BRITISH ENGINEERS’ TRIUMPH.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2716, 22 January 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

BRITISH ENGINEERS’ TRIUMPH.

TUNNEL CUT THROUGH THE ANDES.

Britons have just accomplished in South America perhaps the most marvellous of all the wonderful engineering feats of modern times. By the engineering feats of a British firm", the apparently impenetrable barrier of teh Andes, senarating the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America, has been pierced. A tunnel has been completed through the very heart of the mountain range at a height of 10,500 feet. _ For a distance of 3280 yards a man may now walk through the range with 8000 feet of mountain over his head and 10,500 beneath him. By March next, trains will be running through the. tunnel, and it will be possible to travel direct from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

This stupendous task has been carried out almost entirely by Messrs. C. H. Walker and Co., of "London, a firm of which Sir Robert Perks is a member. The work was begun by the Chilian Trans-Andion Construction Company, but. had)Hot proceeded fa r before it was taken over by the British firm, whose engineers are Messrs. Livesey, Sons, and Henderson, of London. Enormous, almost unprecedented, •difficulties faced the tunnel makers, but. despite all obstacles, the work has been carried through quickly and well. In the first place there was the great height of tunnel —it is 10,500 feet above sea level, 1500 feet higher than the loftiest carriage road in Europe, 3500 feet higher than the Mont Cenis Tunnel. At this altitude the air was extremely rarefied, and when the tunnel had penetrated some distance it was found impossible to use steam engines to out tiie excavated rock. The steam and smoke made the air almost unbreathable. So compress-air engines were Used.

Then the strata of the mountains were in many cases, almost vertical, and full of faults—hence, to avoid falls the tunnel had to be lined throughout .with concrete, arches. Moreover, constant percolations of water from the snow-clad peaks rendered the work more than ever difficult —the men had sometimes to labor up to their waists in water —-but, still, the work was-push-ed doggedly on. Day and night, in eight-hour shifts, gangs of men have burrowed into the heart of the mountain from either end. In all, despite the difficulties of getting labor since the earthquake of 1906, which raised wages very much, some 1500 men have been constantly employed. Even on Sundays and on the feast days and holidays so dear to the hearts of the Argentine, Italian, Spanish, and Chilian laborers employed, the work has been carried on without intermission. How immensely useful this tunnel will be will be seen from the fact that now passengers must leave the train at lias Cuevas, and, climbing on mules over zigzag mountain roads, proceed to Caracoles, the Chilian railhead, a journey of two hours’ duration. Even this toilsome and inconvenient route is open during the summer months onlv. The ■winter snows close the pass, rand passengers must perforce go round by sea, a twelve days’ journey. —Where Britain Triumphs.— How is it that this huge work, far off in South America, was entrusted to a British firm? This question was put to a member of a large firm of engineers and contractors in London. “The •.reason is,” he said, “that our big firms, if they undertake a work, state at once when it will be completed and what it will cost. They completed it on the day named and for the price named. “If the work is entrusted to a Government Department, especially in South American Republics, no exact estimate of the cost can be obtained*, and the work is often looked on- as a means of providing remunerative emnlovmenb for friends and supporters of the Governments” This is not the only great engineering -work upon, which a British firm is l busy at the present time. Three great firms ■are now carrying out huge contracts in -connection with the Singapore harbor •works, while to another firm has been entrusted —not at all to the satisfaction of Spanish contractors —a great part of -the work of reconstructing the Spanish navy and building new docks for it.