Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 | Page 3

them. The great lines of railway in Russia, either being
constructed or definitely planned, are from Warsaw to Cracow (about
170 miles); Warsaw to St Petersburg (680 miles); Moscow to St
Petersburg (400 miles); from a point on the Volga to another point on
the Don (105 miles); and from Kief to Odessa, in Southern Russia. The
great tie which will bind Russia to the rest of Europe, will be the

Warsaw and St Petersburg Railway--a vast work, which nothing but
imperial means will accomplish. Whether all these lines will be opened
by 1862, it is impossible to predict; Russia has to feel its way towards
civilisation. During the progress of the Moscow and St Petersburg
Railway, a curious enterprise was determined on. According to the New
York Tribune, Major Whistler, who had the charge of the construction
of the railway, proposed to the emperor that the rolling-stock should be
made in Russia, instead of imported, Messrs Harrison, Winans, and
Eastwick, engineers of the United States, accepted a contract to effect
this. They were to have the use of some machine-works at
Alexandroffsky; the labour of 500 serfs belonging to those works at
low wages; and the privilege of importing coal, iron, steel, and other
necessary articles, duty free. In this way a large supply of locomotives
and carriages was manufactured, to the satisfaction of the emperor, and
the profit of the contractors. The managers and foremen were all
English or American; but the workmen and labourers, from 2000 to
3000 in number, were nearly all serfs, who bought their time from their
masters for an agreed period, being induced by the wages offered for
their services: they were found to be excellent imitative workmen,
perfectly docile and obedient.
Our attention now turns south-westward: we cross Poland and
Germany, and come to the Alps. To traverse this mountain barrier will
be among the great works of the future, so far as the iron pathway is
concerned. In the early part of 1851, the Administration of Public
Works in Switzerland drew up a sketch of a complete system of
railways for that country. The system includes a line to connect Bâle
with the Rhenish railways; another to traverse the Valley of the Aar, so
as to connect Lakes Zurich, Constance, and Geneva; a junction of this
last-named line with Lucerne, in order to connect it with the Pass of St
Gothard; a line from Lake Constance to the Grisons; a branch
connecting Berne with the Aar-Valley line; and some small isolated
lines in the principal trading valleys. The whole net-work of these
railways is about 570 English miles; and the cost estimated at about
L.4,000,000 sterling. It scarcely needs remark, that in such a peculiar
country as Switzerland, many years must elapse before even an
approach to such a railway net-work can be made.

To drive a railway across the Alps themselves will probably be first
effected by the Austrians. The railway through the Austrian dominions
to the Adriatic at Trieste, although nearly complete, is cut in two by a
formidable elevation at the point where the line crosses the eastern spur
of the great Alpine system. At present, travellers have to post the
distance of seventy miles from Laybach to Trieste, until the engineers
have surmounted the barrier which lies in their way. The trial of
locomotives at Sömmering, noticed in the newspapers a few months
ago, related to the necessity of having powerful engines to carry the
trains up the inclines of this line. Further west, the Alpine projects are
hidden in the future. The Bavarian Railway, at present ending at
Munich, is intended to be carried southward, traversing the Tyrol,
through the Brenner Pass, to Innsprück and Bautzen, following the
ordinary route to Trieste, and finally uniting at Verona with the Italian
railways. This has not yet been commenced. Westward, again, there is
the Würtemberg Railway, which ends at Friedrichshafen on Lake
Constance. It is proposed to continue this line from the southern shore
of the lake, across the Alps by the Pass of the Splügen, and so join the
Italian railways at Como. This, too, is in nubibus; the German States
and Piedmont are favourable to it; but the engineering difficulties and
the expense will be enormous. Other Piedmontese projects have been
talked about, for crossing the Alps at different points, and some one
among them will probably be realised in the course of years.
Meanwhile, Piedmont has a heavy task on hand in constructing the
railway from Genoa to Turin, which is being superintended by Mr
Stephenson; the Apennines are being crossed by a succession of tunnels,
embankments, and viaducts, as stupendous as anything yet executed in
Europe.
In Central Italy, a railway convention has been signed, which, if carried
out, would be important for that country. It