Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 August 1901 — AMERICAN BUILT BRIDGE IN BURMAH. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AMERICAN BUILT BRIDGE IN BURMAH.

A steamship recently arrived at New York with a little group of men browned to a copper color by exposure to the tropical sun. As they reached the dock a number of people waiting to meet them gave each a hearty handshake and extended congratulations. In the engineering world this group will be long remembered as the men who put up the greatest railroad bridge in the world in a country none of them had ever seen, amid trials and troubles which might be expected to discourage anyone but a Yankee engineer. Two or three years ago the surveyera of a railroad line in Burmah came

to a hole in the ground which was so deep that it seemed as if a balloon would be the only way to cross it. This was the Gokteik gorge. To go around it would require twenty or thirty miles more of track, and the question arose whether it could be spanned by a bridge. The general officials of the company thought it could if the right men could be found to undertake the work. Several American firms were Invited to put in bids, and one Of them, the Pennsylvania Steel company, secured the job. It was a case of hurry from start to finish, for the work must be done within a year from the time the contract was let. The steel for the towers, girders and other work hid to be turned out of the works, . shipped to New York, loaded on board vessels, carried to Rangoon, loaded on cars and then transported 450 miles to this hole in the ground. Special machinery had to be built to put the bridge together and to raise the different pieces and hold them in position. In all, about 5,000 tons of metal alone were required for the work, the bridge itself taking 4,852 tons alone. From one side of the valley to the other was nearly half a mile. For twothirds of this distance the railroad track had to be laid at heights ranging from 100 to 250 feet above the ground.

Then came a drop of 320 feet to the top of a bridge nature had thrown across one of the mountain rivers of Southern Asia. Upon this natural bridge, just wide enough to form a safe support, heavy steel towers were riveted together to such a height that the men working upon them at the top looked like Insects to the observer from below.

As soon as the cablegram came from the Burmah railway company accepting the American bid a special force of workmen was selected to turn out the material as rapidly as possible, and the bridge department worked day and night. The work, particularly in its initial stages, was performed amidst various perils. In the depths of the gorge, matted with underbrush and scattered with huge rocks, lurked the deadly snakes of India. Some of the coolies were bitten and died. Poisonous vegetation also affected the men, and vapors arising from the depths of the ravine bred low fever in American bones.

there were beasts of prey, too, but although they were seen and heard prowliiig about the camp at night the bridge builders suffered nothing from their depredations except the loss of some live stock. The incessant rains turned the ground into liquid mud, and the masons laying the stone foundations for the towers were held back ten weeks. At last these were completed, and then the "traveler” was put in position. This was a mechanical giant, the largest by far ever used in bridge construction. It lifted and lowered the

tons of steel and held them in Its trip while the men fastened them into place. Although In the photographs of the work the traveler looks to be only 20 or 30 feet In length and to weigh perhaps four or five tons, It extended from its support on the end of the railroad track a distance of 165 feet over the gorge and contained ninety tons of metal alone. The beams or trusses

which formed its lower portion were 219 feet in length, and from its top to the railroad track was 40 feet. To keep this immense weight from toppling over, a counter-weight of seventy-five tons was loaded upon the rear portion, which was mounted on wheeled trucks so that it could, be rolled along as the bridge was erected. The little band of thirty-five Americans put the mammoth bridge together from eight months after the work was commenced. The bridge is so strongly built that it will support a train of loaded freight cars reaching its entire length, in addition to four locomotives .weighing fifty-four tons each. Owing to its great height, it must be strongly braced to withstand the force of the gales which sweep down the valley at a velocity of sixty or seventy miles an hour. The engineers had to calculate upon these and other delicate points, but tests made after completion show that they calculated to a nicety. It was expected in building the bridge to have the aid of compressed air in boring holes through the steel and fastening the rivets, but when the 500 natives who were employed as laborers heard the hissing and noted the effect of the unseen force, they believed it to be something supernatural and not one of them could be induced to touch the compressed air tools. As a result, all of the bolts and rivets, nearly two hundred thousand, were fastened in the old-fashioned way by hand hammers. This delayed the work about one month. The work was done under the supervision of J. C. Turk of New York, as engineer for the Pennsylvania Steel company, under the general direction of Mr. J. V. W. Reynders, general superintendent of the bridge department, who prepared the drawings for the structure. The bridge cost $700,000, or $3lO a foot Of the little band of Americans who went half way around the world to do this work, every man came back alive and hearty, but with the memory of one of the most trying tasks ever completed by Yankee pluck and ingenuity.

BUILDING A 200-FOOT COLUMN.POINT.

THE GIANT TRAVELER.

WORKMEN ON THE HIGHEST PIER.