The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-04

to that of the Gothard. nine and one
 fourth miles. It is an unprecedented rec
 ord, all the more interesting as there were considerable difficulties to be overcome. Differing in one respect from. most Of
 the great Alpine tunnels, the Loetschberg
 is not international. Crossing the enor- 1 nous masses of the Bernese Oberland, 1t
 unites by a direct routeI the valley of
 the Rhone and the Simplon railway line, | with the Canton of Berne, which at pres
 ent loses all the traffic which now goes
 through Basic by way of the Gothard tunnel, or through Lausanne by way
 of the Simplon tunnel The new railway | line seems to be of purely local, Swiss, | interest, and France will derive from 1t
 only secondary advantages.
 As we indicated in our issue of Sep
 tember 1, 1906, the distance from Paris
 to Milan by way of Pontarler-Lausanne-
 Simplon, now 501.6 miles, will be reduced
 by the new line, by way of France-Val- l lerbe to 491.4 miles, and by way of Pom
 tarlier-Neuchatel- -Loetschberg-S -Simplon, to
 i05I miles. The differences are small.
 It is true, however, that our eastern | travel. hereafter reaching Italy by a rouse
 nofceably shorter than that by by of
 Gothard, will hereafter be in a more ad-
 vantageous position in holding the .traf-
 fc with English tourists that ostend
 has so long tried to divert.
 In any case the road by way of the
 Bernese Alps is of especial interest to
 us: it is built mostly with French capi-
 tai and by a group of French capitalists
 now including Messrs. Allard. Chagnaud, | Couvreux. Dolfus and Wriot. Messrs.
 Coseau and Duperchit. who were mem
 bers of the original syndicate, have died
 since the work began. MT Ghagnaud,
 who was entrusted by his associates with
 the general management of the enter
 prise, is already well known by the read
 CTS of the illustration" he was in l charge of the construction of that sec
 ton of the Metropolitan railway which
 crosses the two branches of the Seine | river
 l The new line leaves Frutigen near Lake | Thoune and runs up Kander valley to
 near Kandersteg, at an elevation of 39S7 | feet (aboVe sea leveD. It then enters the tunnel, nine miles long through the
 massive Loetschberg mountain, to it's out | let at Goppenstein elevation 3996 feet. | The line then runs down the side of the
 mountain and the valley of the Rhone to | Brigue. The total distance is 36 miles. of which about half is tunnels The
 minor tunnels totaling a distance of over
 six miles: several of these arc from 4Io | to 5200 feet long.
 The locating of the working plant at
 the south end of the great tunnel was at tended by some peculiar difficulties. The l village" of Goppenstein, consisting or only a church and one small house | perched on the mountain side, 1850 rect
 above the valley of the Rhone was con
 nected with the valley by mule path, 1 often cut off by avalanches In winter. It was necessary to create veritable in- l dustrial town, with all the necessary fa- cilties for a population of coco persons; l consctruct enormous casemates and build l ngs of great strength to thoroughly pro
 tect the working force from avalanches; construct enormous casemates and bulld- l deer ravines, roads for the transportation of machinery, material and supplies Of every kind. some pieces of machinery often weighing several tons each. At this | end as also on the northern end, which was much more easily equipped, there were speedily established power plants generating electric power of 20OO to 2oeo I horsepower capacity, which was utilized l in numerous ways, the greater proportion l in operating air compressors It Is mo- l ticeable that for the first time in so | great an undertaking of this character, l compressed air was used as motive pow 1 CT, both for operating drills and for l traction purposes, incidentally greatly l simplifying the problem of ventilation. l Less than six months after the eXeeu- l tien of the "coneession' papers, the work
 on the approaches to the tunnel was be- l gun October 15, 1906. all the work at first | being hand labor and on March l, 1907, operations with power driven machinery | began. At first work proceeded favorably under normal conditions but on February | 2g 190s an avalanche carried away a I large workshop at Goppenstein, killing F | of the French Workmen employed there.
 and causing a suspension of opera tions of | over a month.
 l On the 24th of June of that year more terrible and unprecedented eatas- l trophe occurred when the Kander river | feel into and flooded the north tunnel, then sn distance of S494 feet.
 l In a geological survey made as the l basis for estimates on the work 1t was l claimed that the bed of the kander riNer 1 cor sisted of a bed of alluvium, 33 Feet | thick. resting on a solid granite floor, and the tunnel was run at the depth of 5S5 feet allowing for 26o rect or | granite Instead of this. the anuVlum was over 62O feet deep When the open ing reached this point an enormous mass of sand earth and water was preclpl- | tated into the tunnel, filling 1t Tor Ssoo feet in length and killing 20 Italian la borers
 To check the flow of water and sand. fine tunnel was closed by means of wall of solid masonry 35 feet thick, and the 1 imnossibility of crossing the submerged ! territory being evident. the direction or | inc tunnel was changed The line was | turned to the east, so as to pass under l tba Kander river near it's source and to onerate continuously in solid granite.
 The necessary result was a very sharp curve which seriously affected the cNh- struction and upkeep. In addition the ] length of the tunnel, originally fixed al | s miles 239e feet was increased to over | . miles. and entailed the loss of i6o6 feet | of completed tunnel which was neces-
 sarily abandoned, and it was March or
 1909 before regular construction at lhis end could be resumed.
 l After this time, the whole enterprise | advanced with unparalleled rapid1ty IT | allowance is made for the loss Of seven months time q month at south and b
 months at north end). it will be seen | that operations with power driven ma | chinery, begun March 1, 1907. and com-
 pleted March 26. 1911. were completed In
 three years and four months working time, in constructing a tunnel 9.O3 miles | long and 4656 feet of abandoned tunnel. 292i feet was hand work This is an
 average driving of S9.s7 feet per day.
 During the close of the work the aver
 age reached 46. 46 feet per day, a single | shift often exceeding 39 feet
 1 It is only fair to state that in some
 respects the management of the Loetsch-
 berg found some conditions more favor | able than In the Simplon tunneLs Except one stretch of two and one-half miles in
 calcareous schsts. and another zone, about 1900 feet of very different shift | ing ground. the tunnel has run through f compact granite. Powerful air drills, op=
 ersting chrome steel drills. drove regu-
 larly h to 16 holes five feet deep within
 one and one-eighth hours. within a face l of 10x7i4 feet The overburden was at | nn time more than 56N0 feet deep. The