Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 127, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 May 1912 — SAVING AN ALPINE RAILROAD [ARTICLE]

SAVING AN ALPINE RAILROAD

Massive Stone Walls So Constructed as to Make Avalanches Jump Over Tracks. The new railroad that will pass through the Loetschberg tunnel, in the Bernese Alps, is protected from avalanches by great fortifications. At the southern entrance to the nlne-mile long tunnel a massave stone wall has been built, 30 feet high, and 7 or 8 feet thick at the base. • Behind and above this wall is a kind of trough. When a descending avalanche strikes this depression ft will be diverted upward, and clearing the railway below in a parabolic curve, will descend into the Lonza torrent beyond. The snow swept down by avalanches in this region sometimes attains a depth of 80 feet In February,' 1908, a building of the railroad works was struck by the rush of air set up by a snowslide, and was swept bodily into the river below. There were eleven men in the building, and all of them lost their lives.— Youth’s Companion.