The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1913-05-22
WORLD MARVEL BY RAIL.
Great Engineering Feats Being Per
formed in the Andes.

Down 1EOm CuS SumlulCS vi ..uc AL
des in Peru to the navigable head
waters of the Amazon river, a sheer
drop Of about three miles in. dis
tance of about $50 miles, American
brain and muscle last fall began the
construction of a railroad, says the
New York Sun. When this work is
completed it will rank among the
railroad engineering marvels OF the
world. The Amazon Pacific railroad
is to be its official name.
1t is to be completed in year or
two, in order to begin operating the
line. Early last fall President Le-
gula, of Peru, signed the bill which
placed 100000 in gold at the dis
posal of Alfred w. McCune, the con-
cessionaire and master builder.
The line is to be about 270 miles
long. 1t is the first hundred miles,
however-the hundred miles of tun-
nels, curves, bridges, embankments
and switchbacks from the summit of
the Andes down their eastern slope
that will put the great test upon the
ability of the builders. Here will be
employed devices in railroad building
such as have no counterpart in this
country, nor even in the most difficult
passes of the Rockies.
Marvellous as the railroad will be
from an engineering and scenic stand
point, it will be even more notable
for its economic effect on world trade.
Although Peru is not more than 500
miles wide from east to west, Its
trans-Andean products must take a
Journey of 10000 miles down the
Amazon and to Europe, returning via
Panama, in order to reach the COM
mercial cities Of it's west coast. The
new road will permit the interchange
of Oriental and Occidental Peruvian
products in four days instead of six
months.
This plan was all dreamed out in
the early '7Os by Henry Meiggs, the
most famous American soldier OF
fortune who ever visited South
America.
His greatest work was the con-
struetion of the famous railroad from
Callao to Croya, on the top of the
Andes, road which for quarter OF
a century has furnished stock illus
trations of the school biographies as
the highest railroad in the world.
The difficulties encountered illustrate
those the builders of the new road
are overcoming.
''The road has got to go there, just
there said Meiggs at one time,
pointing to the route mapped by the
surveyors. eff you can't find road
bed, we'll hand it from balloons
At points on the road the track
leaves tunnels which end in the faces
of precipes, crosses the canyons on
cobweblike bridges, and then enters
other tunnels. At some places the
cliffs were so precipitous that the
workmen had to be lowered with
ropes from the edge and held there
until they could cut footholds in the
rock. The famous bridge spanning
the gorge called the Infernillo (Little
HelD is an example of this tunnel
and bridge construction.
The Amazon and Pacific railway
company, as the McCune concession
is officially known, has been duly in
corporated in New Jersey. Peru
agrees to give s10,OOO.O00 in bonds
to the road builders, payable in in
stallments at the completion of every
25 miles of the roadbed. In addition
Peru will convey to McCune 5,OOO,-
900 acres of land in the montana
country when the road is completed.