Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 224, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1913 — PASSING of the PANAMA RAILWAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PASSING of the PANAMA RAILWAY

Colon, C. Z.—With the completion/)! the Panama canal the Importance of the Panama railway will decline almost to the vanishing point. For nearly sixty years this railway has been carrying i»eople and freight from ocean to ocean. Though only 47 miles long, it has been, for certain periods, one of the most important and most interesting railroad lines in the world. During the building of the canal, under the ownership of the "United States, it has become one of the best equipped and most efficient of railways. It has given great help in the construction of the canal that will prove its virtual death. The finding of gold in California was the cause of the building of the Panama railroad. For long years before the wild rush of argonauts in 1849 the Isthmus was almoet forgotten by the civilized world, but when thp yellow metal was discovered on the west coast it became once more a great trade route. In order to avoid the long trip across the plains in “prairie schooners,** thousands of ’gold-seekers went by Mat to Chagres, up the Char gres river to Gorgona or Cruces and thence over the old Spanish road to Panama. This, too, was a long route and in the rainy season a painful and dangerous one because of the prevalence of disease. To the rescue of the gold hunters came three hold Americans, W. H. Aspinwall, Henry Chauncey and John L. Btevena. In 1848 these men had asked the government of New Granada for a concession for the road, and in 1850 Stevens obtained it at Bogota. The Pacific termius could not be otherwise than at Panama, but at first the harbor of Porto Bello was selected for the Atlantic terminus. However, a New York speculator spoiled this plan by buying up all the land about the harbor and holding it at a very high price, •o Navy Bay was chosen instead. When work on the line was begun in May, 1850, there was no celebration, no turning of the first spadeful of earth with a golden shovel. Two Americans with a gang of Indians landed on Manzanillo island, now the site of the city of Colon, then a desolate, uninhabited spot, and began the tremndoue task of clearing the route through the dense jungle. The surveying party suffered intensely, for the land was so swampy and so infested with malaria and yellow fever bearing mosquitoes that they were compelled to sleep aboard a ship. Much of the time they carried their lunches tied on their heads and ate them standing waist-deep in the water. The efforts of the company to obtain laborers were attended by a terrible tragedy. Eight hundred Chinese were brought over from Hong Kong, but within a week of their landing scores of them died. Opium was given the survivors and for a short time checked the ravages of disease. But the supply of the drug was shut off on account of its cost, and again the deaths became numerous. The poor Orientals in despair began to commit suicide, some by hanging, others by Impalement, while some deliberately sat down upon the seashore and waited for. the rising tide to overwhelm them. In a few weeks scarce two hundred were left, and these, broken in health and spirits, were sent to Jamaica. * Another shipload of laborers, this time from Ireland, met no better fate, for nearly every man died. The material difficulties that confronted the railway builders are thus summarized by Tomes in his “Panama In 1855:*’ “The isthmus did not supply a single resource necessary for the undertaking. Not only the capital, skill and enterprise, but the labor, the wood and iron, the daily food, the clothing, the roof to cover and the instruments to work with came from abroad. . . . Most of the material used'for the construction of the road was brought from vast distances. Although the country abounded in forests, it was found necessary, from the expense of labor and the want of routes of communication, to send the timber, for the most part, from the United States, and not only were the rails, to a considerable extent, laid on American pine, but the bridges, and the houses and workshops of the various settlements were of the same wood, all fashioned In Maine and Georgia. The metal work, the rails, the locomotives and the tools were brought either from England or the United States. The daily food of the laborers, even, came from a New York market” The first section of the road was laid through a mangrove swamp in which no bottom was found, the tracks being floated on an Immense pontoon. By October, 1851, eight miles had been completed and solid ground was reached at Gatun. Lack of funds now began to hamper the builders. In-

by E.W.PICKARD

vectors In the stater had become discouraged and the cost of labor had advanced. But a hurricane camt) to the rescue, Two ships loaded with goldseekers were forced to anchor near Manzanillo island and the passengers paid the company a handsome sum to carry them to Gatun in work cars. The news that the road had carried more than a thousand passengers reached New York and funds again flowed Into the coffers of the company. As the work progressed passengers were hauled longer and longer distances and before the line was completed the receipts from passengers and freight were considerably above $2,000,000. The last rails were laid the night Of January 27, 1855, and the next day the first train passed clear across the isthmus from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The entire cost of the road up to December 31, 1858, had been something less than $8,000,000 and its gross earnings in the same time were a little more than that sum. The rate across the isthmus was put at $25 gold, being intended to bo to a certain extent prohibitive until they could get things into good running order, but so great was the volume of travel that the rate was not reduced for more than twenty years. Soon afte? its opening the road began to declare 24 per cent dividends, and at one time its stock went up to 350. In the *6o’s the.company fell on hard times. It lost much of its freight traffic, was held up by the politicians in Bogota and then suffered by the com'pletion of the Union Pacific railroad. Next Russell Sage and others like him got control of the directorate and wrecked the road. When de Lesseps came over to dig a canal his company bought up the stock and used the road to help in its work. Then in 1904 the United States bought out the French company and also acquired the railway and so it became the first American road to be owned by the government. So economically and efficiently has it been conducted since then that it is cited as an argument for the government ownership of all our railways. The building of the canal and especially the creation of the artificial Gatun lake made necessary the relocation of the Panama railroad along most of its route. The old roadbed now is under water for much of the way, the old line still in use being only about seven miles in length, from Colon to Mlndi and from Corozal to Panama. From Mindi to Gatun the grade ascends to 95 feet above tide level. From Gatun ttye road runs east until it is four and a half miles from the canal, and then squth again on great embankments across the Gatun valley. Along this stretch passengers obtain an unusual .view. Because of the construction of the Gatun dam across the channel of the Chagres river, the Chagres valley and all its tributary valleys have been converted into a lake with an area of about 164 square miles. The Gatun valley is one of these drowned arms and as the train crosses, wide stretches of water are to be seen'on both sidbs of the track. Down below the surface are still visible the tops of giant trees that have been killed by submergence, and along the edges of the lake the tallest and hardiest of the trees reach thlr dead limbs above the waters. Here and there is a pretty little island that not long ago was the summit of a hill, and the shore line is most picturesquely broken up by capes, peninsulas and bays. From Monte Lirlo the line skirts the shore of the lake to the beginning of the Culebra cut at Bas Obispo. Originally it was intended to carry the railroad through.the Culebra cut on a 40foot beam along the east side, ten feet above water level, but this plan was knocked out by the slides and breaks. The line was carried around Gold Hill to a distance of two miles from the canal until it reached the Pedro Miguel valley, down which it runs to Paraiso and the canal again. Thence it runs almost parallel with the channel tq Panama. There are two big steel bridges on the line. One, near Monte Lirlo, has a center lift sjan to permit access to the upper arm of Gatun lake; the other, a quarter of a mile long, across the Chagres riror at Gamboa. The total cost of building the new line of the railway $8,866,392. In addition, a large sum has been expended in increasing the tormina] facilities. Of course, even after the ouial is opened, the railway will have a good deal of business, transporting Jteople and goods between Colon and Panama, and serving the needs of the operating forces of the canal. But its days of glory have departed, and J. A. Lmlth, the American who has been iti efficient general superintendent, recognising that fact, has resigned and returned to the stalest