When thirty or forty sleepers have been deposited in this manner, a pair of steel rails are picked up by the booms from the trucks behind the track-layer, are swung through the air, and lowered. As they near the ground ready hands grasp the bar of steel, steady it in its descent, and guide it into its correct position. The gauge is brought into play dexterously, and before one can realize what has happened the men are spiking the pair of rails to the sleepers, have slipped the bolts into the fish-plates connecting the new rail with its fellow already in position, and the track-layer has moved slowly forward some 13 or 16 feet over a new unit of track, meanwhile disgorging further sleepers from the mouth of the trough.
The noise is deafening, owing to the clattering of the weighty baulks of timber racing over the noisy rollers in the conveyor, the rattle of metal, and the clang-clang of the hammers as the men with powerful strokes drive home the spikes fastening the rail to its wooden bed, and the hissing and screeching of steam. Amid the silence of the wilderness the din created by the track-layer at work is heard for some time before you can gain a glimpse of the machine train. The men speak but little, for the simple reason that they could scarcely make themselves heard if they attempted conversation. Each moves with wonderful precision, like a part of an intricate machine.
In this way the rail creeps forward relentlessly at a steady, monotonous pace. The lines of sleepers and rails on the track disappear with amazing rapidity, and the men engaged in the task of charging the conveyor-trough and swinging the rails forward, appear to be in a mad race with steam-driven machinery. The perspiration rolls off their faces in great beads, and they breathe heavily as they grasp and toss the weighty strips of timber about as if they were straws. There is no pause or diminution in their speed. If they ease up at all the fact becomes evident at the front in the course of a few seconds in a unanimous outcry from the gangs on the grade for more material, which spurs the lagging men on the trucks behind to greater effort. The only respite from the exhausting labor is when the trucks have been emptied of all rails or sleepers and the engine has to run back for a further supply, or when the hooter rings out the time for meals or the cessation of labor.