A SHIP RAILROAD.

Dunstan Times, Issue 954, 30 July 1880, Page 3

A SHIP RAILROAD.

“ Atlas” in tlie London World says it is more than probable that M. do Lessors may find himself supplanted, and his Panama Canal project superseded in a way he does not expect., A new schema, sail I to have been already Seen and approved in the highest quarters at Washington, is not to make any canal; out; In lieu of it, to construct a “ship railway,” by-means of which ships of any size call ho transported bodily from ocean to ocean in about half a day. The r’ea is to construct large docks or tanks, like graving docks, into which ships will sad or steam, am! in which they will lie securely fastened by hydraulic appliances. When the ship is hard and fast in her cradle on a level keel, the motive power will he applied, and the cradle containing the ship will lie hauled forward on a gently inclined railway, with several pairs of rails, and the whole mass will ho steadily run across the forty miles from ocean to ocean at the rate of six miles an hour, The existing Panama railway will he incorporated with the “ship railway. ’ The p'an—which is patented—is already in operation in France, where heavy canal boats, with full cargoes, are transported from one canal to another over the intervening spaed of land with the greatest case and safety. The proposed “ship-railway” will be made in a third part of the time required fur the cailf.l, at less than a third of the cost ; an 1 a tariff less than a third of the estimated canal dues will leave a handsome profit for the projectors, who are an association of French ami American companies.