Show r 01 1 Tfl3Ull ti mf m PuP1 lij mf i8NUiKE m REGIONS 4 I I With a capital of over a million dollars dol-lars a company has just been formed in Now York to push to completion in he early spring a plan for surmounting surmount-ing the Chilkoot Pass Engineers have I declared that the pass cannot be provided pro-vided with a railroad of the ordinary description without the expenditure of millions of dollars in tunnelling the nature of tha mountains rendering it I impossible 10 run a railroad across The nlan of the new company is to construct was is known as a wire road from Dyea to Lake Linderman a distance 1 tance of eight miles The road will be one of the most novel for passenger traffic in the world The cars which I will be constructed to hold two passengers I pas-sengers and a gripman will travel high in the air along an elevated track consisting of two parallel wire ropes I with a third rope or cable in the centre k and below from which the motive i z qj power of the oar comes The car runs on wheels supported on these two tracks and is suspended below them I the cable rope being underneath the car and attached to it or loosened at the will of the grip man They can I travel at a speed of ten miles an hour I small outlany and in a very short time All that is necessary is for the support jug 1 > i lars to be made according to measurements forwarded by the engine engi-ne rs who are at present going carefully I care-fully over the ground packing out the best spots for erecting the pillars Then when these pillars arrive it will be necessary only for workmen t o plant them firmly in the ground and the foundation of the roadway will be laid The stringing of the three wire ropes will be a simple matter and the building and equipment of the powerhouses power-houses a matter of a few months work only The great design of the builders of the road will be to make the road strong and at the same time light The carrying cables being stationary can he locally graduated to the strains they have to bear so that on long spans across chasms they will be made thick and on short stretches from near pillars they will be thinner The strain will be greatest on steep grades and on those especial care will be taken to have the ropes strong enough to make an accident impossible Upon slopes the weight of the loads is shared to a certain extent by both carrying cable and traction rope the amount borne by each depending on the inclination the steeper the inclination the greater I I tical ascent of 1200 feet and the two cars employed each cawy loads of 1000 j pounds The motive power is supplied j by an engine at the lower terminal and the cars are run at a sped of 450 feet per minute There are six intermediate supports the last span from a rock I bluff to the town being carried over a clear stretch > of 1150 feet Another line now being built for the Compagnie Haiteienne of the Island of j Hayti for the transportation of logwood log-wood has a total length of 15 miles Another interesting line that has just j been built is being operated by the Silver I Sil-ver Lake Mining company of Colorado Startingout from a terminal point the I line ascends a mountain slope for a short distance and rounding the crest of the mountain pitches down at the I opposite in spans that are the longest long-est in the world one being 2200 feet or nearly half a mile in the clear Practical experience has shown that there is no objection to the length of I the span of these wirer roads providing there is nothing to interfere with the I proper deflection of the cables At Co wingo Md a roadway crosses the Susquehanna I Sus-quehanna river in two spans of 1700 feet each the central support being 100 feet high and located on an island I This possibility of stretching the road for half amile without support is what H t I I I w 0 0 < < k 7V2 1iifCAR 0 dff fff t < 7 t W = Z II 111yr dp c x i r J j f 4E a 4 rw f 1 P I kkild t It v ThGT U I 4 d 7 hpDifh 4jIk7 HOW THE ATE TROLLEY 77111 PIERCE THE ELOITPTKE BEGIOU I When all is ready for the trip the i gripman picks up the whirring cable and away the car goes held in its aerial position by the wheels that run 3 on the rope tracks above which being constructed to carry about three times tin > weight of the cars may be relied tpon to safely convey the living freight across the Chilkoot Pass The road will be constructed in two sections four miles long with a power home for each cable The first section will be from the Dyea canyon on Sheep Camp a trip that will necessitate arise a-rise of 1000 feet to be extended across the entire distance according to the best judgment of the engineers The second road will extend from Sheep Camp to Summit three and a half miles with a rise of 2500 feet and thence to Crater Lake with a fall of 500 feet Iron supports about a hundred hun-dred feet apart will carry the wires The roadway will have a carrying capacity of 120 tons daily or as the company estimates it it will be nble to carry over the pass 200 miners with lEi their outfits every day The great advantage that such a roadway as this will have over all the other plans suggested for surmounting the tremendous obstacles of the Chil koot Is that it 5s so light and strong in construction that it can be built for a the strain on the traction rope and the less the strain on the supporting I cables All this will be carefully estimated esti-mated in grading the ropes Where extra strain is laid upon the I wire ropes they are supported by what I are termed rail stations which consist con-sist of a series of bents supporting rails which overlie the track cables and i save the latter from undue wear at I j these points I The miners who trust themselves and I their goods to this slenderlooking I road can feel assured that they are not being made use of in scientific experiments experi-ments for the wire road has been satisfactorily tested in connection with I the carrying of freight various parts I of the world Visitors to the Worlds I Fair were greatly interested in the working of a section of wire road that was placed on exhibition by the firm that is to construct the aerial tramway tram-way over Chilkoot Pass The Trenton Iron company The most complete road of this description in the world and one that approaches as nearly as I possible to the one that will be erected across the Chilkoot Pass is that now I used to carry freight and war material I ma-terial from the docks to the famous elevated fortress of the British the I Rock of Gibraltar This line is 2200 feet long has a ver I makes it so admirably adopted for use in the Chilkoot Pass as the gulches can be crossed with ease and canyons that it would be impossible to bridge can be spanned by the wire rope with as much facility as with a telegraph wire The company was promoted by Mr S S Rush of Louisville Ky who has been in the Klondike for several months He traveled through the pass by foot and by water and laid out the plan by which the road was to be built After figuring the cost of such a road he came to New York and began the I organization of a stock company Mr H C Walls was elected president The I company was incorporated and has since put three parties of surveyors at work in the pass one of them being in charge of William Schweigart a New York engineer They have worked so I well that already a part of the plant has been delivered at Dyea and grading I grad-ing is under way for the erection of the power houses Leading men in the enterprise I en-terprise are George B Dodwell manager man-ager of the Northern Pacific Steam I ship company and Hugh C Wallace j I president of the Washington Alaska i Steamship company They believe that I this transportation system will enable i en-able gold seekers to reach the Yukon I easily and quickly at a minimum expense I ex-pense I |