The Alaska citizen., 1916-12-11
Phone 2Oz Phone
OUR COAL IN SIGHT.

Present indications are that Fair banksans Will not be compelled to endure another woodless winter such as is the present. For to all inten,s and purposes if Nenana coal is be ing mined next winter it can be brought to Fairbanks on trains Of the Ala. ka government railroad. That such statement. if made in the nature of a prediction, would be a little prema- ture, is admitted, but the fact re mains that if congress appropriates the amount of money asked for by Secretary of the Interior Franklin k. Lane for construction work on the Alaska railroad, it is probable that the railroad between Fairbanks and the Nenana coal fields will have been so far completed when next fall comes, as to make the bringing of Nenana coal to Fairbanks an en- tirely feasible project,
 Secretary Lane has asked congress for an appropriation of $l0,595, ,762 for railroad work in Alaska Of this amount S3,478.S90 is to be spent in Interior Alaska, or on that part of the railroad line between the Healey fork of the Nenana river and Fair banks, according to the estimate The remainder, it is understood, is to be spent between Broad I'ass and the coast.
 The plans of the Alaskan Engineer ing commission in regard to work on the interior end of the railroad are not known as yet. However, it is to be presumed that, as soon as the money for the coming summers construction work is made available work will be tarted on a large scale. A good foundation for actual con struction work was laid during the past summer in the clearing of the right of way practically the entire distance between Fairbanks and the Nenana coal fields and the grading of some of it. It therefore seems that the only drawback to the laying of the rails of the permanent track is that fact that those rails have not arrived. But shipments of them can be brought in by boat in the summer, and they can be laid as rapidly as they do arrive.
 The obvious need of Fairbanks, and it was never more obvious than at the present time, is coal. And before the coal can be brought it is necessary that the railroad between Fairbanks and the coal fields be com pleted. To that end it would seem that the best line of procedure would be for the other two members of the engineering commis ion, Chair man Edes and Captain Mears, to turn over all of the appropriation for the interior to Commissioner Riggs, who is in charge of the rail road work on this end of the line
 Nobody knows the needs of the interior better than Commissioner Riggs. He knows that development of the interior is practically all de pendent on the coal and the trans portation facilities for bringing it to various points in the vicinity of Fairbanks. It is therefore certain that he will do all he possibly can to complete this end of the line as rapidly as possible.
 But will the other commissioners work to that end? Whether they will or not remains to be seen. One of them has already stated, accord ing to coast di patches, that the rail road will not be completed before 1921. Which means five years of waiting and wood-using for Fairbanks and vicinity until the coal gets here. And there is no doubt that many business and mining enter prises will have died a natural death by that time, or else will have lain non-productive and dormant.
 Boost for the coal! We need it.
 DE