Second Section in Course of Construction wom Our OWN Conneseonoen Yutaoho, Sha, July 10, The new provincial railway was opened to passenger traffic on July 1, the present time table providing for a daily train each way between taiyuan and Kiehsiu, the fare for the journey being $240. The only accommodation at present available consists of trucks, some of which are Provided with awnings and some not "not the most comfortable method of travel in the blazing heat of midsummer, especially as the journey of not much more than 100 miles 19. present scheduled to take 12% hours The trip. from. Taiyuan to Yusti, which on the main line takes about halt' an hour, takes this little train 2% hours.
This extreme slowness is due to the fact that the tracks have not yet been ballasted, nor have the embank ments and bridges yet been tested by summer floods. It is to be hoped there will soon be an improvement speed, though even now in a land where time is not of supreme value the motor buses are finding the railway 8 severe competitor, as the bus fares are nearly twice the railway fares.
Work continues on the southern section between Kiehsiu and Hung tung, where detachments of soldier are hard at work. In a number of [places where the road runs alongside the Fen River the railway embank ment either straddles the motor road or runs parallel with it, so that the diffguities experienced by through traffic can be better imagined than described. The soldier-coolies rest uring the hot hours of the day from 11 to 3 only allowed to go through during these hours. The workmen clear up the chris of the morning's work sufi ently to allow through traffic to pro: ced, though even then it requires (ood deal of Ingenuity to manocuved heavy bus of car up and down the sharp inclines where the embankment meets the road, and over the rough rock and loose dirt where work stil proceeding.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.