Other important works carried out by Breitenbach in the west were the great railway bridge at Cologne, to replace the old trestle bridge; a new bridge, by the Beyen Tower, for freight traffic; and new railways in the Eiffel Mountains. Moreover, at my special suggestion, a through line was built from Giessen to Wiesbaden, which included reconstruction of the stations at Homburg and Wiesbaden and the building of a loop around Frankfort and Höchst. In addition, trains were provided with through cars from Flushing to the Taunus. To show that it is impossible to please everybody, I wish to observe in passing that we were violently attacked by the hotel proprietors of Frankfort, who were naturally not at all pleased at this elimination of Frankfort and of the necessity, existing previously, for passengers to change trains there, since they lost thereby many customers formerly obliged to spend a night in some Frankfort hotel. This element brought particularly strong opposition to bear against the loop line around Höchst. The battle concerning the Central Canal was decided at last in favor of my plans. Under Breitenbach, construction on it was pushed forward by sections with great energy. Those portions of this canal which it had been possible to place in operation have fully met expectations. During this period, also, the extraordinarily difficult extension and deepening of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, almost equivalent to building an entirely new waterway, was brought to completion, likewise the great Emden sea lock. These were remarkable achievements in the domain of bridge and lock construction, which aroused the admiration of the world; in the matter of locks, for instance, those built at this time far surpassed the locks of the Panama Canal in size. The difficult tasks were brilliantly and thoroughly completed by the officials in charge; in so far as the construction work was in the hands of the Empire, it was carried out mostly with the supervising co-operation of the Prussian Ministry of Transportation. I often went to Breitenbach's home, where I had an opportunity, thanks to him, of having interesting talks on commercial-political and economic subjects with a highly intelligent circle, of meeting a lot of eminent men and discussing important questions. The plans and sketches of all the larger railway stations, locks, and bridges were submitted to me before the work of building or rebuilding them was begun, and reports concerning them were made to me.