The treatise attracted a great deal of attention, and the following year the two engineers applied for aid from the Government of Lucerne to carry out the scheme they had devised. This aid was granted, and in two years the road was finished to Stoffel, over half the distance, and two years later to the very summit of the mountain.
A MOUNTAIN RAILWAY.
The new system consists of two rails of standard gauge, such as are used on ordinary railways, firmly fixed on sleepers, which are solidly secured to the rock by every device known, to insure their solidity. Then a third rail, supplied with cogs, is placed between the other two, and on this the cogged driving wheel of the engine of a new construction propels the
NIGHT ASCENT OF THE RIGI IN THE OLD TIMES.
engine up the hill. Engines of a special pattern were built, for as the ascent is often at an angle of twenty-five degrees, ordinary locomotives would not do. The boiler in the new engine is perpendicular and the rear is slightly elevated. The tread-wheels are connected with the cog wheel in the center of the engine in such a manner that each wheel bears its proportion of the weight. The road has been a complete success from the start, not a single accident having ever occurred.