The Alaska daily empire., 1919-08-01
REVIEW GIVEN OF
 WORK DONE UPON
 ALASKA'S ROAD
Believed that Coal of Me- mana Will be Made Avail able Before Winter
 Sets in

| SEATTLE, Wash, July 31.-Pion
 eering government construction crews
 laying the 471 mile railroad from | Seward, on the coast. north across the continental divide to connect with Alaska's great interior river l highway system, made no attempt early this summer to close the 150 mile gap across Broad Pass between | the ends of steel lying north and south of the terminals of the road. Recent failure of Congress to ap-
 propriate $1O,OO0,000 requested to complete the road, made it i'm possible for the Alaska Engineering Commission which is directing the work, to plan of laying any new , line. Hope has not been abandoned, however that the necessary money will be voted this session, Repre- sentative Curry, California, intro duced measure providing for the appropriation of $17,O00,OO0 for the road.
 was the delay in the work on the government railroad During the war men were hard to get as they were needed in France, ships were wanted to carry troops overseas instead of railroad suplies to Alaska and rail- road materials were sent from the states to the battle fields instead of to the north.
 But now that the war is over, Alaska hopes to see the work on the road pushed Tho road would have been completed in 1921 If Congres! had appropriated the $10000, 900, manager J. l.. McPherson of the Alaska Bureau of tho Seattle Cham Der of Commerce recently told the Senate Appropriations Committee. McPherson a railroad engineer him self is in Washington assisting in the fight for the funds.
 Construction crews started this summer to connect the links between Nenana and Fairbanks, on the in tcrior end of the road, and to build snowsheds, repairing trestlcs, bridges and road bed on tho line between Seward and Anchorage and trains were operated regularly until snow slides stopped travel. By next win ter, it is hoped, snowshcds will per init trains to operate at all times.
 Coal already is being moved over the coast end of tho railroad from the Matanuska fields to Seward and Anchorage and nearby points and it is believed that Nenana-Fairbanks road will be completed this fall so coal can be handled from the Nenana fields to Fairbanks. The Matanuska coal is moved over thirty-eight mile branch running into the coal fields from the Seward-Anchorage end of the line.
 Main line track has been laid on the north from Seward 224 miles to Talkeetna. On the northern end the line has been built 34 miles south from Nenana and seven miles south of Fairbanks. All of the road
 is not being built by the government On the Seward end the Commission, when it started work, took over the old Alaskan Northern Railway, run. ming north from Seward. On the in terior end the Panama Valley Rail way, which ran out of Fairbanks was have put both of these lines in first class shape.
 Some of the work on the interior end is being held up until the road from the coast in finished so mater ials can be brought over it from the seaports of Seward and Anchor age. At present prohibitive costs make 1t impossible to transport large ammount of matrial to Fair, banks and Nenana as suplics must be sent thousands of miles around by St. Michaels and up the Yukon River or to Skagway and over the mountains and then down the Yukon One big piece of work being delayed until the line reaches the interior is the construction of bridge across the Panama River at Nenana. Last winter a track was laid on the ice of the frozen river for work trains.