标题: Calif's High-Speed Rail and Chinese Labor-Built Rail [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 11-13-2012 16:56 标题: Calif's High-Speed Rail and Chinese Labor-Built Rail (1) Ralph Vartabedian, Bullet-train planners face huge engineering challenge. The 141-mile section from Bakersfield to LA will travel over two mountain ranges and more than half a dozen earthquake faults. Experts see it as the project of the century. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-bullet-mountains-20121113,0,4082877.story
Quote:
(a) "Civil War veteran William Hood arrived at the mosquito-infested swamps near Bakersfield in 1874 to build a rail line that would soar through the Tehachapi Mountains, linking the Bay Area and Southern California for the first time.
"Hood, Southern Pacific Railroad's chief assistant engineer, assembled 3,000 Chinese immigrants with picks, shovels and dynamite. They snaked the track up treacherous mountain ridges, twisted it back and forth around canyons and punched it through sheer rock in a series of 18 tunnels — climbing 4,025 vertical feet along the way.
(b) in building the bullet train rail: "Tunneling machines as long as a football field will have to be jockeyed into mountain canyons to do the heavy, back-breaking work once left to Chinese laborers.
(c) "Reaching the San Fernando Valley, it [high-speed rail] will pass through an industrial corridor before dipping underground near Glendale and running deep beneath the Los Angeles River. It will most likely pop up in Chinatown, where some of Hood's laborers settled.
Note:
(a) Tehachapi Mountains http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehachapi_Mountains
(The range extends for approximately 40 miles (64 km); separating the San Joaquin Valley to the northwest and the Mojave Desert to the southeast; section 4 History)
(b) San Gabriel Mountains http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gabriel_Mountains
(The mountain range lies between the Los Angeles Basin and the Mojave Desert)
(c) A map in this Wiki page will help you see Bakersfield and LA connection.
Central Valley (California)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_(California)
(d) Glendale, California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glendale,_California
(a city in LA County)
(e) Tehachapi Loop
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehachapi_Loop
(One of the greatest engineering feats of its day, the Loop was built by the Southern Pacific Railroad 1874-1876)
(2) Emma Louie, The Golden Spike: The Chinese Contribution. Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, Sept 5, 1976. http://www.scvhistory.com/scvhis ... entennial-louie.htm
("Charles Crocker [the future president of Southern Pacific Railroad], in charge of construction for the Central Pacific, found that the people of many lands who came to the West were generally looking for gold or land, not for back-breaking work. How would he made a roadbed across desert and mountain? He found his answer in the diligent Chinese, who would work until they dropped")
Note:
(a) For San Fernando tunnel, see Newhall Pass
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newhall_Pass
(Historically called Fremont Pass and San Fernando Pass, with Beale's Cut, it separates the Santa Susana Mountains from the San Gabriel Mountains; section 1 History, section 1.3 Newhall Pass)
(i) Santa Susana Mountains
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Susana_Mountains
(range runs east-west separating the San Fernando Valley and Simi Valley on its south, from Santa Clara River Valley to the north)
(ii) Santa Clara River (California)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_River_(California)
(b) For Sierra crossing, see Donner Pass
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donner_Pass
(section 1 Historical Importance: Donner Party)