THE RAILWAY CONQUEST OF THE WORLD [Illustration: [_Frontispiece_ WHERE THE UNION PACIFIC RAILWAY STRIKES ACROSS SALT LAKE The “cut off” across the water is 27 miles in length, of which 15 miles are represented by solid earth embankment.] _CONQUESTS OF SCIENCE_ THE RAILWAY CONQUEST OF THE WORLD BY FREDERICK A. TALBOT AUTHOR OF “THE NEW GARDEN OF CANADA,” “THE MAKING OF A GREAT CANADIAN RAILWAY,” &C. _ILLUSTRATED_ PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN _Copyright London 1911 by William Heinemann_ PREFACE 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; of the heavy tax which their construction imposed upon the ingenuity, skill and resource of their builders. Speeding along swiftly in a luxurious Pullman car over a road-bed as smooth as an asphalt pavement conveys no impression of the perils and dangers faced or of the infinite labour expended in the making of that steel highway. To-day the earth is girdled with some 700,000 miles of railways, and there are few countries in which the locomotive has not made its appearance. This volume has been written with the express purpose of telling in a popular manner this story of romance. It is obviously impossible to deal with every great railway undertaking in the compass of a single volume; but those described may safely be considered representative, and they are the largest and most interesting enterprises between the two poles.