t day it would be surfaced and all in
working order, when the operating department would fill it with track
material and supplies. From the head of the siding to the end of the track
the ground was in hands of track-laying engine, never going back of the
last siding for supplies or material, and my recollection is that there
were but six hours' delay to the track from lack of material the whole
season, at any rate up to some time in November. The track-laying crew was
equal to 4 miles per day, and in the month of August 92 miles of track
were laid. The ties were cut on the line of the road about 100 miles east
of Winnipeg, so the shortest distance any ties were hauled was 270 miles;
the actual daily burden of the single track from Winnipeg west was 24 cars
steel, 24 cars ties, aside from the transportation of grain and
provisions, bridge material, and lumber for station houses. The station
buildings were kept right up by the company itself, and a depot built with
rooms for the agent every 15 miles, or at every second siding. The
importance of keeping the buildings up with the track was impressed on the
mind of the superintendent of this branch, and, as a satire, he
telegraphed asking permission to haul his stuff ahead of the track by
teams, he being on the track-layers' heels with his stations and tanks the
whole season. The telegraph line was also built, and kept right up to the
end of the track, three or four miles being the furthest they were at any
time behind.

It might be supposed that work done so rapidly would not be well done, but
it is the best built prairie road I know of on this continent. It is built
almost entirely free from cuts, and the work is at least 20 per cent.
heavier than would ordinarily be made across the same country in the
States, on account of snow. 2,640 ties were laid to the mile, and the
track ballasting kept well up with the laying; so well, in fact, and so
well done, that as 100 mile sections were completed schedule trains were
put on 20 miles an hour, and the operating department had nothing to do
but make a time table; the road was _built_ by the construction department
before the operating department was asked to take it. The engineering was
organized in divisions of 30 miles each, and as each was finished the
parties moved ahead again to the front, the engineers usually finding men
sitting on their shovels waiting for the work to be laid out for them. It
was as much as the locating pa