Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1909-03-24

The Oroya railroad has been called
"a railroad among the Clouds" In
order to construct it, the chief engi-
neer, Mr.. Ernest Mallinoski, and his
assistants resorted to the most eX-
traordinary devices and methods. The
height assembled by this railway is
within 136 feet of that of the summit
of Mont Blanc, Switzerland. The road
bends upon itself with sharp angles
as it ascends the mountain sides, like
a staircase with many turns. 1t pierces
the obstructing peaks with 80 tunnels,
which often come together so closely
that they seem continuous to the trav-
eler. Great gorges had to be trav
ersed and torrent streams spanned by
bridges that seem to hang in mid-air.
The mountain sides were in several
instances so precipitous that the work
men could only reach the point at
which a tunnel started by being let
down with ropes from the edge of the
cliff and held there till they had cut
for themselves a foothold in the rock.
The diamond drill was used in many
of the horings.
Engineers were often compelled to
triangulate from the opposite side to
mark out the course of the road, while
in one case they and their men were
conveyed across a chasm over the
Rimac on wire ropes suspended sew
eral hundred feet in the air between
the two opposite cliffs. The upper por-
ton of this narrow and tortuous river
RACES down through the bottom of
gorges and chasms walled in with
noun famous, overhanging bluffs, some
times over 1000 feet high.
A considerable portion of the rail-
way follows the Rimac in it's windings,
or crosses and recrosses it at the
sharpest angles. The grade from Lima
GAS feet above sea leveD to San Bar
toloIpe, 80 miles inland, is constantly
up, and at the latter station the eleva-
tion is 1910 feet above the Pacific
ocean-an astonishing ascent for that
distance. Here occurs the first of
many retrograde developments, rem
dered necessary by the increasing rise
UP the gorges, ravines and slopes of
form of V, and, receding upon an
ascending grade, reaches the elevated
plateau on which the village of San
Bartolome stands. Thence, crossing
and Tecrossing the Seco, a tributary
of the Rimac, it makes two complete
detQurs and ascends on the opposite
side past point overlooking San Bar
tolome Station. The road clings to
the rugged sides of the ever-towering
ridges, passes through two tunnels
and crosses a deep mountain gorge on
the famous Verrugas viaduct. This
was regarded in the Meiggs epoch as
the highest bridge in the world.
A notable feature in the section of
the railway from Verrugas or to
Surco is a tunnel through a precipi-
tous side of the mountain, about SIS
feet above the bed of the river. In
some of this there is a curve of 800
feet radius. The OrOya railroad now
continues onward and upward through
a wilderness of mountain heights in
the Cordillera, with the familiar Rimac
river still near for very considerable
portion Of the journey, while snowy
peaks that are 10000 feet high over
look its tempestuous and roaring
:. course. Continuing amid Andean seem
cry, already above the lowest limit of
perpetual snow, the road gains from
Tambo de Viso to the station of Infer
milo, a distance of 1919 miles, an as
cent of 1883 feet. The name Infer
Milo" (Little HELD has been bestowed
on this region because the Rimac
thunders and foams down a narrow
gorge, the cliffs Of which reach hun