The Railway Conquest of the World

The Railway Conquest of the World is a book by Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot. The preface says there is the unfathomable fascination of romance connected with the construction of great railways, though little is known of the beginning and the growth of the great trunk roads of the world. The text says that when the Simplon tunnel was in progress, underground springs were harnessed and compelled to perform useful work, and were thrown against the rock face to keep down the internal temperature.

The text says that the engineers brought up the electric drills used in the Karawanken undertaking in order to see if matters could not be expedited, but that the drills failed to make as much headway as the hydraulic tools. A caption on the Gokteik Viaduct says there are eighteen steel towers, the highest bringing the rails 325 feet above the floor of the gorge, supporting 2,260 feet of bridging. The text describes railway building where, for every spike driven, an arrow sped from an Indian bow, to be answered by the sharp crack of a rifle from the railway building forces.