WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
The Railway Conquest of the World cover

The Railway Conquest of the World

Chapter 3: LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
By Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot
Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

AdventureEngineering & TechnologyHistory - Modern (1750+)

About This Book

The book surveys the global spread and engineering of railways, recounting the adventurous work of surveyors and builders and the technical and logistical challenges faced in constructing major lines. It describes tunnelling and bridge-building, earthworks, and mechanized construction methods, and profiles landmark undertakings such as transcontinental routes, mountain passes, desert and polar reclamation projects, and lines across oceans and difficult terrains. Chapters examine regional developments in North and South America, Africa, Australasia, Siberia and the Far East, and explore ambitious schemes and their operational consequences, illustrated with accounts of construction camps, equipment, and the feats of civil engineering that made international railway networks possible.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  To face page
Where the Union Pacific Railway strikes across Salt Lake Frontispiece
Building the loftiest bridge in the world 6
Driving a cutting 100 feet deep by the aid of dynamite and steam shovels through slate on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railway, U.S.A. 7
A Railway Construction Camp among the mountains 16
Building a high bank on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railway, U.S.A., by modern methods 16
The huge steam shovel which takes some 3 tons of spoil with every bite 17
The drag-line shovel which scoops up the earth in the cutting as it is pulled along 17
The Pecos Viaduct on the “Sunset” Railway, the highest structure in the United States, the track being 321 feet above the water below 24
The track layer, whereby the metals are laid at a speed of 3 or 4 miles a day, crossing a heavy timber trestle 25
The Göschenen entrance to the St. Gotthard Tunnel 32
The wonderful Wassen Loop on the St. Gotthard Railway, showing three tiers of track 33
The compressed air locomotive which hauled workmen and rock blasted from the mountain in the cutting of the Loetschberg Tunnel 36
What the working face in the heart of the mountain is like 36
The lofty Amsteg Bridge, 184 feet high, spanning the Maderan Valley on the St. Gotthard Railway 37
No. 2, “The Toronto,” the first railway engine built in Canada by James Good in 1853 48
The Niagara Cantilever Railway Bridge under construction 48
“The Eighth Wonder of the World” 49
The bridge as reconstructed 49
The magnificent single span bridge across the Niagara River below the Falls 50
A view of the iron tube, 2,290 feet in length and 23 feet in diameter 51
The 2000 h.p. electric locomotives hauling the “International Limited” through the tube 51
The massive bridge of the Union Pacific Railway over the Missouri River at Council Bluffs, from which point the first railway across the United States was commenced 62
The timber trestle across Salt Lake, by means of which the Union Pacific saves 57 miles 63
Building the Otavi line through the German South-west African Bush 80
The passage of the first train, gaily decorated for the occasion, over the “toy-like” Otavi Railway 81
The workmen cutting and blasting a narrow path on the steep mountain slopes for the Karawanken Railway 92
The massive steel bridge which carries the railway across the Drave River to approach the tunnel through the Karawanken range in the background 93
The northern entrance to the Karawanken Tunnel 93
The Tauern Railway, showing winding character of the line 96
The entrance to the Tauern Tunnel 96
One of the huge loops on the Tauern 97
The first hour’s work: navvies preparing the grade along the main street of Skaguay 106
By railway to the Klondike—the White Pass and Yukon line under construction 106
The dismal tract of swamp and river through which the Alaskan Central Railway makes its way 107
The wonderful horseshoe timber trestle, 1,240 feet long, varying from 40 to 90 feet high, on the Central Alaskan Railway 112
A wash-out caused by the Placer River in flood 113
The obliteration of the line by a landslide 113
A striking piece of railway building in the Yarmuk Gorge 118
A bird’s-eye view of a chasm in Palestine, through which the line follows a winding path on the left 119
A masonry bridge on the Holy Railway, showing solidity of construction and mountainous character of the country 119
A heavy steel bridge in course of erection between Haifa and Deraa, the branch from the main sacred line to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea 122
The engineering wonder of the Hedjaz Railway—the sudden descent into “The Devil’s Belly” 123
The railway in the domain of the Genii 124
The lonely path of the Pilgrim’s line through the silent, rocky and sandy wastes of Arabia 125
Meiggs’ masterpiece—the V-switch by means of which the railway is lifted from one level to another, showing turntable and method of operation 130
The Infiernillo Bridge 130
A horseshoe curve in a tunnel 131
The first Verrugas Viaduct, which was destroyed by a cloudburst and rock-slide 134
The highest tunnel in the world under construction 135
A British locomotive in the realm of perpetual Andean snow, 15,865 feet above sea-level, on the Oroya Railway 136
Looking through the tunnels on the Oroya Railway 137
The greatest bridge in the world 144
Setting up the world’s railway building record in Africa 145
Construction train on the way to the railhead crossing a temporary timber bridge 154
The longest bridge in Africa, 1,300 feet in length, across the Kafue River 154
The “Hanging Bridge,” one of the railway wonders of the Denver and Rio Grande, in the Royal Gorge of Colorado 155
The railway two miles above the sea 166
A “double-header” climbing the cliff of Animas Canyon on the Denver and Rio Grande Railway 167
Crossing the continental “divide” on the “Moffatt” road 170
The Moffatt Railway playing “hide-and-seek” among the tunnels in Gore Canyon 171
The gigantic snowplough, the largest yet built, which keeps the higher levels of the “Moffatt” line through the Rocky Mountains free from the heavy falls of snow 172
A deep cutting 173
Boring one of the ten tunnels 173
Before the explosion 180
The blast 180
The cliff-face dislodged 180
The cliff-face broken up 180
The Puttapa Gap Bridge, 200 feet in length 181
The Hookina Creek Bridge 181
The entrance to the tunnel, 1,096 feet long, through the Darling Range 188
The dearth of suitable water was the serious problem in the early days of the Coolgardie gold-fields. As the railway could not haul supplies from the coast, this novel condensing plant was erected 189
How the Western Australian Eastern Railway cuts through the Darling Range 194
The Leopoldina Railway is a maze of curves, twists and bends, owing to the rugged character of the country traversed 195
A steep bank showing the central rack rail 216
Train on the rack section of the Petropolis division, showing the curious type of locomotive adopted 216
Rebuilding a bridge on the Leopoldina Railway 217
A flood on the line 218
A derailment caused by the train colliding with a cow! 218
An interesting engineering achievement 219
Bridge over the Parahybuna River, showing height of river in flood and force of water surging round the piers 219
The bridge over the Parahybuna River at Campos under construction 220
The Parahybuna River Bridge completed. Total length 1,113½ feet 220
The rockbound shore of Lake Superior severely taxed the engineers in the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway 221
The “Gap,” the eastern entrance of the Canadian Pacific Railway to the Rocky Mountains 226
Where the “Big Hill” was cut out on the Canadian Pacific Railway, between Hector and Field 227
How the Canadian Pacific line creeps round towering precipices along the Fraser River 230
In threading the Fraser River Canyon the engineers were compelled to hug the waterway, though it involved the boring of numerous short tunnels 231
The steel arch bridge across Stoney Creek in the Selkirk Mountains 234
The railway traversing the tumbled Thompson River Canyon 235
The Cisco cantilever bridge carrying the Canadian Pacific Railway across the Fraser River 238
The Key West “Limited” passing over Long Key Viaduct at full speed 239
Building the grade. The dredger cutting its own path and dumping removed spoil in centre to form the embankment for the track 244
The embankment completed, with the canals dug by the dredgers on either side 244
How the embankment was built on the keys 245
How the reinforced concrete arches were built within wooden moulds 245
The training-bund or wall to narrow the Ganges by 3000 feet for the Curzon Bridge, showing railway approach 252
Erecting the piers for the Curzon Bridge 253
The training-bund under construction by native labour. At the extreme right a pier is being built for the bridge 254
General view of the pier-building operations for the Curzon Bridge across the Ganges at Allahabad 255
The Gokteik Viaduct under construction 256
View of the Gokteik Viaduct 257
Train emerging from Reinunga Tunnel, 5,217 feet long, in distance, showing snowscoop-plough on locomotive 262
Myrdal Station, showing entrance to Gravehals Tunnel, 17,420 feet in length 263
Myrdal Station in winter, showing depth of snowfall 263
A view on the Bergen Railway in winter, showing screens to protect line from drifting snow, and snowsheds 266
Mules carrying water in barrels 267
Load of railway metals on a mule’s back 267
Railway building in Nyasaland, Central Africa 282
A typical bridge on the Nyasaland Railway 283
The novel lift bridge over the Shiré River at Chiromo 283
The iron horse in Central Africa 284
The bascules being lowered by cables and winches from either cliff-face 285
The bascules lowered, showing the French engineers at centre making the connection 285
The Faux-Namiti Bridge completed 302
The line skirting the seashore near Okitsu, Tokaido, on the Japanese Government railways 303
The most striking example of Japanese railway engineering 306
Two railways racing to the Pacific coast through the Deschutes River Canyon 307
The “switchback” by means of which the Great Northern Railway of the United States negotiated the Cascade Mountains before the boring of the Cascade Tunnel 310
Building a steel trestle across a rift 311
Building the biggest embankment on record by hydraulic sluicing 314
The “Merry-go-round” devised to expedite raising an embankment 120 feet high 315
A lofty embankment in course of construction. In the centre it is 120 feet high. Construction camp in foreground 315
Building the Chicago, Milwaukee and Puget Sound Railway through the Bitter Root Mountains 318
Carrying the Chicago, Milwaukee and Puget Sound Railway across the Columbia River 319