road out from Ogden
toward San Francisco, back in the SOS.
1t circled around the upper edge of Great
Salt Lake. crossing two small mountain
ranges with heavy grades and sharp
curves. On one mountain the rise was
200 feet in eleven miles, on the other It
was 900 feet in five and one-half miles.
The tax on the rolling stock was heavy.
the delay Of freight often great SO the
brains Of the road-building profession
were called upon, and a survey made
across the lake II seemed practicable,
the enter2rising Hartman gave orders to
go ahead. and machinery and material
began to move Iakeward. Among the
items used were 5000 Oregon pines or
piles, and many more thousand feet OF
lumber for stringers- Twenty-Five giant
pile drivers were put to work, and all
the available railroad dump carts in the
country We're In requisition.
Day and night. week day and Sunday.
5000 men in ten-hour shifts labored uu-
eeasingly at dumping rocks for fills.
bridging long spaces with trestle work,
and then coming next day to fiEa that
the lifting power OF the salt sea had
made sport OF the stones and the wood
work. and 1t must ali be done over again.