Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

346 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. the carrying of the rails into Medina to the very able Marshal Kiazim Pasha, who accom- plished the task most creditably, aided by a band of Moslem workers. The Turks have proved themselves very competent railway constructors. They laid the permanent way throughout, leaving only the station buildings, bridges, and culverts to workmen of other na- tionalities. The Turkish sailors un- loaded rail- way material at Haifa; Turkish sol- diers laid the sleepers and rails. Opera- tions were conducted throughout on a highly organized sys- tem. Here is a little pic- BUILDING PIERS FOR STEEL BRIDGES ON HAIFA-DERAA SECTION. The Bridge comprises two 100-foot and one central 166-foot spans. ture from the pen of one who watched the Turks at work:— “ The (construction) train carried several truck loads of rails and sleepers, and as it drew up within ten yards of the last rails laid, the working-parties, some Construe two jlun(^rec[ men told, tion Work formed up on each side of the trucks...............hard bitten pictur- esque fellows, wearing the agal and keffiyeh instead of the regulation fez, smaller as a rule than Egyptian conscripts, but more active and better made. There was very little shouting and no confusion ; every man seemed to know what to do without orders. The rails were lifted in pairs from the trucks and set each upon the shoulders of eight men, who moved rapidly off with balanced step to the laying-point, halted, turned inwards, lowered and laid the rails with, automatic precision at the orders of the squad commander, and in a moment were scampering back to the trucks to begin over again ; while long strings of men hurried along the embankment with sleepers on their backs, pitched them down on the track, and rushed back as if their lives d e- pended on it for more — and all this in a tempera- ture of 106° Fahrenheit.”* The solid- ity of every- thing con- nected with this railway is one of its outstanding features. Un- like the ma- jority of such pioneer lines running through a sparsely populated country, it has not been built with the prime idea of getting through as quickly as possible A Well- at small cost, and reconstruct- r» Railway. ing on a sounder scale after- wards. It was properly built in the first in- stance, and its permanent way will compare favourably with any to be found in civilized parts of the world, being ballasted with broken rock and sand, which afford a solid foundation for the rails. The bridges are in keeping with the remainder of the work ; their piers of solid masonry rest on solid footings capable of withstanding the scour of turbulent rivers and the blows of floating debris carried down * The Times.