has done a great deal of work for the seven trains are constantly kept busy in Mexican Central Railway System. The magnitude of a contract to move 2.000.000 cubic yards of rock and earth aroused great interest in modern feats of railway engineering and construction, as well as in the appliances and equipments with which it is carried on. The equip ment and machinery were brought from the East, and included several powerful locomotives, six large steam shovels and six trains of dump cars. Since the work was commenced between 300 and 400 men have been employed, the most of whom are, of necessity, skilled workmen, to operate the engines and machinery of the great equipment. All this vast piece of engineering has been and is being done under the general superintendency of Mr. W. D. Nicholson, of the Santa Fe System, who is one of the most experienced men in that line of work in the country. China Basin proper covers an area of about 54 acres, which will give some adequate idea of the immensity of the fill. In point of depth, the fill ranges all the way (on a general average) from 10 feet to 50 feet. In places the basin seemed almost bottomless-full of soft, yielding mud. At such places vast masses of stone were dumped in-sometimes for 100 vertical feet. Only in this manner could a firm foundation be secured. The greatest length of the basin extends north and south. The average width is about 800 feet, and the length 3,000 feet. First there was much pile driving and trestling necessary to expedite the work. But the heaviest and most extensive work was the construction of the great sea-wall to prevent the erosions of the tides on the interior fill. This sea-wall has been built on the north, east and south sides. When this wall shall have been completed it will contain 1,750,000 tons of rock. Up to the present time about 1,500,000 tons of rock have been removed. Work goes forward steadily and rapidly. The daily average output is about 2,000 cubic yards. From the Potrero pit alone about 1,250,000 cubic yards have been removed. To complete the fill of China Basin will require at least 250,000 cubic yards more of stone and earth. It is hoped this work will be accomplished within the next few months. Following this will be the leveling, surfacing, etc. Some idea may be formed of the magnitude of the work and of the great activity when it is stated that six huge steam shovels are hard at work, and hauling the stone and earth away and dumping it into the bog. What was once a great hill is now reduced to a giant pit. Blasting, drilling and shoveling are all progressing at once. The clanking creaking and rattling of steam shovels and trains may be heard for a long distance, mingled with the eternal puff, puff of the panting locomotives. Over the vast yawning pit hang sooty clouds of smoke, through which may be dimly seen the giant plant in operation, and the swarms of toiling, begrimed men. The equipment is large and complete, and the handling of loaded trains and the dumping of the masses are skillful and rapid. But very few accidents have occurred thus far. When the fill at China Basin is completed, Lantry & Son will have completed the largest contract for railroad construction in the West. The big area of land where the hill once stood will probably be used for a terminal point after it has served its purpose and given 4,000,000 tons of rock and earth to China Basin. The cost of making the enormous fill will be very large. The officials of the company decline to give out figures, but it is understood that it will involve the outlay of several millions of dollars. As an offset, the Santa Fe System will have acquired a large area of water front, the value of which will be immense. This made ground will be used for yards, warehouses, general terminal grounds, etc. For several years the Santa Fe System has encountered much difficulty in securing adequate terminal facilities in San Francisco. On completion of the China Basin that company will have ample room--perhaps equal to that owned by the great rival corporation, the Southern and Central Pacific System. In order to facilitate the work on the fill it was necessary to build considerable track, and to fill in parts of the Bay over which the dump trains have to pass. J. MAYNE BALTIMORE. Carrying Freight the Most Impor. tant Duty of American Railways. Will you permit me to answer George E. Hooker's inquiry in the May issue of the Locomotive Firemen's Magazine (page 672): "Why is it that Chicago, with such a mileage of steam lines and such peculiar need for a rapid rate of travel, should have such limited enjoy ment of steam railway (passenger) carriage?" this great industrial and commercial center. "Social welfare," says Emory R. Johnson, professor of transportation and commerce in the University of Pennsylvania, "is more dependent upon cheap and unfettered movement of commodities The answer is simple. The steam railways centering in Chicago are taxed, as no other railways in the world are taxed, to perform the far more important function of taking care of the enormous freight traffic that surges in and out of than upon inexpensive and speedy means of travel; for however important it may AMERICAN SYSTEMS. Increase be that the relatively few people who may 1890 Passengers can walk if transportation facilities are not provided, but freight must be moved. What is true of the broad generalization is more emphatically true of the railways centering in Chicago. If they were to cease carrying strictly local passengers tomorrow, only a comparatively small percentage of the community would have to walk. If they were to cease hauling freight, including provisions and coal, industry would be brought almost to a standstill, and the people would quickly be on starvation rations. These figures have to be considered in connection with the fact that while the population of the United States increased 20 per cent. during the last decennial period, that of the United Kingdom only increased 10 per cent. It will be perceived that while the British steam railways carried more than 60 per cent. of the passengers in 1890, the tramways had reversed the situation by 1902, when they carried 55 per cent. of the traffic. In the meanwhile the American roads, which carried only 19 per cent. in 1890, dropped to less than 12 per cent. in 1901. Thus, while the tramways were coming to their own-that is, street car trafficin the United Kingdom, they were more than holding their own in the United States. It should be said, however, that the average passenger journey in the United States in the meanwhile has risen from 24.47 to 30.30 miles, against only seven miles on British roads. Now let us turn to the freight traffic, by far the more important, but often overlooked, portion of the steam railway service. The following figures tell the whole tale: Conditions as to steam and street railway service in London and Chicago are in absolutely inverse proportions. There the steam roads were first in the field as a means of handling intramural and suburban passenger traffic, and they have maintained a practical monopoly of it until within a little over a decade ago. Street cars, or tramways, as they are called, were recent adoptions of old Yankee notions. The charter of the Chicago City Railway Company runs back to 1856, when Chicago was a town of 84,000 inhabitants. The street and elevated rail- 1890 way systems of Chicago in 1902 carried 420,000,000 passengers, or 43 per cent. more than all the tramways of London and almost two-thirds as many as all the steam railroads of the United States carried that year. Perhaps a clearer idea of the difference in conditions between English and American railway and street car traffic can be gained from the following tables of the growth of their respective systems since 1890: Increase per cent... 1902 Increase In the number of tons carried one mile the difference between what American and British railroads do for the public is even greater, being in 1901: American Tons of freight carried one mile, .157.289,370.053 17,464,505,400 Chicago's share in these vast figures is not definitely known. But as the railways centering here carry only 25 per cent. of the passengers, while they haul 41 per cent. of the freight tonnage of the United States, it is clear why they can not be converted into street car systems or hitched onto the street car lines as feeders. The first business of the steam railroads of Chicago is to transport food, fuel, lumber, minerals, manufactures, merchandise and everything necessary to the wants and well being of 2,000,000 very hearty, active and industrious souls. And the following figures will furnish a good but inadequate notion of what means are employed to fulfill that mission: WITHIN THE CORPORATE LIMITS OF CHICAGO. Railway employes.. Miles of main track Signal lights ized for suburban passenger feeders. Without that freight traffic, to which two thousand miles of track is devoted, Chicago would be an unimportant spot upon the map. Mr. Hooker seems to think fares are cheaper in London than here. The average tramway fare throughout the United Kingdom is 2.4 cents. As the average journey is about 1 mile, the rate is equivalent to 2.4 cents per mile. The average third-class railway fare is 1.8 cents a 39,489 mile and the average ride is 7 miles, 694 really a suburban distance. The average 1,924 street car fare in Chicago is 5 cents and the average ride is not less than three miles, bringing the rate per mile down to 1.67 cents per mile. The average steam railway fare in the United States is 2 cents a mile, but Mr. Hooker can find commutation rates around Chicago running as low as half a cent per mile. 6,937 Mr. Hooker can get a fair idea of the impossibility of using Chicago's steam lines as street car lines or feeders from the fact that, in addition to 280 passenger trains, 1,000 freight cars pass over the bridge out of the Northwestern Station daily. Over the same bridge there are 1,100 engine movements each day. It is the freight and not the passenger traffic which justifies and necessitates the occupation of so much territory in and adjacent to "the very heart of the city," which Mr. Hooker thinks might be util Strictly Business. "No, sir," remarked a Philadelphian the other day who supplies the Government with necessities of life, "you can't do business with Uncle Samuel in the spirit of a contract; you simply must obey its letter. If you put in specifications amounting to 'steen dollars and twenty-one cents, and then bill it goods under the contract, and the total amounts to the same 'steen dollars and nineteen cents, you've got to take it back and make up the other two cents, or you don't do business. "Let me give you an instance of Uncle Samuel's character of exactness. We were awarded a contract for 1,000 feet of copper wire for League, Island. We sent the order to the manufacturers, and they turned in the stuff. In a few days we got a letter from the island authorities that that wire was only 985 feet long. "We answered that we knew it; that the copper ingot did not yield any more, and that we had charged them only for 985 feet. Would that do? Not on your tintype. "They sent us word that if the wire was not brought up to 1,000 feet the lot would be rejected. Then we had to get a permit from the L. A. to send a man down to join on enough to make the demand good, and he went down and did the work. the piece he put on made the whole length 1,004 feet. We wrote back that we didn't care for the four feet and Uncle Sam could have it. "Next morning up comes an order to cut off that four feet or the whole bunch would be rejected. Then we had to get another permit for our man to go down and lop it off, which he did. "Was it all plain sailing then? I should say not. When he threw the offending excess upon the ground the guard said: "Pick that up; it's against the rules.' "He picked it up and was about to toss it into the river, when he was stopped in a mandatory way: ""Here! You do that and you'll get yourself into trouble!' "So, thinking he'd find a resting-place outside of Government preserves, our employe walked to the gate, where he found a sentinel. "What have you got there?' "A piece of wire.' "All right. I don't want to,' and cast it down. ""You pick that up,' said the sentinel. 'You can't throw things around here.' "But I don't want the d-d thing.' "Go back and get a permit!' "And he really had to do it to get that four feet of wire outside of Uncle Sam's fence. Now, wouldn't that make you "In a few days we were notified that tired?"-International Railway Journal. He who thinks his place below him, will certainly be below his place.-Saville. |