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Show WHEN RAILROADS WERE NEW Engineers in Charge of Construction Work Had Ideas That Now Seem a Little Peculiar. Light on strange ideas of pioneer railroad builders was thrown by Edward Ed-ward S. Jouett, general solicitor of the L. & N., in a talk before the Rotary Ro-tary club at Louisville. "The Lexington-Frankfort line," said he, "was built with longitudinal stone sills capped with a strip of iron, and the numerous curves, which you have all noted, are said to have been purposely pur-posely introduced upon the theory that they were an'advautage in enabling the conductor the more easily to see the rear of his train. The coaches were two-story affairs women and children below and men above aud the motive power was mules to the top of the hill above Frankfort. The train was let down the hill into the city upon an incline operated by a stationary engine. "You may be interested, in passing, to learn that with the exception of a few miles near New Orleans, which antedated it about a week, this line from Lexington to Frankfort is the oldest railroad in the United States south of the Ohio and west of the Alleghenies. It was chartered in 1830 very early In railroad history, when we remember that the first railroad in the United States was built in 1S2G. and the first locomotive engine was operated in 1829." |