BUILDING THE BIGGEST EMBANKMENT ON RECORD BY HYDRAULIC SLUICING
The railway is 725 miles in length, and it was split into three sections for constructional purposes. The first extended from Salt Lake City to Oroville at the Pacific foot of the Sierras main range, the second from the latter point to Oakland on the coast, while the third was a trying short section right down to the water’s edge, at San Francisco from Oakland. Building was carried out on the three divisions simultaneously. Remarkable enterprise was displayed by the liberal resort to any new time- and labour-saving methods and implements. In the San Diablo Range the path of the track was interrupted by a depression 123 feet deep and 1,120 feet wide. That hollow had to be filled to preserve the grade. To expedite the task, an ingenious tool was devised. This was an electric scraper, and the idea was to pull this down the side of the mountain, thereby removing several tons of earth at a time, and to shoot it into the gulch. But the scraper did not come up to expectations. Breakdowns were so frequent that at last it was dismantled in disgust and thrown on one side to rust. Then another ingenious idea was tested. This was called a “merry-go-round,” something very similar to a roundabout. It comprised a revolving table overhanging the edge of the dump or embankment. A track was laid on the circumference of this turntable forming a loop. The laden trucks were run round this curve and their contents were shot overboard at the point desired, the empties continuing round the loop to the track to return to be refilled. The advantage of this arrangement was that the spoil could be discharged just where it was wanted much more quickly and easily than by the ordinary method, where the cars are pushed to the edge of the temporary track, emptied and then pulled back. As the bank grew outwards across the valley, the merry-go-round was pushed forwards, so that it always stood on the brink of the earthwork.
THE “MERRY-GO-ROUND” DEVISED TO EXPEDITE RAISING AN EMBANKMENT 120 FEET HIGH
A LOFTY EMBANKMENT IN COURSE OF CONSTRUCTION. IN THE CENTRE IT IS 120 FEET HIGH. CONSTRUCTION CAMP IN FOREGROUND
A NOVEL EXAMPLE OF THE RAILWAY BUILDERS’ INGENUITY
Among the mountains some magnificent work was accomplished. As the directing engineer remarked to the writer, it was a stiff problem to descend the western flanks of the Sierras with a 1 per cent. grade. The line crosses the mountains 2000 feet lower than the Central Pacific, and one advantage is that there are no snowsheds anywhere.
When one sees how rigorously the maximum grade has been guarded one marvels. The mountains are negotiated through Feather River Canyon, which is a duplicate of the Kicking Horse Pass that carries the Canadian Pacific main line down to the coast. The canyon is entered at Oroville, and for almost 100 miles the line rises steadily at 52 feet per mile, following the river until it at last gains an altitude of 4,817 feet. But hugging the river causes the line to meander very tortuously, for the waterway zigzags like the teeth of a saw.
Moreover, Feather River is a fearsome waterway. In its calmest moods it rushes along swiftly, but when swollen by the melting snows and countless mountain brooks it thunders and boils like a whirlpool. To escape the fury of the waters the track had to be laid well up the mountain-side, and where a fork of the river is crossed, a massive metal bridge had to be built for the reason advanced by the engineer that “Nothing but steel could be used with safety when the river is in full flood.”