As can be readily seen, the vital point of the whole work, and the problem to solve, was food for men and horses. 1,700 bushels of oats every day and 15,000 pounds of provisions, Sundays and all, for an entire season, which at the beginning of the work had to come about 170 miles by rail, and then be taken from 50 to 150 miles by teams across a wilderness, is on the face of it considerable of an undertaking, to say nothing about hauling the pile-drivers, piles, and bridge-timber there.  To keep from delaying the track, sidings 1,500 feet long were graded, about 7 miles apart.  A side-track crew, together with an engine, four flats, and caboose, were always in readiness; and as soon as a siding was reached, in five hours the switches would be in, and the next 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