The Pioche record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1908-1925, 1910-01-15
SILT LAKE ROUTE URGED TO cH ANeE ITS MAIN LINE TO GO
OVER BRISTOL PAss-PocHE COMMERCIAL ADDRESSES
LETTER RAILWAY oFFIclALs-MANY CONVINCING
ARGUMENTS ARE SET FORTH.


ground to considerable depth before
hsavy snowfalls accumulate Suddenly
the weather changes. Chinook winds
and warm rains attack the snow,
which dissolves like sugar. 1t turns
to water and starts down grade The
frozen ground forbids absorption and
every square foot of surface adds
inch after inch to the sliding sheet
of water and slush. Every impedi-
ment met in the descent forms a res
eivoir, through which the down rush
ing water, mud, rocks, ice, logs and
wrecks of every kind shoot the chute
and, so seething, foaming, roaring
on in wild stampede of destruction.
The dry chasms fill to the brim and
become rad rivers of today instead
of the long ago. Every drop and every
atom of these millions of new made
steamlets, brooks, creeks and rivers
seek ultimate bottom and when they
converge to some channel they
- swirling, shooting, leaping down
carrying destruction so overwhelm-
ing that the strongest works of man
are torn away like reeds and go
nn with the resistless current.
DRAINAGE FOR MILES.
Such were the conditions on jan
vary 1st of this year. Glover Val
ley and Meadow Valley canyon
through which your main line ran
drains from five thousand to ten thou,
! sand square miles or territory The
, latter figure is doubtless much near
er correct than the former. The
ground was frozen, there was little
vegetation to arrest water, and the
larger portion of all the melted snow
found it's way down the Meadow Val.
Icy. Even the broad meadow at Cal
iente became lake. Your tracks,
round houses and employees dwell
! ings in that town were all, either
wholly destroyed, or SO badly injured
IS to be made serious wrecks.
! In property your loss was over
whelming. In human lives you were
| more fortunate. The train which
was caught in the canyon, the road
| bed torn out from beneath it, the en-
gine toppled over and the cars swept
down the boiling torrent like corks,
was happily freight train. The
lives which went out in those cruel
Narers were only the lives of
| ho"ses. Supposing it had been
one of your magnificent limited
trains? What then? Why not?
| Even the woman in childbirth
| in one of your station houses
was rescued. Strong hands picked up
the bed on which she lay, waded out
with it to terra firma, and upon the
mountain side, sheltered by wagon
sheet from the bowling storm, the
| child was born. The house went
down stream, Only a poor track
walker was engulfed. He fingered too
IONS at his post of duty, and his
name is enrolled upon the scroll of
all nameless heroes who have died
that others might live.
MATTER OF PRECEDENTS.
| II has been asserted that this
flood was without precedent. OF
course it was. There have been but
| I'll CC FL OSCdCHCo. <AltCl GdCH YOU Ic-
built your road, and no one of these
three was as serious as the recent
one. What is precedent? 1t takes
railroad and flood to make a pre-
cedent of value in considering this
question. In the Missouri river you
can measure the height of water on a
gauge and that constitutes a preced-
ent. When railroad occupies har-
row waterway there are roadbed,
and bridges, and water tanks,and Sec
tion houses and stations, and ties,
and lumber, and cars, and telegraph
poles, and wires, and other material
which will augment jam. When
a flood gets high enough some Of
these things begin to sail down
stream. Something catches and othe