 To move all the stones , Byne and Steilberg had a road built to the Tagus , and a barge attached to a fixed cable was assigned to ferry stones across . An old World War I trench railway was brought in to transport stones from the monastery to the ferry ; its rails could be laid into any of the buildings . Men pushed the small rail cars along the narrow gauge tracks ; the stones were then lifted into the ferry by crane , and another crane lifted them out of the ferry into trucks . One of the biggest problems that Byne encountered was that Spain 's three excelsior factories could not make enough packing material to keep the crate @-@ packing crew supplied . At one point , realizing that the stones were likely to be used in California as external cladding for structural steel walls , Steilberg suggested the facing surface of each stone be sliced to a " veneer " of the thickness of 6 inches ( 150 mm ) for easier packing and shipping , but Hearst wanted to retain the authenticity of the full @-@ sized stones . Byne and Steilberg judged certain walls and utility buildings worthless and left them in Spain . Steilberg returned home at the end of March . 
