CHAPTER XIX
A RAILWAY OVER THE SEA
The Florida express was speeding southwards over the railway which skirts the coast of Florida for mile after mile. Among the passengers was Mr. Henry Flagler, one of America’s captains of industry and finance. He was gazing out idly to sea. On the horizon were streams of vessels steaming northwards and southwards in two long flung-out lines. They were units in the great coastal service of steamships which ply incessantly up and down this long stretch of coast between New York, the West Indies and the ports dotted along the shore line of the Gulf of Mexico.
At that time the island of Cuba was undergoing a wonderful change. Its vast resources were being exploited by men of initiative and energy from the two sides of the Atlantic, and the steamship traffic between the island and the mainland was advancing by leaps and bounds.
The financier was cogitating deeply. His thoughts had strayed to the subject of this development, and the fresh impetus it would receive when the Isthmus of Panama was at last pierced and vessels could float through the neck of the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He was the controlling force of the railway over which he was then travelling, and he was weighing the question as to whether new sources of revenue could not be tapped for this system. The southernmost point reached by the Florida East Coast railway was Miami, and though it was a rising town, he saw that its future was limited, because it formed, as it were, a dead-end to the line.
As a result of his ruminations he decided to make a bold bid for the Cuban trade—to deflect traffic from the decks and holds of the passing steamers. A hundred miles or so south of Miami was one of the most strategical commercial ports of the country—the outpost of the United States—where more than 50 per cent. of the vessels trading up and down the coast make a call. Moreover, it was the point nearest to the island of Cuba, Havana being scarcely 60 miles away. Yet Key West was completely isolated; there was not a single stretch of steel binding it to the intricate railway network of the country.
The magnate decided to forge this missing link in the railway chain; to bring Key West into direct touch with New York, Chicago, San Francisco, or any other town on the continent. From his point of view he could see no obstacle to the realisation of such a scheme beyond the capital cost of the undertaking.
When he returned to New York he summoned his surveyor, to whom he unfolded his idea, and to seek his opinion concerning the technical aspect of the proposition. Mr. Flagler’s proposal was to carry the line southwards from Miami to the extremity of the country lying at the outermost end of a chain of coral reefs, and from that point to transport trains intact on the deck of large ferry-boats to Havana, where they could be pushed on to the tracks of the Cuban system. Transhipment of passengers and the breaking bulk of freight between the great centres of the United States and the island would be obviated, while the time that would be saved on the passage was considerable, and, indeed, sufficiently attractive to tempt one to embark upon the enterprise.
The engineer admitted that the scheme was alluring, but pointed out that for some 30 miles south of Miami the line would have to be pushed through one of the worst stretches of country in the United States, “The Everglades”, emerging from which heavy bridging would be required to link the chain of islands together.
However, the engineer was dispatched southwards with a corps of surveyors to investigate the practicability of the scheme on the spot. They lived for months in the inhospitable bog beyond Miami, and steamed to and fro among the islets with their transit and level, plotting out the most economical and easiest route, sounding the water depths around the coral reefs to determine the extent and cost of bridging, and the best means of crossing these breaches in the reef.
Then the surveyor returned to New York and sought the railway magnate. The engineer had a complete roll of drawings and a mass of calculations and figures. He related the fruits of his labours, pointed out the route that he suggested should be followed, and hinted that, although the railway could be built, the cost would be tremendous—would involve the expenditure of millions.