[Illustration: THIS MACHINE CAN LAY A MILE OF TRACK A DAY] As the line goes forward, the track follows. The new railroad has probably popularized itself from the outset by hiring the near-by farmers and their teams to grade the line through their localities, particularly where an almost level country makes the grading a slight matter. Sometimes in level country, grading machines, drawn by horses, or by traction engines, have been used to advantage. These machines are equipped with ploughs which loosen the soil and place it on conveyor belts. Material can be deposited twenty-two feet away from the line, and a four-foot excavation can be made by these machines with ease. But the laying of the track--the line having been finished at sub-grade with a top width of from 14 to 20 feet for each standard gauge track to be laid--the line begins to assume the appearance of a real railroad. Upon the first stretches of completed track, locomotives and cars employed in construction service begin to operate. As the track grows, their field of operation increases. Then comes the day when the track sections begin to be joined; the railroad is beginning to be a real pathway of steel. To build this pathway is comparatively a simple matter, once the sub-grade is finished. A mile a day is not too much for any confident contractor to expect of his construction gangs. There was that time, back in '69, when a world's record of ten miles of track laid in a single day was established on the Central Pacific. For that mile of standard track the contractor will need 3,168 ties--eight carloads; 352 rails--five carloads; and a carload of angle irons, bolts, and spikes, as fasteners. The track-layers are as proud of their profession as any man might be of his. Their skill is a wondrous thing. Two men who follow the wake of a wagon roughly place the ties as fast as they are dropped upon the right-of-way. Another man aligns them with a line that has been strung by one of the young engineers, a fourth with a notched board, marks the location of one rail. That rail--the line side--follows close to the location marks. It is roughly banded and lightly fastened in place. The other rail--the gauge side--quickly follows. The wonderfully accurate gauge representing the 4 feet, 8-1/2 inches that is almost the standard of the work, and which is tested every morning by the engineers, is in constant use. The railroad track must be true; there is not room for even the variation of a fraction of an inch in the gauge of the two rails.