| Show A stupendous engineering PROBLEM r from conquering ane last frontier by samuel merwan in success magazine the new grand trunk pacific the biggest ana the most interesting of the new railroad projects is to pass through edmonton on its way from sea to sea edmonton indeed practically bisects the western half of the line between here and winnipeg there are eight hundred miles of prairie between here and port simpson the terminal point on the pacific there are a thousand allea of mountain on the prairie active construction work is today going forward contractor sj camps are swarming with galician Gali clan laborers district and assistant engineers are riding back and forth aver flat prairie and rolling prairie sand ax illa and river bottoms the pile driver and the steam shovel are driving back the antelope the coyote and the jack rabbit the new line changing its form and substance before each new obstacle now an embankment now an excavation now a trestle is pushing inexorably westward much i s a plain sabry of constructive work the blansf haag been worked out the route has been surveyed and staked the task of the engineers in charge is mainly to see hat the contractors live up to the specifications farther west it is different open your atlas again and glance at the thousand miles between bahon tan and port simpson on the pacific it Is here that you find the blank spaces now try to imagine that an unknown wilderness lies between chicago and new york imagine too that instead of the hills of pennsylvania and new york you have the canadian with a dozen minor ranges thrown in for good measure this means that you would be lucky to get through with a maximum altitude of five to six thousand feet there are lakes rivers and unbridgeable chasms in the way but you at chicago as division engineer in charge of alie survey stork are expected to find the one best route to tho sea a thousand miles remember through the a route but the best route to complicate matters a bit suppose that another division engineer with the interests of a rival line deeply at heart is also at chicago with precisely the same object in there is very little doubt that only one of you can have thai beat route the man that misses it it is barely that both may miss it will put his company in ohp way of dropping millions 0 extra difficult con all his must be made up out of profits suppose too that after the two roads are b ailt your grades are steeper thansis than his remember that tho same engine will haul exactly twice as much up abour tenths per cent grade as up a grade of one and two tenths per cent this mistake will probably turn out to be more costly than the first for your rival will be able to haul more freight with the same for motive power and your losses will accumulate from day to day the remedy is rebuilding and millions more in shorty it js sharply as the saying runs to you you must find that one host route without wasting a day and you must bo very certain that you are finding it |
