The Railway Conquest of the World

by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

Still it was a grim fight with Nature for every foot of the way. A mere ledge suffices to carry the track, and this gallery is often at a level of seventy feet above the sea beneath. Here and there the line is enclosed by a roof recalling the snow-sheds of the Selkirks or Cascades, to protect the rails from stones bouncing down the cliffs. Curiously enough, the method in which Brunei drove his line along this forbidding wild shore recalls the staggering feats accomplished in the American mountains, and indeed a journey over this railway will provide a thrill in miniature such as results from a toil through the mountain backbone of the New World. The dislodgment of massive boulders and landslides are so frequent that flagmen have to be retained to keep a vigilant eye on the track and to warn passing trains. At places long walls have been erected high on the hillside to arrest the descent of the movements of loose rock on the one hand, while on the other the cliff face has been cut into terraces to break the force of the waves, and together with retaining walls and groynes, seek to counteract the insidious erosion of the sea.

THE TRACK LAYER, WHEREBY THE METALS ARE LAID AT A SPEED OF 3 OR 4 MILES A DAY, CROSSING A HEAVY TIMBER TRESTLE

When Bray Head has been passed the physical character of the country changes with startling suddenness from jagged rock to clay. Here the engineer was brought to fierce grips with his adversary. The clay is honeycombed on all sides with springs, and there is a constant war between the engineer and Nature for supremacy. Building the line was exacting indeed, but the puzzles which had to be unravelled then are equalled by those attending the preservation of the road. The battle was waged relentlessly for some years, but the sea won; the engineers were compelled to re-lay their track some distance inland.

The shareholders in the railway are paying dearly for Brunel’s colossal error. Indeed, it is a poor return for an outlay of over £400,000, or $2,000,000, which were sunk in this sixteen miles of line. It may be wonderful engineering, but it is not business. The railway company are anxious to abandon this location and to rebuild the line along the route it should have followed in the first instance. At the present such a result is not financially possible, but its realisation is merely a question of time.

One inspiriting phase of the railway-builder’s work is the race against time, and in the fulfilment of such a task many an astonishing performance has been achieved. When one of the great American railways was pushing its way to the Pacific coast, it required a tunnel to be driven for two miles through the Cascades. It was a daring piece of work, and the railway company, after considering the scheme, decided that it could be accomplished cheaper and more quickly under contract than by direct labour. Upon the advice of their surveyors they set the time for its completion at twenty-eight months. Considering the remote situation of the work the feat was considered absolutely impracticable, and no recognised contractor could be prevailed upon to incur the risk.

The company, however, was convinced that some daring spirit existed who could, and would, fulfil their requirements, so they advertised for tenders. When these were perused it was found that one man was willing to meet the time-limit and at a price far below competitors. His bid was accepted. That man was Bennett, and he lost no time in setting his carefully-laid plans in motion.

He was over three thousand miles from the country in which the tunnel was to be driven, yet before the ink on the contract was dry he had wired to his assistant on the Pacific coast to hurry forward all requisite appliances, while he himself purchased an elaborate plant of the most modern type to be shipped to the railway point nearest the site. From this station he had to transport every ounce of material for a distance of eighty-two miles through the roughest and most broken mountainous country it is possible to conceive.

There was no road, so he had to blaze one through the deadfall and littered rock, fording creeks and streams and toiling through viscous mud. The wagons sank above the axles, and had to be hauled through the muskeg by block and tackle. In this way, by sheer physical effort, he gained the mountain which was to be pierced. It took him a solid six months to get his forces and artillery to the spot, leaving him scarcely twenty-two months in which to hew the passage through the solid rock.

So pressing was time that he never permitted an hour’s cessation day or night. An agent on the coast recruited men by the score and dispatched them up country in large corps. As they arrived they were divided into six-hour shifts on either side of the mountain, and in this way toil was continued unbrokenly throughout the whole twenty-four hours. When he had settled down to work in grim earnest wages were absorbing money at the rate of nearly £2,000, or $10,000, per week.