The Topeka state journal., 1908-03-05
Horseshoe Bend to Be Changed
Into Safe and Speedy Route.
LOTS OF MONEY SAVED
Reduction of Grades Will Reduce
Cost of Transportation.
Other Items of Interest in
Railway Circles.

tlme on which both passengers and
freights may be hauled into Los An
geles; to add to the hauling power Of
the engines that are now held down to
short trains by bad grades, and to make
its system the finest in California. the
Santa F'e Railroad company has begun
to expend more than $1,000 900 in the
southern part of that state.
This, according to engineers. does not
include the new steel that is to be laid
to San Diego, nor the work in contem-
plat1on at Capistrano. The million will
be used entirely in the betterment of
the San Bernardino line on the south
side Of the kite-shaped track, say San
ia F'e track men.
According to the Los Angeles Exam
iner, new rails have been laid from Los
Angeles to Santa Ana On sixteen miles
around Cotton, from Highgrove to Santa
Ana, 100000 is being expended and
$4O0, 900 of this will go into the straight
ening Of one curve-the famous Horse
shoe Bend in Santa Ana Canyon, a few
miles above the little Mexican village
Of Yorba, Orange county.
Annually, Horseshoe Bend has cost
the company thousands of dollars in
repairs to the damage done by the ever
changing river and the terrific floods
that tear down the little canyons, wash
ing out hundreds Of feet Of track.
Now nearly 200 men are at work, with
two huge steam shOvelS and number
Of teams and Scrapers making this mile
and half of curved track impregnable
to the storm waters and the river floods.
The roadbed, once a double curve on
which no speed could be maintained in
absolute safety. is being Strengthened
into single, wide, sweeping curve, over
which passengers and freights may be
rushed at sixty miles an hour. Noun
tainsides are being carved away with
dynamite and with steam to make room
for the roadbed; SUBMITS are being
scraped off whole hills and thrown in
laundering masses down the steep walls
of the canyon to build up a solid wall
which the river in its widest raging
cannot tear away.
Wherever little canyon drains the
wide watershed Of the hills onto the
track, great cement fumes are being
put in, with high and wide stone cul-
verts that will carry greater streams,
even, than those which have wrought
such havoc with the roadbed in years
past.
In the beds of the canyons themselves
where there are evidences of weakening
in the natural dirt walls, cement chutes
and abuttmentS have been put in, at a
cost Of thousands of dollars in cement
work alone, to save the high roadbed
from all future cloudbursts or heavy
All the curves which were once tech
nically known as ten per cent? curves,
and which were the terror of engineers,
are being reduced to four per cent Even
the several curves that will be welded
into one big curve on Horseshoe Bend,
will be reduced to this four per cent
average.
-Four per cent curves are light
curves, that is. those on which high
speed can be maintained, and it is
figured that the running times of
trains from San Bernardino-the
Santa Fe's gateway into southern Cal
lfornia-to Los Angeles, can be re-
duced by hours What this means to
Los Angeles is almost as great as
what it means to the Santa Fe sys-
tenn.
BY it. perishable freight rushed
across the desert from the east. and
from Los Angeles to the east, can be
faster than now. The efficiency of
engine, of every car, of every train
man, will be Increased by per-
cenltage which time and the use of
the new road alone can tell.
1t is figured by officials of the
Santa Fe that the improvement in
efficiency in handling trains over this
Horseshoe Bend alone will pay four
per cent annually on the investment
of 100000. Four per cent on $780,
900 is $16. 6.000-as the yearly return
from the improvement of two miles
of track. How much the other i'm
proven ents to be made with the bal
ance of the huge sum which will be
expended in southern California, will
pay in returns to the railroad and to
not be estimated in tangible figures,
for the reason that none of the other
work is so near completion as is this,
Six big cuts are being made be-
tween Cotton and Yorba to straighten
the line. These cuts are all included
in a stretch of track about ten miles
long, and two big steam shOvelS have
been at work on them for months.
This week another shovel, larger than
either of those now on the line, will
be put to work.
About 100000 cubic yards of sand
and dirt and rock yet remain to be
removed most of it from two cuts,
some 10000 yards from the cut at the
west end of the canyon and 10000
yards from the easterly end of the big
curve. Nearly two months will be re-
quired to complete the work with the
months more will be taken up with
the laying of new steel and the bal
lasting of the track, which is always
one Of the longest and most difficult
parts of the making of a railroad.
Larger and heavier rails than ever
before used on this part of the line
will be laid here, 1900 tons of S5-
pound rails have been scattered along
this stretch of track, ready to be laid
as soon as the grades are established
and the curves reduced to conform
with the plans.
Great reductions are being made
in the grades at the same time that
the curves are being Strengthened
Deep gashes are being made in the
earth and long ridges of made-land
being built up to make a uniform
slope through the canyon, over which
heavy freight and less passenger
trains may be hauled with less cost
and less work by the engines than
formerly.
Horseshoe Bend, to the outsider
unfamiliar with railroad work, does