“About all we lack now,” said Dutchy, when the windmill had been completed, “is a railroad.”
“Then suppose we build one,” was Bill’s unexpected rejoinder.
We all thought he was joking, but he wasn’t.
“I don’t mean a steam railroad,” he said, “but a gravity railroad.”
“A what?”
“A gravity railroad. Oh, you know what that is–a roller toboggan–the kind they have down at Coney Island.” And he went on to explain how we could rig up a simple roller toboggan on our island.
His plan was to build an inclined trestle on the high ground just below the lagoon, and then run wooden tracks along the shore down to the pontoon bridge, and across the mill-race to Kite Island. We started first to dig a road down to the bridge, because the bank was quite high at this point. The task was rather greater than we anticipated, but we kept steadily at it until we had cut a fairly good road through the bank, though the grade was rather steep.
Before proceeding with the trestle and track we thought the best plan would be to build our car, and then we could use it as a gauge to determine how far apart the rails should be set.
The Car.
First we got a 2 x 4-inch scantling, and cut from it two lengths, each 4 feet 6 inches long. These were laid on edge just 30 inches apart, and then a number of boards were nailed across from one scantling to the other and sawed