Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1912-08-30

&SSI4ltttN4HP where, according
SSS{fltlSVw to a writer in the
,s,sSsSSf& Overland Month
", the builders
of the line are laying off the perma-
nent roadbed itself on ice.
There are several thousand square
miles of glaciers still in Alaska IL
the walking were good enough one
could tramp northward from the sea
500 miles without leaving the ice ana
could branch off on side trips OF sew
eral hundred miles in various direc-
lions with ice always under foot.
But 1t isn't the ice, at least not as
ice, that has made the task of the
railroad builders so hazardous. Every
summer masses of the glaciers break
off so that they are rapidly retreating'
But that only makes conditions worse
for the men who are fighting their
way across this remnant Of frozen
age. For not only is the ice reduced
from a fairly permanent to most un-
stable and dangerous material by the
summer warmth but the land is re-
duced by water to its least navigable
condition.
The pushing of the railroad over
the Copper river fats involved enough
logged courage to supply a dozen
books of old-fashioned romance.
These soft, shifting silt beds, with
their innumerable river channels and
Quicksands, are impossible in sum-
mer to either man or beast. This was
winter work.
There we're twenty miles of storm
swept fats, covered with eight or ten
feet of snow, alternately flooded with
water and frozen solid. Over or
through this it was necessary to move
not only men and horses but hun
dreds of tons Of supplies, timbers and
pile drivers Sometimes rails were
laid on brush piled on the snow. In
other places ten feet of snow was
shoveled away for track laying.
AS spring broke the flats became a
lake of slush and water and still the
work went forward. The moving OF
supplies ahead of track laying became
increasingly difficult with warm
weather. To get in horses, for in
stances, scows just large enough to
hold one animal were built and towed
by launch across the river channels.
Long lines were then attached and
the loaded scows towed by force Of
main strength over the soft mud and
| tab r.rhn I'd
find foothold and horses would hope
| lessly mire. A mile an hour was
often good average time for this trav-
cling, even with big crew of every
horse, and 1t went on hour after hour
and day after day.
But this was all below the glaciers.
At the three-mile face of Miles gla-
| cier the river is contracted within a
deep narrow channel. Hour after hour
through the summer this glacier dis
charges bergs into the stream, making
wash that climbs hundred feet up
the opposite bank. Nothing can stand
before it.
Just above Miles glacier the river
makes a sharp double turn and on the
other side meets another great dis
charging glacier. Between these two
/ ice cliffs the railroad runs. The prob
lens involved are unique in railroad
construction. Where the river is
/ bridged between the glaciers the chan
mel is 1900 feet wide, and piers must
be set that would withstand the pound
! ipc Of hn de
besides the field ice which is in fif-
teen-mile current often six feet deep.
These piers were built of solid con-
crete reinforced with heavy steel
rails set foot apart all around and
they were carried sixty feet to bed
rock. Their greatest horizontal d.
mension also is sixty feet In addition
the piers are protected by concrete
breaks also sunk to bedrock and of
unexamplied solidity.
Just above the river at this point
long and rather high trestle was re.
quired, and in order to fulfill a con-
tract this had to be built after win
ter had set in. With the thermometer
around zero and fifty to sixty-mile
wind beating a heavy snowstorm al
most horizontally the men worked on
this trestle, while on the level the
wind gathered snow and gravel into a
frightful mixture and hurled 1t at the
workers with terrific fury.
One hour was long shift. Engines
were stalled and had to be dug out.
Shovelers sometimes could make no
Roadway whatever against the flying
drifts in digging out supplies. For
days the wind blew more. than eighty
miles an hour and then no man could
face It, Eighty miles of warm wind
is too much for most people. At zero
and well mixed with ice and gravel
1t is too much even for an Alaskan.
/