The morning Astorian., February 23, 1908, INVESTORS' AND HOMESEEKERS' EDITION, THIRD SECTION, Page 18, Image 18

THE MORNING ASTOHIAN-. ASTORIA, OREGON.
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1908.
miles of track laying yet to do be
tween Butler and Cascade; and this
closed, the work of aligning the
Steel and leveling up of the road-bed
will proceed with despatch. At every
possible point of the road rock-ballast
has been used when it was available
and in its absence the heaviest of
coarse gravel has been hauled for long
distances and used instead. The Im
pound steel rails with which the line
is laid, with the tic-work measuring
3200 to the mile, gives a superbly
solid road-bed for the whole mileage
and impresses the layman with a
wonderful sense of its security; and
this is amplified by the endless use
of concrete in the structural elements
of the work everywhere; culverts,
tunnels, piers, switch-blocks, and all
devices in which it may serve its
better steaJ.
Over 18,000,000 cubic yards of ma
terials have been dug and blasted from
the right-of-way west of Kennewick,
one-third of which was solid rock,
and every ton of this rock has been
put into constmctive service in the
fills adjacent; the timbering of the
road (where timber alone would serve)
is of the heaviest sort, to keep as
near a pace as possible with the rigor
ous policy of employing only the
best and most enduring substances in
- "., ' ; '
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On the S. P. & S.
every department of the work. And
n this relation it may be said that
what of trestling has been injected in
the construction, has been made won
derfully more lasting by the fact that
the ties on every such structure have
been laid close, and the whole
surface coated, to the rails,
with gravel and cement, making the
roof of the trestling impervious to
the rains of the winter and preserving
the sub-structure to the greatest pos
sible degree.
There are 13 tunnels on the line,
the shortest being about 148 feet, and
the longest 2345 feet, all high and
roomy and all heavily lined with
cement except in one or two in
stances where the character of the
work was so smoothly wrought as to
dispense with the use of it. The long
est of the tunnels is at Cape Horn
and is one of the great features o!
the line.
The "North Bank" line has a su
preme advantage in its southerly as
pect From its side of the Columbia
the . eye-range is magnificent and
marked by a thousand beauties lost
altogether on the opposite shore trip
The open valleys to the south and
the lordly mountains of the lower
Cascades, including kingly Hood and
the exquisite spray-floods of Mult
nomah and Bridal Veil, form a pano
rama unequalled anywhere on the
continent of America, when viewed
from the open elevation of the line,
with the glorious Columbia con
stantly in the near vision.
The mileage that lands the line
from Vancouver at its near-Portland
junction with the Northern Pacific
si traversed largely on bridges and
lofty trestling, and it is in this brief
breadth that some of the costliest
work of the project lies. The road
leaves Vancouver direct on a magnifi
cent system of double-track super
structures, the first phase of which is
a lofty steel bridge, said to be the
longest structure of its kind in this
country (including as it does 6600 feet
of steel trestling); its shortest span
being 83.7 feet, its longest 375 feet,
and its draw 467.5 feet, in length, and
this stretches from the north shore of
the Columbia far toward the easterly
margin of the Willamette river, fron
whence springs another fine bridge,
with a minimum span of 84.2 feet, a
maximum span of 268.8 feet, and a
draw of 526 feet (the longest in the
world), the whole distance of 17,000
feet being 22 feet in the clear above
the highest known levels of cither of
the great rivers involved. 1 he mile
and a quarter of trestling between
these bridges is nil of solid steel, on
concrete bases,
The company possesses ample yard
adge facilities at Portland, on which
are erected two 900-foot freight
houses each 50 feet in width, and
these are equipped with three-story
office buildings and offices covering
the whole raniie of traffic business, at
the city end of the structure. The
passenger service of the system will
be expedited from the Union Depot
at Portland, where that department
is' already installed in handsome and
, otmnodious quarters.
t . . l
summer, will give sutwauee ami
impetus to the businesses and build it
rapidly and surely to the utmost
limit. The Spokane end of the sys
tem will hardly be completed until
later in the year, but the traffic from
the Snake river country will be readily
handled and is likely to tax even the
magnificent qualities of this new and
direct highway.
Immense enterprises of this sort
are not adapted to the wide territory
they dominate, in a day, nor a year;
time alone develops the real bearing,
the actual scope and direction of that
domination, And in the case of this
fine property there are three distinct
and available departments of its ter-
r (
i
ON THE LINK OF TUB S. 1 &. S.
The official staff of the Spokane,
Portland & Seattle Railway, as now
constituted, is as follows: President,
Francis B. Clarke; general superin
tendent, F. S. Forest; general freight
and passenger agent, II. M. Adams;
assistant general freight and passen
ger agent, R. H. Jenkins; trainmas
ter, M. F. Kincaid. These gentlemen
are all highly trained experts, familiar
with the deepest purposes of the
men who have committed this great
trust to their hands, and when the
road shall open for full traffic this
ritory on the anxious seat as to the
final determination of terminal honor
and prestige, Astoria, Portland and
f'uget Sound. The fact that the prim
ary interests of its projectors are al
ready centered on the Sound lends
something of color to the claims as
serted up that way, especially as the
leading features of time, distance and
grades have been reduced to a mini
mum over the prevalent routes. Port
land has an eager and optimistic eye
on the situation and justifies her claim
to terminal consideration on the fact
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civ.
CP
GRAVF.I, PITS ON THE S. P. & S,
that such extraordinary and costly
elements of construction have been
indulged to get the line within her
limits, the great bridges, etc, etc., and
her facilities for handling the business
if it shall be brought there in a per
manent way.
But Astoria has the cardinal claim
of being the nearest seaport to the
ource of shipment and lies at the
foot of the down-grade, water-level
haul the road was built to cover, as
the following table of distances will
Indicate: ;
Astoria from the sea.. 15 miles
Portland from the sea. 115 miles
Seattle from tlu sea... 1 50 miles
Tacotna from the sea.. 180 miles
And this fortified by the still more
potent calculations of the running
distances as between the interior
points of departure, for the vast ship
ment that will engage this line; all
of them "common point" stations in
the grain trade:
miles
Spokane to Seattle 48
ASTORIA .431
" Tacoma ....458
" Portland ...339
LewUton to Seattle 627
ASTORIA .560
' Tacoma ....587
Portland ...468
Walla Walla to Seattle 445
ASTORIA .352
" Tacoma ....405
" Portland ...260
Pendleton to Seattle 406
ASTORIA .339
" Tacoma ....366
" Portland ...247
Kennewick to Seattle 349
ASTORIA .282
" ' Tacoma ....309
- Portland ...190
Astoria cannot believe that the
sponsor fr this great system have
spent $40,t)IX),000 to secure the su
preme mastery of the Columbia basin,
from its farthest reaches of contribu
live supply to her very doors, and
beyond (for the Aitoria & Columbia
River Railroad division of this sys
tem passe through this city to Sea
side 18 miles south and west on the
coast itself, from whence it already
.......a 1 1, m rii.lit-nf.wfiw Tltlnnmnlr X
Hay, on it San Francisco route), and
that she will be cut out of the termi
nal plans of the near future. Such
vast work and cost are not indulged
for mere pastime or tentative ad
vantage; but adheres to the lionet
and justifiable deduction that she is to
figure largely and permanently in the
adjustment that must follow the
opening of the road to the business it
commands.
Hy rvery conceivable phase of
reaoiting and logic, this port is in
the nearest, direct, operative line of
that business and that the mouth of
the Columbia is destined to play a
mighty part in the history it wit)
make; and only the uuul silence at
railway headquarters precludes a
triumphant and affirmative declara
tion in this behalf.
In the language of President Louis
W. Hill, president of the Great
Northern and Northern Pacific lines
vice hi dUtinguished father, given
out in this city last July, "This is, un
doubtedly, the place from which the
grain shipments of the great Colum
bia River Valley will be made. You
have the situation here, unquestionably!"
REDUCED
WESTBOUND COLONIST RATES
FROM EASTERN POINTS .
TO
ASTORIA and all points on the
Astoria s Columbia River Railroad
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SALE DATES-March 1st to April 30th, 1908, inclusive.
. t 1 . . j Tickets on sale from and to all points in the United States, Canada and Europe.
PREPAID TICKETS Railroad and sleeping car tickets de- I m s If
i ur iuii liuuiuKitujii as iu iaica, jmmo, aittmg ! war iciti vauuua, cit.f tail uu ur
livered passengers in the east if money to cover same is address,
deposited with any agent for the A. & C. R. R. R.
G. B. JOHNSON, General Agent.
1 2th and Commercial Sts.,
Astoria, Oregon.