New Britain herald., 1918-09-27
MURMANSk RAILWAY
ALLIED STRONGHOLD
Parallels Finnish Border and
Built With View to Defense

Washington, Sept. 27.-The allies
are now marching into Russia from
the north. They are already far
south of -Archangel, where our ma
rines joined them. The Germans have
again called upon Finland to move
against them. Presumably, in any
case the Germans themselves will try
to attack. And. from the map, the
new Murmansk railroad, parallelling
the Finish border as it does for al
most its entire length, seems to offer
the most vulnerable of open tanks.
But the Germans themselves know
better than that. The Murmansk rail
road is about as far as possible from
being an open flank. And just now
there is at least one man in America
who is in position to tell why. That
is Vladimir Goriachkovsky, the big
Russian engineer who built it. It was
built in less than eighteen months
when after nearly two years of war,
Russia found the absolute need of
having an ice-free port on the Arctic.
Goriachkovsky was chosen for the
job because he was an engineer who
had already solved many problems
his last work had been a railroad
along the foot of the Altai mountains
and it was known that the Muir
mansk would be a road of many
problems. And when it was planned
and located never for a moment was
it forgotten that it was a railroad
which sooner or later might be a
would-be object of attack.
Deliveries on Schedule Time
But, first, to look at it only as a
railroad. 1t runs from Svanaka, the
mainline junction east of Petrograd,
six hundred miles north to Kola. It's
last two hundred miles is within the
Arctic Circle, and Kola is the worlds
only Arctic railroad terminus. To
build the Murmansk in a year and a
half-it was finished in November,
917,-1O0 900 men and $4,000 horses
were put to work. And In one sense
it is an American railroad. For it
was built with American materials.
Three years before the marines
reached the White Sea, our ships and
our freight-handlers were going there
with rails and construction machin-
cry. When no pick would open the
frozen ground, great fires were built
to thaw it for brigades Of American
steam shovels: When it was found
impossible to get supplies through
from the south for the construction
the needed flour and bacon. And,
from first to last. it was found pos
chile to let everything rest and de-
pend upon American business system.
In this way:
When a railroad is to be built in
record time, work must begin stimuli
taneously along almost the whole
line. And the tools and rails, the
bridge work and supplies must be de-
ivered as near as is in anywise pos
sible to the particular section for
which they are designed Well, when
the right-of-Way was located, it was
found that at various points on the
road there were adjacent points on
the coast of Kola Bay and the White
Sea where it might be possible for
ships to make a landing. If they
could do it, and make their deliveries
exactly as per a previously arranged
schedule, whole m onths could be
saved. And our ships did it, Despite
German submarines waiting for them
outside, and iceborgs impeding traffic
within, they made their deliveries as
per schedule Not day was lost, not
a meal. The bacon and the steel ar
rived together. If the Murmansk now
promises to be one Of the most useful
roads on earth, America can claim at
least a part of the credit for it's being
there.
Reindeer Trails and Marshes.
But why can it not be hanked and
cut from Finland? The answer lies
in the nature of the eountry. 1t is
absolutely wild and lsvfftually impas-
sable. It is much like northwestern
Canada. There is the same amount of
game. When our boys are not fight
ing, they can fish and shoot There is
the same lack of all roads. The sparse
reindeer trails-reindeer sledded in
the first French ammunition-are the
best the German will find in that re-
spect. From Lake Omega north there
are the same lakes and marshes. For