Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

132 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. men and promptly scuttled then and there. The majority of the men were willing to have this rule enforced, as it gave them an oppor- tunity to save money. Ordinary labourers re- ceived from £7 to £8 a month ; sub-foremen or gang foremen, £12; foremen, £15 a month ; and engineers were paid from £35 a month up- wards. All had their board and lodgings free. It cost £1,600 a week to feed this army of workmen. The coloured men lived in tents on the keys, and did their own cooking, their food being sup- plied to them by the company. The white labourers, who numbered four- fifths of the staff, lived in what Workmen’s were known as quarter-boats, Floating virtually floating hotels, with Hotels, bunks banked one above the other. The bunks, windows, and doors were screened with mosquito netting. The mos- quitoes on the keys are very large and fierce, but were seldom troublesome in the daytime, though veritable pests at night. The men put in ten hours’ work a day, and none at all on Sundays. Their leisure hours were spent in lounging about the houseboats or strolling along the keys and bathing. At Miami the company established a large hospital for the benefit of the workmen, and some 4,000 cases were attended to here. As one engineer summed it up, “ It was bound to be a web-footed proposition from start to finish.” The line was virtually built from boats, necessitating the services of a fleet of very mis- cellaneous and costly craft. For use along the keys alone there were requisitioned three tugs, eight stern- wheel steamers of the Mississippi River type, thirty gasolene launches, fourteen houseboats each with accommodation for 144 men, eight workboats fitted with derricks and concrete mixers, three floating pile-drivers, one float- ing machine shop, and over one hundred barges and lighters. Briefly, the leading engineering features of this railway are as follows :— Railway built from ' Boats. Distances. From Miami to Homestead................ 28 miles. From Homestead to Water’s Edge......... 17 miles. From Water’s Edge to Knight’s Key..... 64 miles. From Knight’s Key to Key West.......... 47 miles. 156 miles.