Edward Whymper

“ Then, on emerging into the open air, one looks down some three or four thousand feet of precipice and steep mountain-side. The next moment the engine turns suddenly to the left, and driver and stoker have to grip firmly to avoid being left behind; the next, it turns as suddenly to the right; the next there is an accession or diminution of speed, from a change in the gradient. An ordinary engine, moving at fifty miles an hour, with a train behind it, is not usually very steady, but its motion is a trifle compared with that of a Fell engine when running down hill. ”

“ Many of the working parts of these locomotives must be subjected to sudden and violent strains, which do not occur to others on ordinary lines.
The engines are admitted to be imperfect, and new ones are in course of construction. It is to be regretted there is a probability that the line will be pulled up at no very distant date,' as improvements are thus prevented from being carried out; otherwise there would be no doubt it might become a thoroughly practical and profitable one. Let us now turn to the great tunnel of the Alps, the completion of which is to be death to the Fell railway. ”

“ In practice, it is difficult to apply the proper amount of retardation; the breaks have frequently to be whistled off, and sometimes it is necessary to steam down against them. Theoretically, this ought not of course to occur; it only happens occasionally, and ordinarily the train goes down with the steam shut off, and with the centre rail breaks screwed up moderately. When an average train—that is, two or three carriages and a luggage-van—is running down at the maximum speed allowed (fifteen miles an hour) , the breaks can pull it up dead within seventy yards. ”

“ Once more we passed through the foul vapours and by the army of miners. Laborious as the work of these men undoubtedly is, it is lighter and far less dangerous than that of our coal-cutters. The heat, although it seems considerable to one coming from a lower temperature, is not excessive, and this may be inferred from seeing how few men are unclothed. They work readily enough for their three francs a-day, [28] and take to their labour cheerfully; very few skulkers can be seen in the Mont Cenis tunnel. The following table shows how small is the risk to life. ”

“ The air seemed chilly, although it was a bright summer day; and our nostrils, for hours after leaving the tunnel, yielded such supplies of carbon as to suggest that the manufacture of compressed soot might be profitably added to the already numerous industries of the works.
About four thousand men are now employed on the tunnel, [29] and they complete ten to eleven feet every day. The average daily progress of the last five years is ten feet one inch. Each yard of progress costs at the present time about £200, or just double the average of railway tunneling in England. ”

“ The pace is properly kept down to a low point in descending, and doing so, combined with the knowledge that the break-power can easily lessen it, will tend to make the public look favourably on what might otherwise be considered a dangerous innovation. The engines also are provided with the centre rail break, on a pattern somewhat different from those on the carriages, and the flat sides which press against the rails are renewed every journey. It is highly desirable that they should be, for a single run from Lanslebourg to Susa grinds a groove into them about three-eighths of an inch in depth. ”

“ On the 15th of September 1863, a sudden fall of rock occurred, which killed several miners and imprisoned about sixty others who were at work in the advanced gallery. They were greatly alarmed, and expected to be starved; but at last one of them remembered this subway, and they escaped by its means. Since that time the miners, knowing they have this exit, have troubled themselves very little about éboulements.
The temperature of the tunnel remains tolerably uniform throughout the year, but it is much higher in some parts than it is in others. ”

“ The run across the top of the pass, from the Summit station to the Grande Croix station—a distance of about five miles—is soon accomplished, and then the tremendous descent to Susa is commenced. This, as seen from the engine, is little less than terrific. A large part of this section is covered in, [5] and the curves succeed one another in a manner unknown on any other line. From the outside the line looks more like a monstrous serpent than a railway.
Inside one can see but a few yards ahead, the curves are so sharp, and the rails are nearly invisible. ”

“ In the tunnel itself—where the temperature is not subject to such fluctuations—these precautions are not necessary, and the pipes are carried along the walls, supported by brackets, as far as the end of the finished work. Through these pipes highly compressed air is conducted, and is delivered at the end of the "advanced gallery" where the boring-machines are at work, with only a slight diminution in its pressure, notwithstanding the escapes which occur at the joints.
On entering the tunnel one is struck by its size. ”

“ In a few yards its pace is reduced, and it comes down and down to about four miles an hour, which speed is usually maintained until the incline is passed, without a diminution of the steam-pressure. I say usually, because, if it should happen that there is not sufficient steam, or should the driver happen to make a slip, the train would most likely come back to Modane; for, although the break-power on the train is much more than sufficient to prevent it running back, the driver could hardly start with the breaks on, and the train would inevitably run back if they were off. ”

“ Three times more coal can be got by four men with it in a day than they can get without it. The waste of coal in the operation of holing is reduced by two-thirds. That is to say, if this machine could be used in all the pits in the kingdom, there would be an actual saving of 8,000,000 to 9,000,000 tons of coal per annum! ”

“ How much of the increase is due to the lights, men, and horses, and how much to the natural temperature of the rock? If the heat increased in the tunnel, yard by yard, in the same proportion as it does when descending into the earth, the temperature in its centre should be about 90° higher than at its mouth. ”

“ The engineers therefore believe that no greater difficulties will be encountered than those which have been overcome. Remarkably little water has been met with: the miner's dreaded enemy seems to have fled before the engineer who has utilised its power. ”

“ It will be seen from this that one-half of the fatal accidents have arisen from men being run over by waggons. This has chiefly come from the impossibility of making the miners walk on the footways at the sides of the tunnel. They will walk. on the rails. The result is that they are not unfrequently killed, although the greatest precautions are taken with the waggons descending with débris. The total is insignificant when one considers the number of men engaged and the length of time over which it is spread, and it compares favourably with almost any other enterprise of similar magnitude. ”

“ The exhaustion of our coal-fields, which recent inquiries have placed at a more distant date than was expected a few years ago, is a thing that is inevitable sooner or later. Actual exhaustion is not so much to be feared as inability to compete with foreign producers. The question is adjourned, but it will presently be forced upon public attention again. When it becomes too pressing to be neglected, then, possibly, there will be a chance of the condition of our miners being ameliorated ”

“ Firth's machine, work narrow seams at a profit which it would not pay to work by hand; but they do not possess the important ventilating power, which is one of its chief recommendations. The expansion of the air not only lowers the temperature, but it drives all the gas away from the working-face. ”

“ The first one seriously considered by the government was that of M. Maus, a Belgian engineer. He proposed to construct a tunnel of 12,230 mètres between Bardonnêche and Modane, with a ruling gradient of 19 in 1000. The advance of the small gallery in front was to be made by means of a machine with chisels, put in motion by springs, that would have cut the rock into blocks—leaving them attached only at the back—which were afterwards to be brought down by means of wedges. ”

“ It is not so; the train is steady enough, and the carriages have remarkably little motion. outside they resemble the cars on the Swiss and American lines; they are entered at the end, and the seats are arranged omnibus-fashion, down the length of the carriage. Each carriage has a guard and two breaks,—an ordinary one, and a centre rail break; the handles of these come close together to the platform at one end, and are easily worked by one man. The steadiness of the train is chiefly due to these centre rail breaks. ”

“ One can hardly give an idea of the difficulties that the observers have experienced in the course of their work. At heights like those from which they worked, meteorological changes occur with the greatest rapidity; violent winds overturned their instruments, and mists or clouds concealed the points at the moments they wished to observe them. A single fact will give some notion of the nature of their work. Seven angles had to be measured from the summit of La Pelouse, 10,170 feet above the sea. ”

“ Only two were at work, yet—at a distance of two miles from the mouth—they produced a very sensible current flowing into the tunnel, which was indicated by the miners' lamps that we carried. There is no reason to be afraid that the eminent engineer, who has hitherto shown himself equal to all the difficulties which have arisen, will be beaten by the ventilation. ”

“ One sees now the results of years of perfecting and of practice. Things were very different at the beginning. Then, says M. Conte, "everything was new, not only to the workmen, but also to those who had the direction. . . . The work of perforation was commenced at Bardonnêche on January 12, 1861, but for several days only a single perforatrice was in action, then a second was added, and by the 20th a certain amount of useful work had been done. On the 26th the number of the perforatrices was increased to four, and by working eight hours per day, 10 or 12 holes were made about a yard in depth. ”

“ Michel to Susa by nearly one-half; [8] it has lessened the cost and increased the comfort to the passengers. The gauge (3 feet 73⁄8 inches) is a mistake, inasmuch as it loses time and causes trouble by the transference of the passengers, limits the power of the engines, and renders the rolling stock unfit for general use, should the line be pulled up,—which, according to the terms of the concession which was granted to the promoters, is to be done when the great tunnel of the Alps is open for traffic. ”

“ From the rails to the crown of the arch its height is just 20 feet, and its width is 26 feet 6 inches. The next thing that is noticed is that it is almost everywhere lined with masonry; a small fraction only of the rock is left unsupported. The stone that is used is not obtained from the tunnel itself, but is quarried several miles away, near to St. Michel. [20] Not observed, but nevertheless existing, is a covered way about 3 feet 4 inches high, and 4 feet wide, which is made in the floor of the tunnel between the rails; it is in fact a tunnel within a tunnel. ”

“ The puffs of steam are seen rising above the trees, sometimes going in one direction, and sometimes directly the contrary, occasionally concealed by the covered ways—for over two miles out of the six the line is enclosed by planked sides and a corrugated iron roof to keep out the snow—and then coming out again into daylight. ”

“ In spite of the noise and the cramped position in which the men necessarily toil on account of the limited space, the work goes steadily forward day and night. Each man knows his part. The foremen direct by signs rather than by words; the labourers guide the chisels; the workmen regulate the supply of air ”

“ It is, besides, evident that driving the tunnel to a summit doubles the chances of the two ends meeting, and negatives, to a certain extent, the possibilities of error from the two operations upon which the least dependence could be placed,—the triangulation and the levelling. ”

“ CROSS SECTION OF THE ADVANCED GALLERY.All the holes are then dried and cleaned by a jet of compressed air, the "affût" is withdrawn behind strong iron-bound doors, and six of the small holes nearest to the large are charged and fired. The force of the explosion goes in the direction of least resistance, that is towards the central hole, and a breach is made such as is indicated in the longitudinal section by the thick dotted line. ”

“ The fact that two hundred of their men lose their lives every year by fire-damp explosions will not move British pit-owners so readily as the disagree-able truth that the time is rapidly approaching when they will be unable to compete with foreign markets, unless they work with greater economy. We have heard times without number that miners are careless ”

“ There are many yards, however, which have cost infinitely more than £200 per yard. The work is now so far advanced that the engineers can estimate with some probability what the total expenditure will amount to. ”

“ Borelli, the directors of the works in 1861 at Modane and Bardonneche respectively, for their attention in 1860-1, and particularly Signor Copello, the present director at Modane, for the facilities given and for the information afforded by him. ↑ The lines which will connect it with existing railways are to be only single lines. ↑ Here, and in the subsequent pages, the French side is alone referred to, unless it is otherwise specified; but the description would serve almost equally for the Italian side. ↑ It is almost unnecessary to remark that no stout men are seen in the tunnel. ”