Page:A history of Chile.djvu/457

 CHILE OF TO-DAY 411 are three different gauges of the track, causing two transfers of passengers and freight en route.* This project of spanning the Andes with a railroad is one of the gigantic feats of modern engineering. The Uspallata Pass is, in round numbers, 1,300 feet high, and the road overcomes an elevation of nearly 10,000 feet in crossing it. On the Chilean side the grade is exceedingly steep, and to ascend it the Abt system of cogged locomotive wheels and racks, bolted to the sleepers of the track, are used to overcome the gradients for a distance of ten or twelve miles. There are several immense bridges and four or five tunnels on the route, the longest tunnel being 5,540 yards in length. Other transandine lines have been projected. The Ferrocarril Interoceanico will run from Buenos Ayres to Talcahuano and will have a length of fourteen hundred and twelve kilometers, or about eight hundred and fifty miles. It will cross the Andes over the Antuco Pass at a height of nearly seven thousand feet above sea ■ level, and join the Chilean state lines at Yumbel. So far, work upon this line has just been begun on the Chilean side. Another route, called the Transandine Railway of the '^ox'Cs{Ferrocarril Transandino del Norte'), exists on paper and has had a concession granted it by the Chilean government for a line to run from Copiapo into Argentina; this important road may be built in time. All the roads are equipped with the best mod- ern rolling stock, of American manufacture. Thus in time we may expect that the vast regions traversed by these new and projected lines will be opened to agriculture and commerce, though years must first elapse, since every rail, tie, timber and brick must doza and Los Andes not completed, Financial difficulties may cause a delay in the work.
 * At the time of this writing there is a small_ gapin the mountains between Men-