Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . The record shows however that it wasdirected with a singular attention to detail andphenomenal success. When passenger trains mustbe run so as never to interfere with dirt trains,and when dirt trains must be so run that a few scoresteam-shovels dipping up five cubic yards of brokenrock at a mouthful shall never lack for a flat car onwhich to dump the load, it means some fine workfor the traffic manager. The superintendent ofschools remarked to me that the question whethera passenger train should stop at a certain stationto pick up school children
Panama and the canal in picture and prose .. . The record shows however that it wasdirected with a singular attention to detail andphenomenal success. When passenger trains mustbe run so as never to interfere with dirt trains,and when dirt trains must be so run that a few scoresteam-shovels dipping up five cubic yards of brokenrock at a mouthful shall never lack for a flat car onwhich to dump the load, it means some fine workfor the traffic manager. The superintendent ofschools remarked to me that the question whethera passenger train should stop at a certain stationto pick up school children depended on the con-venience of certain steam-shovels and that the mat-ter had to be decided by Col. Goethals. Which goesto show that the Colonels responsibilities are varied—but of that more anon, as the story-tellers say. Within a few years forty miles of the PanamaRailroad have been relocated, the prime purpose ofthe change being to obviate the necessity of crossingthe Canal at any point. One of the witticisms of 44 PANAMA AND THE CANAL. SCENE ON ALMIRANTE BAY the Zone is that the Panama is the only railroadthat runs crosswise as well as lengthwise. Thisjest is partly based on the fact that nine-tenths ofthe line has been moved to a new location, but moreon the practice of picking up every night or twosome thousand feet of track in the Canal bed andmoving it bodily, ties and all, some feet to a new is made necessary when the steam-shovels havedug out all the rock and dirt that can be reachedfrom the old line, and it is accomplished by machinescalled track shifters, each of which accomplishes thework of hundreds of men. The Panama Railroad is today what business men call a going concern. But it is run with a singularindifference to private methods of railroad manage-ment. It has a board of directors, but they do littledirecting. Its shares do not figure in Wall Street,and we do not hear of it floating loans, scaling downdebts or engaging in any of the stock-jobbin
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Keywords: ., bookauthorabbotwil, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1913
