The Railway Conquest of the World

by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

To-day in foreign countries where huge stretches of swamp bar the progress of the iron road the self-same principle is adopted, and it is known as “corduroying” or “cross-waying.” In the northern States, Canada and Siberia—the latter country and Canada especially—the “muskeg,” or “tundra,” as this treacherous land is called, often stretches for miles. One can sound it sedulously to a great depth, and then will fail to touch the bottom. The soddened decayed vegetable matter merely fills a large depression which cannot be drained. The builders waste no time attempting to build up a solid earthen embankment resting on the submerged solid floor of the bog. They fashion a huge mattress of trees. Large trunks are laid horizontally and longitudinally to the track. Upon these are laid transversely two or three layers of shorter logs, the whole being secured together firmly. A topmost layer of branches forming a kind of thatching completes the structure.

At times these mattresses assume respectable proportions. I have stood beside some almost as thick as a man is tall, and they constituted quite formidable pieces of work. When the corduroy is completed a layer of rock is applied, and upon this is dumped the gravel and other material forming the embankment. Under the weight thus superimposed the mattress sinks deeply into the morass and rests firmly. The earthen ridge is continued to the requisite height; the whole of the embankment for the track rests upon the fabrication of tree-trunks. Yet the whole is just as solid as if resting upon granite. One might remark that it appears an indifferent foundation upon which to pile up a mass of earth weighing several hundred tons, and that in a short time the wood, under decomposition and collapse, would precipitate a subsidence. But as a matter of fact, the corduroy grows stronger with every passing day. The wood immersed in the viscous liquid and preserved from all contact with the atmosphere becomes waterlogged, until at last it assumes the character of bog-oak and is practically indestructible.

Stephenson was called upon to cope with another critical situation upon the same railway. The great tunnel at Kilsby was in course of construction, but work had not proceeded very far when the contractors struck a large pocket of water and quicksand. They combated this adversary for several months, and then, unable to make any appreciable headway, threw up the contract. Efforts were made to induce other firms to accept the task, but in vain. At last Stephenson was called upon to rescue the undertaking from failure. The outlook was far from promising, for the shaft was being sunk through material which the engineer always regards askance—a shale—while the fault in which reposed a large volume of water and sand was of large proportions. Stephenson concluded that the best way to cope with the problem was to pump out the water first, and accordingly he rigged up an elaborate plant capable of handling 1,800 gallons per minute, and this was kept going day and night. Even then, however, it was only by superhuman effort that the water was kept down. One day after Stephenson had been on the scene about six months, the water got the upper hand and flooded the tunnel to such a depth that the men and materials had to be floated in on rafts.

This undertaking, however, served to demonstrate to those anxious to participate in railway-building speculations how estimated expenses for definite work might be sent astray seriously, and how formidable and ubiquitous was the unexpected factor in such work. The original contractor offered to complete the burrow, 7,169 feet in length, under the Kilsby Ridge for some £90,000. By the time the last brick of the lining had been laid and the tunnel was ready for use over £300,000 had been expended.

The attempt to pierce this tunnel at that time, however, was a far more difficult enterprise than it would be to-day. The engineers had not the powerful marvellous appliances such as serve the contractor’s purposes now. Electric energy was unknown, the hydraulic shield for driving tunnels had yet to be invented, the steam shovel had not been thought of—in short, the contractor was handicapped on every side by the crude character of his tools. Some of these appliances which the modern railway-builder uses are little short of wonderful, both in time- and labour-saving qualities, and the majority have been born of necessity.

For instance, in the early railway days on the American continent too much time would have been occupied in building lofty earthen embankments among the mountains. Accordingly the rifts and gullies were spanned by timber trestles. But the woodwork was perishable, and there was always the risk of fire demolishing the structure and precipitating disaster to a passing train. The obvious remedy was to replace the wood by metal, but the expense was a deterrent factor.

One day a workman on one of the mountain sections suggested that the woodwork should be left intact, but buried beneath a mass of earth. The suggestion was received with ridicule because, as the divisional engineer pointed out, several thousand men and several hundred trucks and dozens of locomotives would be required to handle the material, while the time the task would occupy was incalculable. The workman listened to the criticisms, and then interposed with the quiet comment that he did not suggest using any trains and trucks, and that a few dozen men would be ample to complete the work. The divisional engineer was somewhat astonished, and at first thought the man had taken leave of his senses. Then the workman revealed his intentions. He would not resort to steam shovels or any other device of that character. He had observed minutely and tested the power of a jet of water, and consequently had conceived an idea to wash down masses of gravel by means of very powerful jets of water. There was no need even to rig up a steam engine and pump to supply the requisite force to the water flying from the nozzle. High up on the mountain-side was a creek. A dam could be thrown across this torrent at little cost, and the pent-up water could be led down to the working site below through piping, and the pressure thus secured by gravitation would be more than ample for the purpose. The gravel as washed out of the hillside would be directed into wooden conduits and led to points around the trestles, where it would be discharged to build up the embankment.

It was a simple means of overcoming a perplexing difficulty. The divisional engineer was so impressed with its feasibility that he secured the requisite permission for the workman to put his suggestion into practical form. The creek was dammed by throwing trees from bank to bank, and from the little pond thus formed the water was led several hundred feet down the mountain-side through pipes to the large nozzles. A small network of timber conduits were fashioned to convey the displaced gravel to the feet of the timber trestle.

In a short time work was commenced, and as the jets of water struck against the solid face of the mountain, the soft earth and gravel were washed out at tremendous speed. Heavy streams of mud poured down the conduits. The hill disappeared like magic under the scouring action of the harnessed water, to reappear in a symmetrically-shaped ridge around the woodwork, which grew rapidly in height until the level of the railway was gained. The embankment thus formed was found to be as solid and stable as if built by dumping, and the whole task was accomplished in a few weeks. While the work was in progress the chief engineer and his lieutenant visited the spot and watched the building of the embankment by hydraulic sluicing with intense interest. Its complete success in this initial experiment secured its adoption, and in a short space of time, where the conditions permitted, all the trestles among the mountains were buried beneath a ridge of earth built up by a jet of water.

While I was being shown some of the most impressive pieces of railway engineering among the Cascades, my cicerone, an English engineer and railway-builder, after describing the features whereby the Great Northern railway is taken down to the coast, remarked, “I wonder what Brunel would have done among these mountains? I guess he would have revelled in the difficulties they offered.”