Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1913 — MANY PROBLEMS TO SOLVE [ARTICLE]

MANY PROBLEMS TO SOLVE

Railroad Being Built in Peru Has , Furnished Engineers an Opportunity to Show Their Skill. Another trans-Andean railroad under construction in Peru presents problems unique in the annals of railway building. The road will traverse the territory from the summit of the Andes to the navigable headwaters of the Amazon river—a distance of 250 miles—but in ' that short distance there is a sheer of about three miles that the engineers will have to overcome. The whole length of the line is only about 270 miles, but it is the first hundred which present the greatest engineering difficulties, the hundred miles of tunnels, curves, bridges, embankments and switchbacks from the summit of the Andes down their eastern slope. Here will be employed ffevTc&s ifi 'ranroa< building such as have no counterpart in this country, nor even in the most difficult passes of the Rockies. Marvelous as the railroad will be from an engineering and scenic standpoint, it will be even more notable for its economic Effect on world trade. Although Peru is not more than 500 miles wide from east to west, its transAndean products must take a journey of 20,000 miles down the Amazon and to Europe, returning by way of Panama, in order to reach the commercial cities of its west coast. The new road will permit the interchange of Oriental and Occidental Peruvian products in four days instead of six’ months. The concession for the building of the railway is held by Americans to whom the Peruvian government has undertaken to give $10,000,000 in bonds to the builders, pa. able in installments at the completion of every twenty-five miles of the railroad. In addition Peru will convey to the syndicate 5,000,000 acres of land in the mountain country when the road is completed.