A Terrible Railway Ride.

Evening Star, Issue 6771, 28 November 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

A Terrible Railway Ride.

Nearly every port on the west coast of Chili has its little railroad, from twenty to 250 miles in length, some of them reaching into the very heart of the Andes, the very arteries of the continent’s commerce, and making profitable possessions which would otherwise have no worth. One of these roads connects Mollendo, a Pacific port, with Lake Titicaca, the highest body of water in the world, lying in a great basin between the two ranges of the continental Cordilleras, 15,000 ft above the sea. THE FAMOUS MEIGGS’s RAILROAD. Another of these roads, and the most wonderful piece of engineering in the world, stretches from Lima and Callao to the crest of the continent, where the famous mines of Cerro del Pasco are—the source of the ancient riches of the country, from which tons upon tons of silver have been taken, and which still hold, if the testimony of mineralogists can be relied upon, the richest deposits on the surface of the world. The railroad was never completed. Mr Meiggs carried it from Senia to the crest of the Andes at a cost of 27,000,000d0l and 7,000 humanlives, and gained for himself a repuation for energy and ability surpassing any man that ever came to this continent, but he died with about fifty miles of track yet to be laid. No one has been found with the courage to finish the work, until a few weeks ago Mr Michael Grace, of New York, whose brother and partner in the enterprise is the Mayor of that city, made a contract with the Government, under the terms of which he is to be given the road as it stands, with all its equipments, if he will complete it to its original destination. This contract of Mr Grace reads like a fable, and shows what a Government will do when its treasury is empty and its revenues are cut off. He agrees to complete the remaining fifty miles of railroad and pump out of the mines of Cerro del Pasco the water that has been accumulating in them for half a lazy century, in consideration for which the Government gives him the use of that portion of the road already completed and all the silver he can get out of the mines during the next ninety-nine years, he paying the nominal rental of L 5,000 a-year for the use of the property. It is said that he gave the Government a liberal bonus when the contract was signed, and the army, which has Irad nothing for eight months, was paid a few days after; but the document shows no such consideration, and Mr Grace himself has nothing to say on the subject. However, everbody concedes that he has the biggest bonanza in South America, and that there is enough silver in the “tailings” that have been left around the mines by the Natives in their primitive methods of working to pay the expense of completing the road and the rental of the property for the next hundred years. In company with Mr Grace, Mr Gilley (the manager of the railroad), Minister Phelps, and Mr Neill (his secretary) we went up the road on a locomotive and had a little picnic at

THE SUMMIT OF THE ANDES, where the snow is everlasting and winter never ends. The track follows the valley of the River Rimac until it narrows to a gorge, and in a distance of eighty-six miles, through sixty-one tunnels, it reaches the Pass of Oroya, an altitude of 15,200 ft, and slowly drops down into the great basin of the Andes, where the mines are, and the ancient grandeur of the Incas dwelt. It is one continuous ascent, with an average grade ofj|4oo per cent, until it

reaches the highest point on the earth s surface where a piston-rod is moved by steam. The road-bed was made by blasting almost the entire distance, and lies upon the sides of the mountain, carved out by the cold chisel and dynamite—zigzaging back and forth along the precipice which frowns over a chasm too narrow for a curve and too deep to be bridged. There is one bridge of iron at Verruga 252 ft in height, but others were found impracticable, and the “ switch-back ” or system of reverse gradients was adopted. That is, the trains runs up the precipice at a grade of 200 ft to the mile, is then stopped, switched on another track and backed up a similar incline, switched again and started forward, going first in one direction, then in tho reverse, until the summit of the mountain is reached by a series of diagonal terraces blasted out of its sides. Four and five tracks are often to be seen one above the other, hanging on the side of a precipice so steep that a stone tossed from the topmost one will pass over them all, and strike upon the opposite side of the chasm. The sensation of riding up this railroad, together with the rapid ascent from the sea level to the mountain’s crest, produces

A SICKNESS CALLED “SIROCCHU, often fatal, and usually sending people to bed for several weeks. Tin symptoms are a terrible pressure upon the temples, nausea, bleeding at tho nose and ears, and faintness ; but the effect ’can be avoided by taking precautions and observing rules that experience has suggested, the chief one being to drink a glass of brandy and keep perfectly quiet, as the slightest degree of exercise will floor the strongest man. People who are compelled to make the ascent, if they liave not become accustomed to it, usually take two or three days for the journey, stopping off at the stations along the line, and going to bed at once upon reaching the town of Chicla, which stands at the summit.

The ride down from Chicla we made upon a hand-car usually, and it is the most exciting sort of coasting. The regular trains are of course controlled by locomotives with steam enough to govern the brakes, which are double, covering both sides of the wheels, and are assisted by

PATENT SAFETY APPLIANCES so arranged as to check or stop the train automatically in case the regular brakes should give out. Every time the train stops the whole outfit is carefully tested, and the result of this care has been that not an accident has ever occurred on the line under Mr Gilley’s management, and not a life has been lost for which the Company was responsible. There was one accident, however, during the Chilian War. A train load of soldiers was coming down one of the steepest and most dangerous grades, when the officers, becoming alarmed at the velocity, ran out and turned the safety brake on the last carso suddenly that it was jerked from the track and thrown over the precipice, where it hung suspended by the coupling and guard chain above a chasm 2,000 ft deep. It was full of soldiers, and they were piled in a heap at the bottom end of the car, but were finally hauled out with ropes. A few of them were badly bruised and injured otherwise by arms and bayonets, which flew around promiscuously when the car wentdown. The only life lost was that of the brakeman who stood upon the back platform of the last car, and was shot down the chasm like a cannon ball. As the bottom of the gorge is inaccessible, his body was never found. For nearly an hour the car and its cargo of living freight hung by the coupling and guard chains, and was finally restored uninjured to the track.

The hand cars which are used by excursionists and officers of the road are built for the purpose, with two seats like a carriage, and brakes applied by a hand lever. They are roomy and comfortable, and it is the popular fashion for a family to charter one, ride up the mountains with their car towed by the regular train, and then coast down on iron runners over iron ice. It is the most exciting sort of sport, but cannot be recommended to timid or nervous people, as the run is made at the rate of a mile a minute, and the slightest obstacle on the track, or failure on the part of the brake to serve its purpose, would leave nothing for a coroner’s jury to sit upon. The trip is calculated to turn the hair prematurely grey; but it is said that one can can become accustomed to any-

thing. Captain Phelps, an old naval officer, and a man who has seen all sorts of service in all sorts of climes, now United States Minister to Peru, handled the brake when we came down, and before we started required a solemn recognition from every one of his sole authority upon that craft Assent having been given, we braced ourselves upon the cushioned seats, and he opened the brake and let her buzz. At first the rate was slow, but gathering speed with its own momentum the car was soon going so fast that telegraph poles couldn’t be counted, and we experienced the sensation of the woman in the circus who is shot out of a catapult The train despatcher had given us the right of way over a clear track, and the way we slid down the Andes will long be remembered.