road are of American manufacture. There are very few bridges and tunnels along the line. The maximum grade is three feet per hundred. The higher officials, conductors, and engineers are mostly Americans, while natives are employed as ticket-agents, baggage-masters, and brake-men.
The company owns a telegraph line.
The Mexican National Railway belongs, as above stated, to the narrow-gauge system. The locomotives and cars are made in the United States. The southern division has several tunnels and many bridges, some of which are of considerable dimensions, while the main line, north of Celaya, will traverse a flat table-land, without any heavy grades or bridges, except in the vicinity of Saltillo. The company has erected a bridge across the Rio Grande, which is described in Section IV. The heaviest grade amounts to three and four fifths feet per hundred, and is found near the summit of the Toluca division. A telegraph line has been built by the company, but the Government reserves the right to put up a wire for its own use on the poles.
Both of the American companies just mentioned have time-tables printed in English and Spanish, and their ticket-agents can generally speak both languages.
The Mexican Railway Company has imported most of its rolling-stock from England. The first-class carriages are built in the English style, with compartments, while the second and third class cars are on the American plan. The engineers are sent out from England and have charge of the train, whereas the conductors are merely ticket-collectors. French or German, besides Spanish, is spoken by the latter. There are many bridges and tunnels along the line, the former being made of iron resting on stone piers. The grades are very heavy between the stations of La Soledad and Esperanza, the maximum being four feet in a hundred. Owing to the great engineering difficulties, and to
