War program: Tramway built to evacuate wounded on Italian front

Using for the first time in combat a trick they practiced diligently in the Rocky Mountains, engineers of the tenth “Mountaineer” division recently built a 1,500-foot cable tramway for evacuation of the wounded from the Fifth Army front in Italy. The tram, which carries supplies on the up trip, reduced the average time it takes to evacuate a casualty, from between 3 and 5/2 hours, to five minutes. The tramway is 450 feet higher on the ridge than it is at its base. Construction of the tram required only nine hours. Suspended from half-inch wire cable supported by two A frames built to sustain tenton stress and powered by a gasoline engine, the lift will bear 350 pounds. It is pulled by quarter-inch wire cable. Italian soldiers pioneered in cable tramways during the World War in fighting in the Alps Mountains, where they assembled 1,200 miles of them. Engineers of the Tenth Division studied their methods while in training and built several tramways near Camp Hale, Colo.