The Chinese, once they were awakened to the possibilities of the railway, were not content to permit their country to be covered with foreign-built lines. They decided to become active participators in the movement—in other words, they acquired all the knowledge they could, and then undertook constructional engineering. Their aptitude for this work finds an excellent expression in the Pekin-Kalgan railway, 125 miles in length. This road was built throughout by Chinese effort, the engineer-in-chief being His Excellency Chang-Tien-Yow, who is to-day the foremost Chinese engineer in this field in China. He was educated in the United States, where he acquired valuable knowledge concerning this branch of engineering, and completed his training under Mr. Kinder, the builder of the oldest railway in the Celestial Kingdom.

The road is excellently built, and the engineer displayed his ingenuity in coping with the problem of carrying the line through the Nankow Pass. This pass guards the entrance of the main road through the Great Wall, and to overcome the obstruction a gradient of 1 in 30 had to be introduced for a distance of 13 miles. At the foot of the pass three Mallet locomotives of British construction are maintained, and they crawl to the summit of the pass, at an altitude of about 1,500 feet, in two hours—a speed of about 6½ miles an hour.

The alignment of the railway up this pass is noteworthy. The road clings for the most part to the side of the mountains, crossing deep rifts and wide clefts, as well as cutting through spurs and humps and compassing massive crags. Four tunnels were found to be unavoidable, one, 3,580 feet in length, burrowing 200 feet beneath the Great Wall. When the summit is gained, the railway enters a flat plateau, the only difficulty here, as on the flats around Pekin, being the preservation of the road from the attacks of floods. That this is no slight factor is proved from the fact that in the vicinity of Pekin a wash-out which overwhelmed the line cost no less than, £32,000, or $160,000, to repair. The completion of the work, however, offers convincing testimony that the Chinese, under competent supervision, are perfectly capable of building railways without the aid of foreigners, and that no fault can be found with their work so far as solidity and durability are concerned.

For centuries the Chinese have been famed for their prowess in matters pertaining to civil engineering. At times this skill pursues a quaint course, but probably the most extraordinary illustration was in connection with the Shanghai-Nangchow-Ningpo railway. By an imperial edict a Chinese official was appointed as engineer-in-chief.

At one point it was necessary to throw a bridge across a river. How it was to be accomplished passed the comprehension of the engineer. But he evolved a solution which, to say the least, would be difficult to equal in originality. He built the bridge on dry land, on one bank of the river. When this was completed satisfactorily, he diverted the waterway, so that the river ran beneath the bridge through a new, specially-built channel, and the old one was filled up! In another instance, where a similar situation presented itself, a pier in the centre of the waterway became necessary. The river ran swiftly and the water was deep. The engineer knew nothing about coffer-dams, caissons, or other methods which the foreign engineer would have adopted. As the men could not work on dry land to build the bridge, he proceeded to provide them with this requisition. Hundreds of tons of spoil were dumped into the river at the point where the pier was to be erected until an island was formed, and on this the necessary constructional work was carried out.

Possibly the greatest and one of the most important lines, however, is the Pekin-Hankow railway, which is 760 miles in length, and which eventually will be an important link in the great road that is under construction, whereby through communication will be provided from Kowloon via Canton, Hankow, Pekin, Mukden and Harbin to the Trans-Siberian railway. This line was carried out with Belgian and French money for the most part, and £5,000,000, or $25,000,000, was sunk in the enterprise. The undertaking was commenced in 1900, but the Boxer Rebellion interfered seriously with its progress. The insurrectionists expended their full fury upon the railway, and inflicted damage to the value of nearly £1,000,000, or $5,000,000, which, however, was paid over by the Government as compensation. It has been built cheaply, and does not compare, in point of solidity, with the English-built lines. At the same time, however, there are some outstanding engineering achievements. The most important is the bridge across the Yellow River, which consists of 102 spans, giving a total length of nearly 2 miles. It proved a particularly trying structure to erect, owing to the treacherous character of the river-bed, while the scouring action of the water, which is particularly severe, demanded elaborate protective works around the bottom of the piers. After various schemes were tried and had proved futile, large mattresses of brushwood interwoven with rushes were fashioned, and laid around the feet of the piers, hundreds of tons of heavy pieces of stone being dumped on these to keep them in position. This has been found more or less successful to prevent the soft silt from being washed away, and to protect the supports to the bridge from being undermined. The structure, however, is scarcely strong enough for heavy traffic, and consequently trains upon arrival at the ends of the bridge have the large locomotives uncoupled, and are drawn across the river by special light engines retained for the purpose.

One of the most important lines from the commercial point of view, however, is the Canton-Kowloon railway stretching from Kowloon, in British territory, to the busy centre of Canton, and thence continued northward to Hankow to provide connection with the other great systems of the country, and also with Europe by means of the Trans-Siberian railway. This project has passed through many vicissitudes. The British & Chinese Corporation received official sanction to build a road between Canton and Kowloon as far back as 1898, but the project became shelved. An American syndicate, which had secured the concession to connect Canton with Hankow, asserted that they had secured rights to carry the line from the former point to the coast. Such action would have dealt a serious blow to British commercial supremacy, and the money was subscribed to buy out the American concession, which in the meantime had been sold to a Belgian syndicate, and regained.

The section between Kowloon and Canton, 100 miles in length, was divided. The Hong-Kong Government was held responsible for the 23 miles through British territory, while the balance of the line through Chinese territory was carried out by the Chinese Government.

The English section proved tremendously difficult. The country traversed was exceedingly rough and mountainous. The difficulties encountered proved so abnormal that the cost of the undertaking has exceeded the original estimates by nearly 150 per cent. Some idea of the arduous character of the work may be gathered from the fact that nearly 2½ out of the 23 miles in British territory are represented by tunnels. The most arduous enterprise of this class was the Beacon Hill tunnel, 7000 feet in length, driven through the heart of the mountain ridge that rises up 3 miles from the coast. The tunnel is perfectly straight, and ranks as the largest work of its type in the Chinese Empire.

It is driven through a depth of disintegrated granite on either approach, where heavy timbering became necessary until the solid rock was gained. Water was encountered and gave considerable trouble. At first labour was a serious problem, as the natives could not be induced to toil underground, and coolies had to be imported from India. After the work was well started, Chinese labourers, who had been working on the South African gold-fields and had returned home, were available, and proved highly useful workmen, especially when the wrestle commenced with the hard, solid rock.

The tunnelling task, however, was equalled by the work in the cuts and on the fills. Some of the cuttings are of enormous depth, and the engineers have had to guard against the danger of heavy landslides, which, with wash-outs, are two of the greatest menaces to the railway in China. Heavy earthworks were required, because the line follows roughly the coast-line, which is serrated, and to preserve alignment it was necessary to strike straight across these indentations where the water in many places proved to be very deep. The treacherous character of the sea-bed, which for the most part is a silt, demanded the provision of massive foundations upon which to raise the grade, and months were expended while a huge fleet of junks dumped hundreds of tons of rock into the water. Occasionally the work as completed was washed out by heavy rains, while now and again the typhoon left evidences of its wrath. A noticeable feature in the grading was the amount of work performed by women, who had recourse to their native basket slung on a pole for the conveyance of excavated earth to the fills.

The railway, however, has been built upon the most solid lines, and although its cost has proved so high, the money appears to have been expended to advantage. The traffic, although not so extensive as it will be, is increasing promisingly, and there is no doubt that when Hankow is reached a heavy volume of business will flow over this highway. The Chinese are proceeding with their section, and it is anticipated that not many years will elapse before the two points are connected.

The French engineers are erecting monuments to their railway engineering skill in the Flowery Land, the province of Yun-nan being the centre of their activity. The Yun-nan railway experienced a very chequered career through its early stages, for in endeavouring to connect the French possession of Lao-Chay with Yun-nan-Sen, the capital of the province, they had to break down enormous obstacles. The country is exceedingly mountainous, the height of the ridges being paralleled by the depth and precipitous nature of the gorges. Still the heavy and extensive bridging necessary proved no deterrent to the French bridge-builders, who are masters in this art, as the many remarkable structures in France testify conclusively.

The one factor to be feared seriously was the climate. This corner of China is one of the most unsalubrious in the whole empire. Even the natives cannot withstand it, and their ranks are decimated heavily by tropical diseases. The labour question was one of everlasting perplexity, and the promoters of the enterprise found that skilled workmen, even of north China, evinced no desire to contribute to a distinguishing feat amid such miasmatic surroundings. The absence of transport facilities hit the undertaking sorely, and the engineers were compelled to make the best avail they could of the existing vehicles of conveyance—mules and the heads of natives.

The most difficult section of the line was in the valley of the Namiti. Here it was a stern fight for supremacy with physical obstacles for mile after mile. The weight and dimensions of every article had to be restricted within severe limits to facilitate handling and carriage by the primitive systems extant, and when the question comprised the component parts of steel bridges, the problem demanded searching deliberation. It was found, however, that the mules could handle weights up to about 600 pounds, and that the natives could struggle along with loads varying between 200 and 300 pounds, but neither man nor beast could cope with anything exceeding 7 feet in length.

Such handicaps would appear to militate against the achievement of any startling engineering performances. Yet, as a matter of fact, the French engineers displayed a striking instance of their remarkable ingenuity and capacity to meet awkward situations. The Namiti gorge disputed the progress of the line. It is a deep, wide, V-shaped fissure, one side dropping down perpendicularly for several hundred feet. The line pierced its way through one bluff, and had to jump across the rift to enter the opposite wall of rock. It was a matter of 200 feet across, and the rail-level had to be carried 300 feet above the river below.

The situation demanded a novel solution. Erection by false-work was out of the question, as also was a cantilever bridge; and, again, the question of transporting the material to the site had to be borne in mind. Monsieur Georges Bodin, the presiding engineer of the Parisian Société de Construction des Batignolles, however, rose to the occasion, and evolved an unusual type of bridge, and at the same time elaborated a novel method of carrying out its erection.

The bridge consists of two essential parts forming leaves, or bascules. When set in position they have the appearance of a widely-opened, inverted V. To carry out the task of erection, first a shelf was excavated in each cliff-face at the requisite height to carry the anchorages below the tunnel-mouths overlooking the gap. The top members of each bascule were riveted up, laid vertically flat against, and fixed firmly to, the cliff-faces. From this foundation each bascule was completed.

While the mantling of the steel-work was progressing, other gangs were busy at work cutting out large niches in the cliff-face, some height above the tunnel portals, and on these platforms powerful winches were erected. Each of these carried heavy chains measuring 900 feet in length. The transport of this essential piece of tackle was interesting. Large gangs of coolies were disposed in Indian file 7 feet apart, and the chains were trailed over their shoulders like a gigantic serpent. In this way they wound around crags, climbed steep bluffs and threaded narrow defiles for some 13 miles. These chains were passed around the winches and the outer ends were attached to the upper points of the bascules.

When each bascule was completed it was pinned firmly to its anchorage, the lashings securing each leaf of steel to the rock face were knocked away, and the two arms were held merely by the chains. Gangs of coolies were stationed at each winch under the supervision of a French engineer, and at the word of command the chains were slowly paid out, causing the bascules to heel over towards one another. Care had to be exercised that the lowering proceeded evenly from either side until the two arms met at a point. Workmen then swarmed up the arm on either side and rapidly drove in the pins and rivets which secured the two leaves firmly in position. The whole task of lowering and securing took only four hours, which was a noteworthy achievement.

Two short steel towers were now erected on the haunches, or central part of each bascule, to support the steel deck of the bridge, the members of which were brought up to the mouth of the tunnel and launched by being pulled out over rollers. With the spanning of the Namiti gorge, the most difficult part of the railway line was completed. When the enterprise was undertaken it was computed that the railway could be completed for £3,840,000, or $19,200,000, but by the time this gorge was spanned a revision in the estimates showed that the cost would approach £6,620,000, or $33,100,000.

In Japan, the strides in railway development within a comparatively few years have been quite as notable as in China. In the former country, however, the conversion from primitive means of communication to steam locomotion commenced at an earlier date, and was attended with greater success. As in China, the railway invasion of Japan was fathered by an Englishman, Mr. H. N. Lay, who visited Tokio as a guest of the then British Minister, the late Sir Harry Parkes, in 1869. He approached the Government and stated that he was prepared to furnish the funds necessary to commence the railway conquest of the country.

He made his offer at a peculiarly appropriate moment. The military regency which had ruled the country for so many centuries had drawn to a close, and the new Government welcomed the proposal. Foremost among the supporters of the project were the present Count Okuma and the late Prince Ito. Mr. Lay undertook to raise a loan of; £1,000,000, or $5,000,000, and this was accepted, while Mr. Lay was entrusted with the carrying out of the scheme. The promoter of the enterprise secured the services of Mr. E. Morell as engineer-in-chief, and in 1870 the work commenced. But friction arose between the English capitalist and the Government, who did not approve of the financier’s methods. The agreement was nullified, and the Oriental Bank was established to carry out the undertaking, Mr. Morell being retained in his engineering capacity.

He set to work in grim earnest. The question of gauge had to be settled first. This vital detail was threshed out in all its bearings, a gauge of 3½ feet was selected, and the building of the first line between Tokio and Yokohama—a distance of 18 miles—commenced. Once the fashioning of the grade began, other schemes were put forward. Among them was a line from Kobe to Osaka, a distance of 20 miles, which was put in hand, while an extension of the latter line to Otsu was surveyed. The first railway in the country was opened on October 14, 1872, amid elaborate festivities, in the presence of the Emperor. Within six years of Mr. Morell’s arrival, no less than 70 miles of line had been laid and opened. This was a highly satisfactory and energetic start for a young country, and the success of the experiment spurred the Government to more ambitious schemes. These, however, were doomed to temporary derangement owing to internal troubles, and the rebellion in South Japan in 1877, which drained the imperial exchequer to such a degree that no funds were available for railway-building operations.

Among these early enterprises was a trans-insular railway to connect the Pacific coast of the island with the shores of the Sea of Japan, with ferry-steamers on Lake Biwa to connect the inland break in the railways due to that sheet of water. By this time the Japanese engineers considered themselves competent to build railways, for they had proved apt pupils under Mr. Morell’s training. Native talent found its first opportunity on the Kioto-Otsu undertaking. This was a peculiarly difficult enterprise, but the Japanese engineers rose to the occasion, though English engineers were retained to advise them and to design the bridges. On this line tunnelling had to be carried out, and this was the first occasion on which the Japanese engineers were faced with this work in their own country. Still they succeeded in complying with the original plans to perfect satisfaction, and had the pleasure of learning, when the road was opened in 1880, that the cost of construction was less than the estimates.

The completion of this undertaking marked the decadence of the foreign engineer in railway-building in Japan. Native engineers were found to be capable of fulfilling the difficult position of assistants, and consequently only a few British engineers were retained in the capacity of advisers or consultants.

Private enterprise also entered the field, and numerous schemes were sanctioned. The first of these was the Nippon Railway Company, organised through the instrumentality of the late Prince Iwakura, a strong advocate of railway expansion, mainly for the purpose of assisting the peers to secure a profitable investment. It took several years of ardent campaigning to enlist the sympathy of the latter in such a project, but at last they fell victims to the Prince’s persuasion, and the Nippon Railway Company was born.

This company projected the building of no less than 510 miles of railway. The two greatest contributions to this scheme were the Tokio-Takasaki railway, on which the Government guaranteed a profit of 8 per cent. for ten years, and the Tokio-Sendai section, guaranteed similarly for fifteen years. Numerous other private companies followed, many of which received liberal Government subsidies. But while private initiative was displaying considerable energy, the Government railway enterprise slackened, and threatened to collapse, until Prince Yamagata proposed that trunk lines should be laid along all the main routes of the country, when the movement received a fresh impetus. Thus in 1883 there was renewed national activity in construction, and although many of these undertakings were beset with difficulties of a physical character, they were pushed through to completion.

One of the most notable of these early achievements was the Takasaki-Naoyetsu line, which was commenced originally to facilitate the transportation of constructional material for another road. The engineers were baulked by the Usui Pass, and this gap was left open, the two sections on either side of the range being opened for traffic in 1887. The intervening division was undertaken subsequently, being deferred from time to time in the hope that an easier location than had been plotted would be found. Though the engineers searched the mountains diligently, they failed to secure any improvement free from heavy work, and at last the mountain division was taken in hand. The grades were so steep, however, that the rack had to be introduced, the Abt system being selected. The engineers found this section particularly trying, as they had to drive no less than 26 tunnels through mountain spurs in a distance of 7 miles, while the deep clefts in the mountain’s flanks called for massive masonry bridges. This work, however, was completed in 1893, and it served to provide through communication between Tokio and Naoyetsu.

It is doubtful whether the iron road ever has made such a phenomenal growth in other parts of the world within a short time as has characterised its development in the East. In China there was not a mile of line in 1877. To-day over 10,000 miles of railways have been built, are under construction, or are projected. In Japan the network has grown from 18 miles in 1872, to 5,141 miles at the end of the 1910 fiscal year, of which total 4,634 miles belong to the State, and 597 to private companies, while the former at that date had 2,790 miles in hand, and private enterprise about 160 miles.