| To face page | |
| Where the Union Pacific Railway strikes across Salt Lake | [Frontispiece] |
| Building the loftiest bridge in the world | [6] |
| Driving a cutting 100 feet deep by the aid of dynamite and steam shovels through slate on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railway, U.S.A. | [7] |
| A Railway Construction Camp among the mountains | [16] |
| Building a high bank on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railway, U.S.A., by modern methods | [16] |
| The huge steam shovel which takes some 3 tons of spoil with every bite | [17] |
| The drag-line shovel which scoops up the earth in the cutting as it is pulled along | [17] |
| The Pecos Viaduct on the “Sunset” Railway, the highest structure in the United States, the track being 321 feet above the water below | [24] |
| The track layer, whereby the metals are laid at a speed of 3 or 4 miles a day, crossing a heavy timber trestle | [25] |
| The Göschenen entrance to the St. Gotthard Tunnel | [32] |
| The wonderful Wassen Loop on the St. Gotthard Railway, showing three tiers of track | [33] |
| The compressed air locomotive which hauled workmen and rock blasted from the mountain in the cutting of the Loetschberg Tunnel | [36] |
| What the working face in the heart of the mountain is like | [36] |
| The lofty Amsteg Bridge, 184 feet high, spanning the Maderan Valley on the St. Gotthard Railway | [37] |
| No. 2, “The Toronto,” the first railway engine built in Canada by James Good in 1853 | [48] |
| The Niagara Cantilever Railway Bridge under construction | [48] |
| “The Eighth Wonder of the World” | [49] |
| The bridge as reconstructed | [49] |
| The magnificent single span bridge across the Niagara River below the Falls | [50] |
| A view of the iron tube, 2,290 feet in length and 23 feet in diameter | [51] |
| The 2000 h.p. electric locomotives hauling the “International Limited” through the tube | [51] |
| The massive bridge of the Union Pacific Railway over the Missouri River at Council Bluffs, from which point the first railway across the United States was commenced | [62] |
| The timber trestle across Salt Lake, by means of which the Union Pacific saves 57 miles | [63] |
| Building the Otavi line through the German South-west African Bush | [80] |
| The passage of the first train, gaily decorated for the occasion, over the “toy-like” Otavi Railway | [81] |
| The workmen cutting and blasting a narrow path on the steep mountain slopes for the Karawanken Railway | [92] |
| The massive steel bridge which carries the railway across the Drave River to approach the tunnel through the Karawanken range in the background | [93] |
| The northern entrance to the Karawanken Tunnel | [93] |
| The Tauern Railway, showing winding character of the line | [96] |
| The entrance to the Tauern Tunnel | [96] |
| One of the huge loops on the Tauern | [97] |
| The first hour’s work: navvies preparing the grade along the main street of Skaguay | [106] |
| By railway to the Klondike—the White Pass and Yukon line under construction | [106] |
| The dismal tract of swamp and river through which the Alaskan Central Railway makes its way | [107] |
| The wonderful horseshoe timber trestle, 1,240 feet long, varying from 40 to 90 feet high, on the Central Alaskan Railway | [112] |
| A wash-out caused by the Placer River in flood | [113] |
| The obliteration of the line by a landslide | [113] |
| A striking piece of railway building in the Yarmuk Gorge | [118] |
| A bird’s-eye view of a chasm in Palestine, through which the line follows a winding path on the left | [119] |
| A masonry bridge on the Holy Railway, showing solidity of construction and mountainous character of the country | [119] |
| A heavy steel bridge in course of erection between Haifa and Deraa, the branch from the main sacred line to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea | [122] |
| The engineering wonder of the Hedjaz Railway—the sudden descent into “The Devil’s Belly” | [123] |
| The railway in the domain of the Genii | [124] |
| The lonely path of the Pilgrim’s line through the silent, rocky and sandy wastes of Arabia | [125] |
| Meiggs’ masterpiece—the V-switch by means of which the railway is lifted from one level to another, showing turntable and method of operation | [130] |
| The Infiernillo Bridge | [130] |
| A horseshoe curve in a tunnel | [131] |
| The first Verrugas Viaduct, which was destroyed by a cloudburst and rock-slide | [134] |
| The highest tunnel in the world under construction | [135] |
| A British locomotive in the realm of perpetual Andean snow, 15,865 feet above sea-level, on the Oroya Railway | [136] |
| Looking through the tunnels on the Oroya Railway | [137] |
| The greatest bridge in the world | [144] |
| Setting up the world’s railway building record in Africa | [145] |
| Construction train on the way to the railhead crossing a temporary timber bridge | [154] |
| The longest bridge in Africa, 1,300 feet in length, across the Kafue River | [154] |
| The “Hanging Bridge,” one of the railway wonders of the Denver and Rio Grande, in the Royal Gorge of Colorado | [155] |
| The railway two miles above the sea | [166] |
| A “double-header” climbing the cliff of Animas Canyon on the Denver and Rio Grande Railway | [167] |
| Crossing the continental “divide” on the “Moffatt” road | [170] |
| The Moffatt Railway playing “hide-and-seek” among the tunnels in Gore Canyon | [171] |
| The gigantic snowplough, the largest yet built, which keeps the higher levels of the “Moffatt” line through the Rocky Mountains free from the heavy falls of snow | [172] |
| A deep cutting | [173] |
| Boring one of the ten tunnels | [173] |
| Before the explosion | [180] |
| The blast | [180] |
| The cliff-face dislodged | [180] |
| The cliff-face broken up | [180] |
| The Puttapa Gap Bridge, 200 feet in length | [181] |
| The Hookina Creek Bridge | [181] |
| The entrance to the tunnel, 1,096 feet long, through the Darling Range | [188] |
| The dearth of suitable water was the serious problem in the early days of the Coolgardie gold-fields. As the railway could not haul supplies from the coast, this novel condensing plant was erected | [189] |
| How the Western Australian Eastern Railway cuts through the Darling Range | [194] |
| The Leopoldina Railway is a maze of curves, twists and bends, owing to the rugged character of the country traversed | [195] |
| A steep bank showing the central rack rail | [216] |
| Train on the rack section of the Petropolis division, showing the curious type of locomotive adopted | [216] |
| Rebuilding a bridge on the Leopoldina Railway | [217] |
| A flood on the line | [218] |
| A derailment caused by the train colliding with a cow! | [218] |
| An interesting engineering achievement | [219] |
| Bridge over the Parahybuna River, showing height of river in flood and force of water surging round the piers | [219] |
| The bridge over the Parahybuna River at Campos under construction | [220] |
| The Parahybuna River Bridge completed. Total length 1,113½ feet | [220] |
| The rockbound shore of Lake Superior severely taxed the engineers in the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway | [221] |
| The “Gap,” the eastern entrance of the Canadian Pacific Railway to the Rocky Mountains | [226] |
| Where the “Big Hill” was cut out on the Canadian Pacific Railway, between Hector and Field | [227] |
| How the Canadian Pacific line creeps round towering precipices along the Fraser River | [230] |
| In threading the Fraser River Canyon the engineers were compelled to hug the waterway, though it involved the boring of numerous short tunnels | [231] |
| The steel arch bridge across Stoney Creek in the Selkirk Mountains | [234] |
| The railway traversing the tumbled Thompson River Canyon | [235] |
| The Cisco cantilever bridge carrying the Canadian Pacific Railway across the Fraser River | [238] |
| The Key West “Limited” passing over Long Key Viaduct at full speed | [239] |
| Building the grade. The dredger cutting its own path and dumping removed spoil in centre to form the embankment for the track | [244] |
| The embankment completed, with the canals dug by the dredgers on either side | [244] |
| How the embankment was built on the keys | [245] |
| How the reinforced concrete arches were built within wooden moulds | [245] |
| The training-bund or wall to narrow the Ganges by 3000 feet for the Curzon Bridge, showing railway approach | [252] |
| Erecting the piers for the Curzon Bridge | [253] |
| The training-bund under construction by native labour. At the extreme right a pier is being built for the bridge | [254] |
| General view of the pier-building operations for the Curzon Bridge across the Ganges at Allahabad | [255] |
| The Gokteik Viaduct under construction | [256] |
| View of the Gokteik Viaduct | [257] |
| Train emerging from Reinunga Tunnel, 5,217 feet long, in distance, showing snowscoop-plough on locomotive | [262] |
| Myrdal Station, showing entrance to Gravehals Tunnel, 17,420 feet in length | [263] |
| Myrdal Station in winter, showing depth of snowfall | [263] |
| A view on the Bergen Railway in winter, showing screens to protect line from drifting snow, and snowsheds | [266] |
| Mules carrying water in barrels | [267] |
| Load of railway metals on a mule’s back | [267] |
| Railway building in Nyasaland, Central Africa | [282] |
| A typical bridge on the Nyasaland Railway | [283] |
| The novel lift bridge over the Shiré River at Chiromo | [283] |
| The iron horse in Central Africa | [284] |
| The bascules being lowered by cables and winches from either cliff-face | [285] |
| The bascules lowered, showing the French engineers at centre making the connection | [285] |
| The Faux-Namiti Bridge completed | [302] |
| The line skirting the seashore near Okitsu, Tokaido, on the Japanese Government railways | [303] |
| The most striking example of Japanese railway engineering | [306] |
| Two railways racing to the Pacific coast through the Deschutes River Canyon | [307] |
| The “switchback” by means of which the Great Northern Railway of the United States negotiated the Cascade Mountains before the boring of the Cascade Tunnel | [310] |
| Building a steel trestle across a rift | [311] |
| Building the biggest embankment on record by hydraulic sluicing | [314] |
| The “Merry-go-round” devised to expedite raising an embankment 120 feet high | [315] |
| A lofty embankment in course of construction. In the centre it is 120 feet high. Construction camp in foreground | [315] |
| Building the Chicago, Milwaukee and Puget Sound Railway through the Bitter Root Mountains | [318] |
| Carrying the Chicago, Milwaukee and Puget Sound Railway across the Columbia River | [319] |
CHAPTER I
THE RAILWAY SURVEYOR’S ADVENTUROUS LIFE
“One’s experience is varied from camping out in tents at fifty degrees below zero, to spending a large amount of time in the wilderness, when provisions are very short and one has to depend upon fish for food.”
This was the description of the task of discovering a path for the iron road through a new country, as related to me by the late John E. Schwitzer, one of the most brilliant railway engineers that Canada has produced, and one who had climbed the ladder of success from the humble capacity of rodman at a few shillings per week, to the position of chief engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railway, within the short space of twenty-two years. From his unique experience he was fitted to speak with authority, and his statement sums up the life of a surveyor in a nutshell.
So far as the loneliness and the need to fish for food are concerned I can speak from experience. This article of diet is plentiful, but its monotony palls very quickly, while at times one longs for the excitement of the city. But once this feeling has been lived down one would not exchange the virgin country, with its invigorating air and life of exciting adventure, for a smoke-begrimed stifling centre of activity for any consideration.
In Great Britain, owing to its completely settled condition, the difficulties incidental to this class of work do not exist. The wrestles with heat, sun-baked desert, ice-bound forest and extreme cold have never been experienced in connection with the driving forward of the ribbon of steel in these islands. There is an utter lack of that thrilling romantic interest and adventure associated with similar work in an unknown country, where the surveyor is not merely a surveyor, but an explorer as well. In any of the four continents beyond Europe he fulfils an important mission. He is the advance-guard of civilisation. He spies out the country for the greatest settling force that has yet been devised, and although the work more often than not is extremely perilous, he revels in the dangers. One must be prepared to face any emergency: be ready to fulfil any duty. One may be buried for months amidst the strongholds of ice-capped mountains, isolated upon the sweltering desolate expanses of broiling deserts, imprisoned in the hearts of yawning ravines, or immersed amid reeking dismal swamps, cut off by hundreds of miles from the nearest town or settlement. Then Nature is the surveyor’s sole companion, and in her silent company herculean and heroic tasks often have to be fulfilled, of which the world at large never gleans an inkling.
The surveyor is the personification of happy-go-luckiness. He pursues his path doggedly, laughs at obstacles, no matter how forbidding they may be, and accomplishes glorious deeds unsung. Often his sudden death through accident, disease or misadventure goes unmourned beyond the limits of his own camp. Yet an everlasting and omnipotent monument to his memory is raised—the thin thread of steel which annihilates time and space.
These men show a devotion to their calling which it is impossible to fathom. They brave perils beyond conception and face death in a hundred different forms. It may be a slip on a treacherous foothold at the brink of a yawning gulch, the upset of a frail bark in a swiftly rushing rapid, a land- or rock-slide, an avalanche, or a tree snapping under the fury of the storm which hurries them to their doom. In silence they suffer the torments of thirst, the pangs of hunger, physical exhaustion, frostbite, snow-blindness, disease, the hostility of mankind and a thousand other dangers. When they have emerged from the ordeal they laugh at their experiences, and consider them no more fearsome than those confronting the ordinary city dweller as he walks along a crowded thoroughfare.
As one travels over the railway through Mexico, interest is aroused by four primitive little wooden crosses beside the track. It is a small God’s acre in an undulating expanse. The probability is that it would miss the eye unless one were bent on its discovery. Yet those four monuments tell a silent story of grim adventure. The Mexican Central was being driven through a hostile country, and the Indians were being forced back relentlessly by its influence. They were sullen but not subdued.