However, no time was lost in placing the undertaking upon a firm footing. Within two months of the acquisition of the railways a large staff of men for both the administration and engineering sides of the enterprise were dispatched to South America, with Mr. F. W. Barrow as general manager and Mr. Norman B. Dickson, M.INST.C.E., as engineer-in-chief. The engineer was commanded to overhaul the whole network, to reconstruct it if necessary, so that the lines might be capable of meeting the exigencies of the traffic awaiting creation from the development of the country. At that time Rio de Janeiro was an insalubrious city--in fact, it was almost a graveyard for Englishmen. Mr. Dickson found this out in a very short space of time. The company lost three accountants and a number of British assistants under the malignant scourge that prevailed--yellow fever. Since those days Rio de Janeiro has made great strides and has undergone extensive improvement. The city has been rebuilt, and has been provided with a complete sanitation system, to bring it into line with the other great ports of the world. But in those days it was absolutely untenantable from the white man’s point of view, and the railway authorities were compelled to provide accommodation for their imported staff in a healthy spot outside the city, where the men underwent what might be described as a process of acclimatisation lasting over eighteen months. The first few years were strenuous to the engineer-in-chief. He was confronted with a formidable task on all sides. The line is of metre, or 39.3 inches, gauge throughout, and had been built in a somewhat flimsy and haphazard manner. The majority of the bridges and culverts had been erected of timber, the greater part of which either had reached, or were approaching closely, the span of life. These had to be replaced by permanent structures in masonry or steel. The track, too, had to be overhauled from end to end, reballasted, provided with new sleepers and rails, and at frequent points where it was in an exposed position, and liable to suffer from the peculiar visitations which wreak such widespread destruction in that country, had to be strengthened and protected by heavy retaining walls and revetments of masonry.