Electric Tramway.

Manawatu Herald, 5 April 1898, Page 3

Electric Tramway.

2i MILES ERECTED IN 24 HOURS. " The right to lay lines along tho particular route in question was a disputed matter between the New York and Philadelphia Traction Company and the New Brunswick Traction Company, nnd either company starting operations was liable to be interrupted by an, injunction unless the whole of the work could be accomplished on a dies non. The first mentioned corporation accordingly determined to do the whole of it between Saturday midnight and Sunday midnight. The only preparation they were able to make on the spot consisted in the cquipm nt of the generating station, which was accompanied under the pretence of lighting a hotel. All the workmen had to be engaged at distant parts, and were not told their destination. Two hundred and fifty men were drawn from Baltimore, and another 800 from Philadelphia. •• Tho party were conveyed to their destination in a special train, while another conveyed a number of Wells lights and and gasoline flares, which were used for lighting the scene of operations. A large number of horses had also to be provided, particularly as ploughs were used for opening up the road, which, it may be added, was macadamised. The train left Baltimore at 5.80 on the Saturday afternoon, and on its arrival at Bound Brook the first work to be done was the unloading of the materials, the lights being the first to be attended to. One of the Wells lights was placed at every 600 ft of distance along the line, while the gasoline flares were fixed at distances of 50ft to 100 ft apart. The tools and horses were next unloaded, the actual work of construction being commenced at 1 o'clock. At 2. a.m. an attempt was made by the opposition company to stop the work by serving an order for its discontinuance, but being out of the hours legal for such service, this notice was disregarded- The work then proceeded and by 10 o'clock on Sunday morning the grading was completed. Track laying (with 601 b rails) was commanced within an hour of the start, 50 teams being utilised for hauling the supplies. The bonding was done by a special set of men following the tracklayers. In the meantime, the overhead construction had been rapidly pushed on, and to facilitate matters this work was devided up into numerous pections. A feeder linn, 2000 ft long, had also to be constructed. By eight o'clock in the morning all the poles were up, and the trolley brackets in position, and at 10 a.m. the fixing of the wires was commenced. In the afternoon a eecoud attempt was made to inter rupt the work, but again without legal warrant, and a resort to force by the opposition, who brought a gang of 100 labourers to tear up portions of tha line alreaoy completed, was likewise defeated. Finwily, at 11 p.m., tha work wa3 finished, and a car run over the track. The difficulty of the work was increased by tha necessity of building at one point a trestle-bridge approach 100 ft long."