Ogdensburg Journal (Ogdensburg, NY), 23 Nov 1885

The St. Lawrence Marine Railway Company, which was organized here in the spring of 1884, and purchased the property known as the Ogdensburg Marine Railway, have just completed their contemplated improvements and are now in condition to do any business which may offer. The original marine railway was built in 1854, and at the time it was finished and ready for busi ness, was the best work of the kind on the whole chain of lakes and the river St. Lawrence.

From steady use for a long term of years without the needed repairs it was worn out. Since the incorporation of the St. Lawrence Marine Railway Company, the whole works have been re-built and renewed. The blacksmith shop and engine house, and the saw mill were all re-built last year. A new boiler house was built, a new boiler purchased, and the engine re-built.

Recently the company have taken out the railway and carriage and put in new ones, and the work is now completed. On Saturday we had the pleasure of seeing the first movement of the hew carriage. The railway is about 700 feet long, reaching from the engine house, about 325 feet from the water, to the outer end of the piers. It has four tracks made of solid oak timbers laid, one on top of another, to the thickness of 6 feet.

The earth was dug out, the tracks braced, framed and bolted in the strongest manner and then re-covered with earth. The carriage runs on these tracks on solid iron rollers, about 8 inches in diameter, four feet apart and numbering all told, 600 rollers. It is 300 feet long and 40 feet wide, and has 40 arms. Everything about it, foundation, railway, carriage, arms, &c.,are new.

The new railway is longer than the old one and from one end to the other is as straight as a gun barrel. To day everything required to carry on business, the blacksmith shop, saw mill, engine, boiler, and track and carriage are new, and the company is prepared to take out any vessel that floats between Duluth and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. They are ready to repair, rebuild, or build any kind of marine' craft required.

Last March, Arthur Wood, the older of the famous Wood Brothers, of this city, was appointed superintendent. He is a young man, but has won a grand reputation as a mechanic and a ship builder. The new railway has been put in under his personal supervision and direction, and is in all respects highly satisfactory to W. L. Proctor, president of the company, who is thorough in everything.

The new railway is one of the very best in the United States. It is intended to offer the best means to take out and repair vessels, to be found on the great river and lakes, and we have no doubt will so prove. Nothing, can be more substantial than-the new work put in.

After we had ample opportunity to look over the work, Superintendent Wood ordered the dogs to be lifted, when the engine in the engine-house began to reverse, the carriage, which is capable of taking out a 3,000 ton vessel, began to move majestically down towards the water. After passing down a sufficient distance to show its completeness, the engine started up again and the carriage moved forward to the original position. In both the downward and upward trip everything indicated a perfection which always delights the eye of the perfect mechanic. With the railway in its present condition, the Canadian Pacific iron steamers which passed up to Buffalo in sections last year, might have been put together here, and the Walter L. Frost would not have been obliged to take the risk of running to Detroit last spring, to be taken out for repairs. The re-building of-the railway in the substantial manner in which it has been done, means an increase of business and the revival of ship building here.