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Show FROZEN TRflUBLES Of TIEJILRIOS: General Superintendent J. M. Davis Talks About His Polar Experienees. CASCADE MOUNTAINS ARE THE. WORST IX AMERICA Trains Cannot Re Run, and Men Refuse Io Work When the Blizzard Blows. "Rucking snow uii a railroad is a science sci-ence all by Itself," said General vipcr-lutonderil vipcr-lutonderil .? M. Davis of the Oregon Short, we lay sled in August we put It as close together, em! lo end. as possible, and in winter we allow according lo Hie temperature. tempera-ture. Kails tend to creep down hill as they lengthen and shorten, and the two mils do not creep at an even gait. All this tends to throw curves out of position. posi-tion. The Broken Rail. "One of Hie worst things we have to .light, especially in winter, Is the broken mil. The coin make them more brittle and any little direct that was passed unseen In the summer promptly shows up whon the cold comes. Al that time, loo. the rails are often hidden by the snow from the track walker, all of which adds to our troubles. "The common Impression Is that a rail snaps off with Kquare ends. This would not be so bad. e.eept on curve, hut it often breaks on a slant, like the rail In a switch. This is Just right to .'ntch Ihe next train and throw It off. Nothing, apparently, ap-parently, can be done to guard against Ibis, as such a break may he unnotleeahle to Ihe track walker, and even then we cannot, examine every fool, of track after every train has passed over it. Freight rales would never come down if that were the plan. The rail may break apart and Ihen snap light1 together again, hiding hid-ing Itself. j;o to sneak. III! the next set nf heels throws It open and then there Is a mlN-up and Ihe wrecker is wanted. "Pleres often break out of a rail mi the side or underneath In such a way Ilia I. they cannot be seen nails break in all kinds of ways, no two much alike. And jjuginc and Rotary Snowplow in Thirtcon-Foot Drift. lilne in his comfortable Salt Lake office recently, when he was thawing nut between be-tween experiences. "My llrst work on a wholesale plaii with the whiteness was on the Greai Noi l hern In North Dakota, although since 1 came lo the Short I-mic I have had enough of II to keep my hand In. especially Ibis winter. "North Dakota is the worst, section of the I nlted States for snow, and probably the worst in North America with the possible pos-sible exception of the Cascade mountains. Snow is of many kinds lo the railroad man, even though It looks pretty much alike to other people. Now, In North "Dakota the snowfall is only about one foot on the average, but 51 is so dry and the winds are so high that it drifts everywhere ev-erywhere and lills up a cut In no time, also makes drifts ten to twenty feel high. In the Cascades, on the other hand, the snow is wet and soggy and does not drift any lo speak of. but it is heavy as mud and as solid ns clay and there I? nn unending amount of 11. "Farther north in Canada the cold is about I he same as II Is in the Dakotas. but thero Is practically no wind in (he bad snow belt, so there is less snow trouble on the prairie roads than, in the Dakotas. When the wind gels up we often oft-en slop all trains till It is over. There Is no use trying lo run. Then we send out a rotary and clear the I rack, bur il is no use doing so while the wind is blowing and the snow is dry as flour, although al-though the fnll may not amount to much in average vertical inches. "I speak mostly of North Dakota, but the conditions are much the same wherever wher-ever th"ro Is wind and dry snow, and the same work Is done much the same way In hundreds of places all over the west. Men Refuse to Work. "Once let a drift start and you have trouble with It all winter. In Inc fall we used lo get out. a lorce (A men and pick up every alone Hie size of the list, cut down all the weeds and then drag u rail with horses at each end of 11 so as to glvo the snow nothing to begin on. The cuts In the bad sections are all smoothed down ami made ery wide at the top so thai the wind can make a clean sweep down one- side and up the otner. thus tailing tnc snow with it. "Those Dakota nlszzards aro something terrible. No one can lancy wnat tney arc like until he has actually been in one. The air is white and the wind is a hurricane. By protecting the eyes witn the hand In good light one can bee aiioul 100 feel, see an engine or a dark house, l mean, and once in a blue moon wnen a clear swirl comes along no can caicn u Jiusii of something dim at pernaps 2110 reel. At night 11 is all a blank, even by the headlight. "We used lo get wires from our eouu-trv eouu-trv operators saying that they were going go-ing to close the. ou'lee, but were going to sleep there all night on the Hour although al-though their home was only two straight iiloeus awav. all been life of Ihe buzzard. I nave had men walking tne track in a blizzard and gel out from nctween the rails, sav two feet from the track, and walk In 'circles all night trying to nnd it again. I'nder such conditions the men re-luse re-luse to tro out of the work car. even by dav, ana simply alt around and smoke till it clears out. Money will not nudge them and II Is no use to fire them. Fancy a train ditched under such conditions. con-ditions. So we do nol run trains. Jiv-erbodv Jiv-erbodv rests till the blow Is over, and then we have plenty of work to do io clean up. The Great Northern used to spend 3i00 a day on snow work alone, jusl to keep the track clear, lo say Homing Hom-ing of Indirect cost. In the Sierras ihe snow is wet and much given to slides, hence ihe need for tho costlv snow sheds, but once out of a cut it Slavs out. In other places, such as between here and Denver In spots. II runs back In again almost like water. Some of the worst snow country is between be-tween Sail Iake and Denver. Here you have all kinds of conditions to fight, wind In some places, wet and dry snow, slides and an alternate, freezing and melting condition con-dition that Is the worst of all Engines Freeze to the Raila. "I remember once when we stopped for water In the Dakotas and It was forty or so below. Trifle coo!, that. The llre-ninn llre-ninn lei down the snout from l?la tank aud bv the Uuiy Hie engine had had its drink the spout was frozen fast. We lost i 1 rorgol how maiiy gallons of water, all we had In the lank. 70.000. I Ihink. and the ice was four feel thick around aud under thai engine. We were tied up for hours while the men picked out the drlv-pit; drlv-pit; with hand picks- Even the drippings drip-pings will often freeze ihe engine light to the rails In a few minutes and It has to be dug out by hand. This happens on every winter rond. "Heaving or the nick Is another trouble trou-ble the wlriter brings. Often the track will hump up two feet or more sometimes some-times under only one rail. This Is caused by tho wator In the ground under the track and fortunately it almoal always occurs slowly as the frost goes Into the ground gradually, say one inch a day. In tho spring if we dig down, lour -or five feet, sonic times, we will usually find a pool of underground water that has caused the trouble. "Tlie freezing of the water llfls up Ihe track Just ns It breaks a pitcher on the table, by expansion. And It Is u power nothing can resist. All we can do Is to try to keep our tracks as dry as possible, bin, of course, this cannot, always be dune. Vou cannot put a rubber coal and hip boots on a railroad track, so we do the best, we can by using stone ballast ami other schemes. "nails are now feet long, and be tv pen winter and sninni' r will hangc length full one-ciuurtcr of an inch. When I be cold Is Ihe main cause nf il; at least, most breaks are found in the early winter. win-ter. "Railroad wrecks will never slop any more than will ship wrerks. 'oine of the smallest things have caused wrecks and Ihe railroad has been bitterly blamed for apparently letting such a trifle cause the loss nf dozens of human lives and thousands thou-sands oT dollars worth of property. Bui they cannot be foreseen. It is much like what happened tn ihe man who painted the flagslaff on the Singer building in New Yhrk--!io came home, sat down in his chair, fell out of il and broke his neck. Railroad Work Complicated. "Now. much the same Ihing often happens hap-pens on a railroad, especially in winter. Wo are blamed for late trains, when fasl trains, like in the summer time, would mean wrecks and then we are blamed for the wrecks. There are. a thousand and one vital things about railroading thai the average intelligent man never heard of, such as a piece of coal tho size of an apple falling off the engine and causing a snow drift that will delay trains for hours all Ihe icsI of the winter where the track had been clear for two months. "A typesetting machine and a big printing press are bad enough. I suppose, but they are under cover and you can watch them every second. A railroad covers thousands of miles under all conditions condi-tions open lo Ihe weather, trains run a mile a minute over It and human lives are at stake. A delegation of SalL J-ake bankers could sel up and print an edition edi-tion of The Tribune with better chances of getting the paper out nn time than can the best and most experienced railroad men have nf gelling In on time when the whole country Is sforni-bound even If it does need coal. "Tlie average man cannot keep Ihe water pipes in bis own heated house from freezing and breaking, and we have lo maintain a whole in 1 1 road with tens of thousands of pipes, lo say nothing of a few million rails and other things, all out doors in all kinds of weather. Winter is a warm lime for the railroad man." |