The Railroad Has Trouble

A year ago, after the big flood, the Ann Arbor railroad built a culvert over Allen's creek where it crosses the track just north of Liberty Street, that it was supposed would be adequate to carry off all the water that would come down the creek for years. This culvert was of concrete and is now almost like stone. Recent storms, however, have shown that the culvert was not large enough and the company decided to enlarge it before proceeding with the embankment necessary for separating the grade at that point. They are doing it this week, and have had all kinds of trouble tearing out the old culvert. At first it was attempted to tear the top off by hitching an engine, by chains, to it. After breaking the chain several times this was abandoned and men put to work chipping it out with hammer and chisel. They succeeded in breaking off about twenty feet when the engineer conceived the idea of raising the top off in sections with jack-screws and this succeeded.

The new culvert will be two feet greater in height than the old, built of concrete and will be a very substantial job.