OCR Text |
Show GREAT PROGRESS MADE IN OONSTRUOTION WORK ON INTERURBAN LINE Road Has Nearly Threaded Jordan Narrows and Has Much Track Down. S. S. Areutz, chief engineer for tho Salt Lake & Utah Railway Co., tho "Orem road," mado the dofi-nito dofi-nito announcement yesterday that, unless unforeseen happenings interfered, in-terfered, trains would bo running over tho lines of tho company between be-tween Salt Lake and Provo before the iirst of tho year. If such a fact is accomplished, tho building of tho Orcm road from Salt Lake tot tho Utah County scat will go down in railway un-nals un-nals as one of the most remarkable remark-able pieces of engineering iu the United States. With less than three months of construction work piut, tho engineers havo thus Jar established a record for rapid and thorough iutcrurban building. It was not until last October that the railway project was financed fi-nanced and tho work of making preliminary surveys began. Contours Con-tours Averc taken, topography worked out and tho lines adjusted for grades and curvaturo within hardly more than a month's time. Then the awarding of contracts, tho ordering of material and. the gathering of workmen began, delayed de-layed by tho wintry weather, actual ac-tual construction work did not begin be-gin until in Juno. Since that time more than 500 men havo been kept at work on tho road, laying more than twenty miles of track in Salt Lake alone, and working south from Salt Lake, north from Provo and within with-in tho city limits of Lehi, American Amer-ican Fork and Pleasant Qrovo, at actual track-laying. At present, the task of threading the grade through Jordan Narrows is practically prac-tically completed. Within a few weeks electrification will begin, with almost tho immediate operation opera-tion of electric work trains. This year's plans of tho Orem road call for fifty-threo miles of iJJl.'JIiSl-u4JnP.,OThi:aand sTreWcTof doubleliuo. The dis-tanco dis-tanco to be traversed from the heart of Salt Lake to the heart of Provo will bo forty-eight miles. Thus far the work has proved true to estimate, and tho ultimato average av-erage cost per mile will bo between be-tween $38,000 and $40,000. Three thousand feet of trcstling over tho marshes just southeast of Lehi alone will cost $50,000. Four division engineering camps aro being maintained, and at points every five miles botween Salt Lake and Provo construction camps have been established. The actual construction work is in tho hands of tho Utah Construction Co., which has lot sub-contracts for practically all of tho work. |