The Railway Conquest of the World

by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot

The financier, however, was not perturbed in the least by the cost. The project received his sanction, and a few days later the engineer departed to commence operations. Little time was lost upon the essential preparations, and soon the grade was forcing its way out of Miami towards the most southerly point of the United States.

News concerning the enterprise, which up to this point had been nursed in secrecy, now leaked out. The activity around Miami pointed to something unusual being under contemplation. When the object of the extension became known the financial magnate became the butt of widespread ridicule. His ambitious project was christened “Flagler’s Folly”, under which name the railway has since been known colloquially.

“Well, there is one thing for which travellers will bless me when they travel by rail over the Keys,” the moving spirit humorously replied to his detractors: “they will never be troubled with dust.”

From Miami southwards so far as the eye can reach stretches a dismal tract of swamp where miasma reigns supreme. The Everglades lie below the level of the Atlantic Ocean, and the latter is only prevented from grasping the enormous waterlogged expanse within its ravenous maw by a slender wall of rock which runs right along the coast. But though this barrier resists the incursion of the ocean, at the same time it prevents the imprisoned water on the other side from effecting an escape. The result is that stagnant water, varying from a few inches to several feet in depth, according to the season, spreads over the whole of the depression. It is a huge bog and nothing more, with dank, dense vegetation growing riotously in all directions, forming an ideal home for the alligator, which here is found in large numbers. Some 30 miles of this uninviting marsh confronted the engineers, and until scientific effort discovers some means of reclaiming the country fringing the railway from eternal water, it must remain unproductive.

The engineers found this bog difficult to penetrate. Drainage was impossible, and the raising of an embankment, with the ordinary type of implements at command, was out of the question, because it was impossible to secure a solid foundation for their manipulation. For a few miles south of Miami a rocky ridge thrust its hump above the level of the marsh, and as its situation was convenient it was followed to the uttermost limit.

When the builders were compelled to plunge boldly into the marsh they were beset with difficulties innumerable. Mr. Flagler had realised from the outset, after meditating upon the plans and reports of the surveyors, that the only practicable means of seeing his scheme carried to fruition was by means of direct labour under his own engineers, instead of by contract. Consequently, he secured the services of the most capable engineers available, while labour was recruited from all sides. Fortunately, no difficulty was experienced in this direction, because the offer of good wages, with everything found, was considered by the workmen to be an equitable compensation for the risk of malaria.

The engineer-in-chief, the late J. O. Meredith, who died in harness amid the scene of his labours, resorted to highly ingenious methods to overcome the fever-ridden swamp. Not only did the conditions demand that a heavy, solid earthen embankment should be built, with its level well above the highest watermark, but that the ridge of earth should be prevented from spreading at the base under the superimposed weight of a heavy train, and from the insidious attacks of soaking water.

Owing to the absence of rock and gravel in the immediate vicinity, it appeared as if the engineer would have to haul trainloads of material for this purpose from long distances, and at great expense, to be dumped into the unstable mass. But he decided otherwise. He conceived a far more rapid, simple and inexpensive means of building the embankment. Two large, square, shallow-draught dredgers were built, with large grabs rising and falling from the upper end of a projecting diagonal wooden girder or jib. These were towed to a point known as Land’s End. Here, on either side of the strip of land forming the right-of-way for the iron horse, and whereon the embankment was to be raised, an excavation was made. Each cut was 30 inches deep and just wide enough to float the vessel comfortably.

The grabs were then brought into play, and with each swing they withdrew a huge mouthful of the waterlogged soil, swung it round, and ejected it upon the grade. The grabs were heavy and powerful; their teeth crunched through roots and decayed vegetable matter relentlessly. It will be seen that, as a result, each dredger dug a canal for itself as it advanced on either side of the grade, forming two parallel paths, with a belt of dry land between. Now and again their advance was disputed. Just below the water lurked a large rock which defied removal by the terrible teeth, and yet projected too near the surface to enable the dredger to float over.

Then the engineer gave another demonstration of his ingenuity. Instead of wasting time in blasting away the rock, he threw a temporary dam across the ditch behind the dredger, forming a kind of lock. Water was pumped from the fellow ditch to raise the level of the water a sufficient degree to enable the dredger to float over the obstruction.