At times the preservation of an easy grade proved a very knotty problem. The end was achieved only by prodigious earthworks, frequent tunnelling, as well as lofty trestling across the ravines. The curves were kept very easy, galleries being cut in the projecting humps to enable the line to follow the contour of the mountain sides, while the summits were conquered by driving tunnels through their crests at as low an altitude as practicable.

The most noteworthy tunnel is the St. Paul Pass, and here a striking record was set up, the mountain being pierced at a greater speed than has been achieved in any previous undertakings of this character. It was bored from both ends simultaneously, and although it was solid, hard rock for practically the whole of its length, an average advance of some 540 feet per month was maintained, the highest rate of progress being reached with a monthly progress of 732 feet.

Among the Cascades the tremendous ravines separating one peak from another taxed the ingenuity of the engineers sorely. It was practically what in railway parlance is described as “cut-and-fill” all the way; that is, the digging of deep cuttings here, and the raising of lofty embankments there. The cuts through the shoulders of some of these monarchs became quite respectable defiles in themselves by the time the steam shovels had retired from the scene. And the cuts were equalled in their magnitude by the “fills.” One, “Topographers’ Gulch,” is exceptionably notable. The track creeps through a deep cutting on either side to the edge of the mountain, the sides of which drop away in a steep slope to a depth of 282 feet. At track level the gulch was 800 feet across. A viaduct was at first suggested to span the gap, but it was found that the approaches were unsuitable to such a solution of the problem.

The engineer resolved to make a daring effort. He would not bridge the gulf; he would not go round it; but he would fill it up! There was plenty of material on the spot for the purpose. The question was the quickest way of accomplishing this end. When it is remembered that a twenty-storey building could have been dropped into that ravine, and that its roof then would have been only level with the proposed permanent way, it will be seen that it was a big fill indeed. How was it done? Why, by means of water jets—hydraulic sluicing—being directed against the mountain-side, dislodging the earth and speeding it down conduits into the depression. Little did the western railway foreman anticipate, when he first suggested washing down a hill to fill a rift by means of a hose as already described, that his much-ridiculed proposition ever would be called upon to fill up a chasm like this.

A powerful pumping-plant was set up, hundreds of feet of hose were laid down, and fitted with huge, powerful nozzles. Gigantic and powerful streams of water were thrown against the mountain face, and the debris thus dislodged was diverted into flumes, or wooden troughs, which emptied themselves into the valley. Before a yard of debris was tossed into that abyss, £12,000, or $60,000, had been spent. When the full blast of water was brought to bear on the face of the hill the gravel rushed down into the depression like lava pouring from a volcano in eruption. The water jets literally moved a hill into the ravine. In the course of a few weeks a neck of solid earth stretched across the abyss, affording a path for the railway.

The crossing of the Columbia River was another heavy undertaking, exceeding in character the bridge across the Missouri. At this point the river is wide, with the navigable channel in the centre, but there is a heavy rise and fall of the water according to the season, the feet of the mountains on either side being lapped when the river is in flood. The peculiar conditions necessitated a high structure, with massive stone piers supporting the steel-work. Sixteen wide spans were required. The task was carried out by the railway companies’ own bridge-engineering staff, in which class of work they are specialists and peculiarly fitted to such huge enterprises.

Such is the story of the Railway Rush across the United States to the Pacific. Yet the public clamours for further lines. The facilities extended already to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific seaboards in less than four days have served only to cause the public to emulate “Oliver Twist” and to ask for more.

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