The Railway Conquest of the World

by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

A minute examination of the existing structure was made, and it speaks volumes for the work of Stephenson and Ross, as well as of the contractors, that the bridge appeared as sound and as fit for another century or more as it did on the day it was first opened. The piers had been built so solidly that they did not show the slightest trace of the terrible buffetings and pressure to which they had been subjected by the ice during some fifty winters.

Consequently it was decided to remove the tubular structure and to erect in its place an open truss bridge, 66 feet 8 inches wide, carrying a double track, a roadway for an electric tram-line, space for vehicular traffic, and a pavement for pedestrians. The engineers designing the new structure came to the conclusion that the striking stability and condition of the masonry piers would carry the new bridge with but slight alteration. As a result of this conclusion it was decided to erect the new structure around the old bridge, cutting away the latter span by span, so that there was no interruption to the train service.

This appeared to be a simple expedient, but when the engineers commenced operations on Stephenson’s handiwork they found that it was built of far tougher material than they had expected. The rivets defied withdrawal, so excellently had they been driven home, and one of the engineers showed me one of these securing pieces, which he had preserved as a memento of British handiwork of some seventy years ago. As a matter of fact, as he related, it was far easier to build the new structure than it was to destroy the old, and the cutting away of the old tubular bridge span by span was found to be an exceedingly laborious task.

However, it was achieved, and there was not the slightest interruption in the traffic, which testifies to the skill and care with which the engineers laid their plans. Nor was it attended by any untoward incident, though what might have proved a terrible accident was averted very narrowly during reconstruction, as was related to me by one of the engineers. It was Sunday morning, and they were rebuilding the central part of the bridge. Special men had been stationed at each approach to the bridge, and elaborate instructions had been drawn up for controlling the passage of trains by flag-signalling. Sunday was selected for the most difficult portions of the work, as on that day the trains were few and far between.

On this Sunday morning the work had advanced so satisfactorily that the old tubular span had been removed, and there was a wide gap in the continuity of the ironwork carrying the metals, showing the murky river swinging along at a merry pace below. Everything was ready for completing the new span, when one of the engineers, happening to glance shorewards, observed a train entering the bridge and coming along at a brisk speed. Something had gone wrong; the flagman had misunderstood instructions or had given a wrong signal. The train was speeding to its doom, for there was the yawning gulf. But the engineer never lost his presence of mind. Realising the situation, he threw down his instruments, and ran along the track towards the advancing train waving his arms frantically and yelling like one bereft. The engine-driver, unlike the majority of his ilk on an American railway, concluded that something must be amiss, and applied his brakes sharply, pulling up a short distance from the brink of the abyss. It was a narrow escape; had the engineer hesitated a minute, disaster swift and sudden would have overwhelmed that train.

When the new bridge, with its 22,000 tons of steel, was completed for traffic it was renamed, but as the reconstruction coincided with the Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign, the revision comprised merely the perpetuation of that auspicious event, and to-day the structure is known as the Victoria Jubilee Bridge. From first to last the structure has cost £1,800,000 ($9,000,000), of which reconstruction absorbed about £400,000 ($2,000,000).

As the Grand Trunk increased in importance, subsidiary and tributary railways were absorbed. Nor was the original idea of a trunk line overlooked. This end was achieved by pushing towards Chicago, the busy centre of the Middle States. Continuity of rail in this case, however, was interrupted by the St. Clair River, the narrow strait which connects Lakes Huron and Ontario. In the early days communication was maintained by means of ferry-boats, which handled complete trains, but as the river is extremely erratic, with strong currents varying in velocity according to the direction of the wind, and is congested with shipping, the ferry service possessed many shortcomings. When the strait was obstructed with floating ice, the situation became far more serious.

Accordingly, in order to remove these disabilities, a bold solution was elaborated in the form of a tunnel beneath the waterway connecting Sarnia on the Canadian with Port Huron on the United States side of the St. Clair River. It certainly was an audacious remedy for a perplexing problem. The river is 46 feet deep and is nearly half-a-mile wide, so that the tunnel had to be planned at a great depth. However, no better alternative could be offered, for a bridge was quite out of the question, so in 1886 the St. Clair Tunnel Company was formed as a subsidiary undertaking of the railway, to complete a subaqueous link of communication, with Mr. Joseph Hobson as chief engineer.

As the topography of the land on either side is tolerably flat, the question of the approaches had to be settled, and a heavy grade at either end could not be avoided. Technical difficulties were encountered at the very start. A trial shaft was sunk on the Canadian side to a depth of 98 feet, while another shaft on the American side was carried down to 92 feet. The preliminary shafts were elliptical in shape, measuring 4 feet by 8 feet in diameters. When the requisite depths were obtained, galleries were driven at right angles beneath the river. These efforts proving satisfactory, it was decided to build the complete tunnel from either bank from shafts, as in the case of the Blackwall tunnel. The shafts were each 23 feet in diameter, and they were so built that there was a circular ring, the lower face of which carried a knife-edge digging into the ground. The soil was excavated from beneath this knife-edge, and as the brick-wall lining of the shaft was built upon the upper surface of the knife-ring, it was considered that the superimposed weight would drive the knife downwards as the earth beneath was removed.

But these carefully-laid schemes and anticipations went astray. Exasperating failures and mishaps occurred, and at last the engineer changed his plans; the shaft method was abandoned. Instead, he decided to drive the tunnel from either end through the approaches. For this purpose the plant and machinery were removed inland from the shafts for a distance of 1,900 feet on the Canadian, and 1,800 feet on the American bank respectively. Two huge cuttings were driven downhill until the tunnel level was gained, when the burrow beneath the river was commenced. The tunnel itself consists of a circular iron tube or pipe of sufficient diameter to carry a single track. It is 19 feet 10 inches in diameter, is built up of cast-iron rings, and weighs complete 56,000,000 pounds, or about 25,450 tons. Boring was effected from either end by means of the hydraulic shield, and in less than three years the task was finished.