Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

268 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. behind construction. These headquarters were situated at a material yard, where all materials and supplies were assorted and forwarded in train lots of accurately adjusted sets of rails, ties, fastenings, telegraph material, etc. When the track was 100 miles ahead, headquarters (which consisted of portable houses) were transferred in a day to the new point. The figures given by Sir William Van Horne and everything has been done to make it a first-class railway in .every respect, and with a view to the greatest economy in working. The transportation department was charged with the delivery of all the materials and supplies at the end of the track ; and when the quantity of these and the great distances they had to be transported are considered, it will be thought no small feat to have moved them A STEAM-SHOVEL AT WORK. EMPTYING THE SCOOP. as to the three seasons’ work west of Winnipeg are as follows :— 1881 ....................... 165-50 miles. 1882........................ 419*86 „ 1883........................ 376-78 „ The same authority adds : “It must not be supposed that because the work was so quickly done it must have been poorly done, or that the track was merely stretched out on the surface of the ground. On the contrary, the entire line is thoroughly well built of the best materials, Fast but Thorough Work. to the front day after day and month after month with such regularity that the greatest delay experienced by the track-layers during two seasons’ work was less than three hours.” In fifteen months’ time, notwithstanding a winter’s interruption, Messrs. Langdon, Shep- hard, and Company laid 677 miles of main track and 48 miles of sidings, and moved about 10,000,000 cubic yards of earthwork— “ a feat,” as Van Horne says, “ unequalled in the history of railway construction.” Some idea of the rapidity with which the last part of the prairie section was located and