The Pioche record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1908-1925, 1912-08-31

>2S.S->S<<U OVeTidnu MUM
ly. 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. II
the walking were good enough one
could tramp northward from the sea
500 miles without leaving the ice and
could branch off on side trips OF sew
eral hundred miles in various direc-
lions with ice always under foot.
But it 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 I'M
stable and dangerous material by the
summer warmth but the land is re-
duced by water to it's least navigable
! condition.
The pushing of the railroad over
| the Copper river flats 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 were twenty miles of storm
swept flats, covered with eight or ten
feet of snow. alternately flooded with
water and frozen solid. Over or
through this 1t 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 fats 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
1uicksand where men could hardly
ind 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 it 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 q
deep narrow channel. Hour after hour
through the summer this glacier dis
charges bergs into the stream, making
wash that climbs hundred feet w
the opposite bank. Nothing can stant
before it.
Just above Miles glacier the rive
makes a sharp double turn and on the
, other side meets another great dis
, charging glacier. Between these tw,
, Ice cliffs the railroad runs. The prob
lens involved are unique in raflroa,
construction. Where the river i
|, bridged between the glaciers the chan
uel is 1900 feet wide, and piers mus
be set that would Withstand the pound
I Ing of the enormous bergs from Child
!. besides the field ice which is in fiji
.een-mile current often six feet deer
2 These piers were built of solid cor
d crete reinforced with heavy stee
e rails set a foot apart all around an
D they were carried sixty feet to bee
J. rock. Their greatest horizontal d
mension also is sixty feet. In additio
v the piers are protected by concret
r breaks also sunk to bedrock and G
, unexamplied solidity.
e Just above the river at this poin
r a long and rather high trestle was r,
/. CURED, and in order to fulfill a col
q tract this had to be built after wi,
Q ter had set in. With the thermomete
, around zero and fifty to sixty-mil
wind beating heavy snowstorm a
most horizontally the men worked o
this trestle. while on the level til
wind gathered snow and gravel into
:. frightful mixture and hurled it at til
L workers with terrific fury.
. One hour was a long shift. Engine
= were stalled and had to be dug GU
Shovelers sometimes could make =
. Roadway whatever against the fiyir
q drifts in digging out supplies. FL
i days the wind blew more than eigh,
u miles an hour and then no man cou
face it. Eighty miles Of warm wir
u is too much for most people. At re,
Il and well mixed with Ice and grav
1t is too much even for an Alaskan.
u