Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1915 — ON ALASKAN RAILROAD [ARTICLE]

ON ALASKAN RAILROAD

PROBLEM TO KEEP LINE CLEAR OF BNOW AND ICE. Despite Its System of Road la Frequently Blockaded and All Trains Stalled for Weeks, or Even Months. Keeping the line cleared of snow and ice is the biggest problem in the operation of the railroad that * runs from Cordova, Alaska, to the Bonanza copper mines. Although snowsheds have been built along the most dangerous places, it is not an uncommon thing for this railroad to become blockaded with snow so that trains are stalled for weeks, and on one occasion there were no trains for nearly two months. Rotary snowplows are in almost service during the winter, but when the snow drifts to such depths as 40 feet, as it sometimes does, even these powerful machines are unable to keep the line open. On one occasion the fuel was used up and the rotary was caught in a snowdrift. The conductor managed to reach a relief telephone and notify the Cordova office of his plight. Oil and several dog teams were sent out on a relief engine. When this engine was stopped by the snow the oil was loaded on the dog sleds and taken over miles of drifts to the stalled rotary. The railway follows a river bank for much of its length, and during seasons when there is alternate freezing and thawing, the overflow from the river forms over the track a solid sheet of ice that can be removed only by dynamite.—Modern Mechanics.