For the readers among us, there is a great book about the building of the Central Pacific. It's part biography, part history with a little legend thrown in. For example - where did the term "Hell on wheels" come from?
The book is "the Great American Railroad Wars" and the author is Dennis Drabell. It is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and is available in Nook format so I would assume it's also on Kindle.
I am amazed at what shenanigans went on with Stanford, Huntington and the other two California robber barons. If you think Uncle Sam is mis-spending tax money now, then read this book!
I read the Stephen Ambrose book "The Men Who Built the TC RR" http://books.google.com/books?id=TZp_GT7PscIC&printsec=frontcover&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false (http://books.google.com/books?id=TZp_GT7PscIC&printsec=frontcover&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false) and enjoyed it thoroughly.
From what some others have said, there were some historical discrepancies in his book, but the lives and dirty deals were clearly laid out and the book is an easy read.
In upstate New York (specifically Dutchess County) during the late 19th century, two railroads ran very close to each other near the town of Pine Plains. This was the Poughkeepsie & Eastern and the Newburgh, Dutchess & Connecticut. It was not unusual for train crews to throw rocks at the rival's trains as they ran alongside. A mention of this practice is in Bernard Rudberg's book Twenty Five Years on the N.D.& C.
Ray
the shenanigans at the central pacific were small potatoes compared to what the union pacific was doing.
google: credit mobilier
You read about all this stuff that went on, and it's no wonder that the railroads were one of the earliest major industries to be regulated by the Feds.
Good point.
The public was more dependent on the railroads back then than they are now. Shenanigans involving railroads had an immediate effect on the public, dependent on railroads for personal transportation as well as movement of goods.
In the Midwest and West, towns lived or died depending on if they were on a railroad route. People that were boosters promoting railroads to come to their towns turned against the railroads when the railroads imposed predatory rates.
It didn't help that this was in the "Robber Baron" era, when corporate policy essentially had no limits. I think the railroads brought this regulation on themselves.
Les
One only has to read Frank Norris' 1901 book The Octopus: A Story of California to see all the nefarious ways railroads operated pre federal regulation. Actually the rise of the Grange [the Patrons of Husbandry] movement owes its existence to the predatory railroad actions of the 19th century.
Ray
The problem was especially bad in the Midwest, where railroads were the only practical way of getting farm products to big-city markets and mills.
Places like Iowa and Minnesota were settled before the coming of the railroads, and towns that were by-passed died.
States west of there were mostly unsettled until the Pacific Railway Act of 1862. The Land Grant system gave empty land to the railroads as incentive to build. States like Nebraska, South Dakota, and Kansas were unsettled before then. In those states, the railroad preceded the towns. The railroads then had to establish towns to provide a traffic base for themselves. The lucky towns had more than one railroad serving them, providing some protection from unfair rates.
In Nebraska, both the UP and the CB&Q were allowed to appoint their own State Senators! This was especially important here, where we have no State Representatives, only a State Senate.
In South Dakota, there was a competition between towns (and railroads) to be the State Capital. The competition came down to two towns on the Missouri River, Pierre and Mitchell. Each was sponsored by a competing railroad, C&NW and MILW, respectively. Each town was effectively "owned" by its railroad: the railroad (developing its land grant) owned the town site, and was the real estate agent for the land. Moreover, the railroad agent was also the mayor.
Pierre was chosen as capital ostensibly because of a second railroad, the NP, was supposedly building into town. A few miles of roadbed were graded leading northeast from town, just enough to look convincing (you can still see it). This was enough to clinch the title for Pierre. I don't know who paid for the grading, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the NP.
Shippers in towns with one railroad soon found they were being charged higher rates than shippers with more than one railroad. This, along with questionable safety rules and unfair labor practices brought on the regulation.
A hundred years later, a relaxation of rate controls brought about a resurgence of small railroads created from spin-offs from the big ones. Unfortunately by then the damage had been done. I've approached many firms that once shipped by rail (usually several changes of ownership before) that were stunned by the fact that a railroad would actually solicit their business. I have also been approached by a businessman who wanted to initiate rail service, only to have the project blocked by the very railroad I was working for (although it was blamed on a Class One connection, a situation I later found to be untrue).
Les
Quote from: Desertdweller on September 16, 2012, 03:41:55 PM
Shippers in towns with one railroad soon found they were being charged higher rates than shippers with more than one railroad. This, along with questionable safety rules and unfair labor practices brought on the regulation.
Les-
Think "airline deregulation" and you'll find exactly the same thing. I live in the Twin Cities, a virtual monopoly for Northwest and now Delta, and we have the highest fares for a major city in North America. The people who preach government deregulation have only to look at the railroads and airlines (not to mention banks and investment corporations) to see how people are exploited when there are no rules to limit corporate or at least monopolistic power.
-- D
I read once that there were small Iowa cities that has as many as six railroad lines running through town.
The book I recommended "Railroad Wars" gets into how much the railroads were paid by the mile. They were paid the least on flat land and the most through mountains so the engineers were told in no uncertain terms to make routes through hilly or mountainous areas where possible.
Yes, Iowa was extremely overbuilt with railroads. Even small towns were often served by two or more railroads.
I think a lot of that was spurred by the Pacific Railroad Act. Chicago was already a major rail hub by then, and a lot of those railroads were eager to get to the "jumping off point" of Council Bluffs, Iowa. This resulted in much more east-west trackage than north-south trackage.
I grew up hearing that it was impossible to travel more than seven miles in Iowa in any direction without crossing a railroad. While I think that is a bit of an exaggeration, it wasn't far from the truth.
Ultimately, of course, that much trackage could not be sustained by the traffic base. It was more cost-effective for the railroads to serve large elevators than the many small-town elevators. The big shippers were favored by the railroads.
A good road system in Iowa allowed farmers to take their crops to the larger facilities. This situation continues today. Until the megamergers of the 1980's, many of these large facilities were served by more than one railroad. This was a result of the overbuilding of the 19th Century.
Les
The best book on the subject of the transcontinental railroad is "The Empire Express" by David Haward Bain. He really delves into the period and provides a lot of background, putting everything into the context of the times. It's also more balanced than a lot of things I've seen on the topic.
Quote from: Ray Dunakin on September 18, 2012, 01:36:41 PM
The best book on the subject of the transcontinental railroad is "The Empire Express" by David Haward Bain. He really delves into the period and provides a lot of background, putting everything into the context of the times. It's also more balanced than a lot of things I've seen on the topic.
I agree. Best book I've ever read on the subject. It covers everything from the logistics of surveying the lines on the ground to the financial and other shenanigans in New York and Washington.
Steven E. Ambrose' Nothing Like It in the World is an excellent historical novel about the trans-con.
You may know him as a military writer, including Band of Brothers.
-- D
I was raised in Iowa, so the plethora of railroads did not seem unusual to me at the time. My own small city was served by three railroads. Two others scored near-misses a few miles away.
Even the big Class Ones that served Iowa were Graingers. These railroads' traffic base was primarily agricultural products. Like the farmers themselves, their income was seasonal. A bad harvest could break them as well as their customers.
The stronger railroads were those with the most diverse traffic base, able to weather the ups and downs of harvests better than their weaker competitors. There was even an interurban electric network in Iowa at one time.
Les
Wars over right of way, existed on John Allen's Gorre and Daphetid, with the G&D fighting the Devil's Gulch and Helengon narrow gauge over trackage rights haha
And Whit Tower's Alturas and Lone Pine also had trackage rights on the G&D.
Allen and Towers made model railroading a fun, interesting hobby. They weren't concerned that a box car may have extra roof ribs or their steamers didn't follow a prototype. They ran trains.
As for pawning HO equipment, I don't think a pawn shop would pay very much for used HO equipment or even be interested.
A correction to one of my previous posts: Mitchell SD, the Milwaukee Road's hope to be capital of SD, is not on the Missouri River. It is on the James River, south of Huron.
Huron had its own hopes to be capital, and went so far as to build their own capitol building ("If you build it, they will come",) but it didn't succeed.
The Milwaukee's jumping-off place was Chamberlain, on the Missouri River South of Pierre. Railroads were forbidden to build across the Great Sioux Reservation until 1905 when the reservation was split up. Then a railroad race to Rapid City was staged.
The C&NW won the race by three weeks.
Both the C&NW and the CB&Q had reached the Black Hills earlier, but by routes avoiding the reservation by approaching through Nebraska.
Les
railroadrivalries go back almost to the beginning. b&o built their line to wheeling,wva from baltimore because they were blocked from building directly to pittsburgh by the state of pennsylvania, who were backing the pennsylvania railroad instead. keeping the b&o from building into pennsylvania forced them through much more rugged and expensive to build and operate territory. the b&o was only permitted to build into pittsburgh from wheeling, an uncompetitive, roundabout route.
later, b&o was able to back, and later take over, a more direct line from cumberland, md to pittsburgh.
b&o was also forced, by the c&o canal, to build on the south bank of the potomac river east of cumberland. this put them in the awkward position of straddling north and south during the civil war.
at the turn ot the century, george gould tattempted to build a true transcontinental railroad. he built a super railroad into pittsburgh, using tunnels and bridges to eliminate most of the grades. but the pennsy blocked him from building east of pittsburgh, leaving him with an expensive line with little traffic. the costs of building to pittsburgh brought about his downfall. eventually, pittsburgh & west virginia, and weswtern maryland completed the route, which ran until the mid 1970s and was known as the alphabet route.
The Santa Fe and D&RGW nearly came to bullits and blood over the right-of-way between La Junta and Denver.
-- D
I think that was Jay Gould. He did better west of the Mississippi, owning the Missouri Pacific; Denver and Rio Grande; and Western Pacific. Three railroads giving an end-to-end route from St. Louis to San Francisco.
Les
in the east, he also controlled the wabash, wheeling & lake erie, and the western maryland. his problem was there was a gap between the western maryland at cumberland, md and the wheeling & lake erie at wheeling, wva. thus, he was witin 200 miles of a true coast to coast route from baltimore to san francisco.
My recollection is that Gould lost control of his transcontintal dream as a result of the Panic of 1907. Think of the 2008 crash on steriods. The Connellsville extension was begun in 1910. The association of rail lines from Gould' scheme were the genesis of the Alpabet Route from Chicago to Baltimore.
Jeff-
We may yet see a true coast-to-coast railroad. It's only a matter of time before
the Santa Fe and Norfolk Southern merge or the Union Pacific and CSX join up.
-- D
technically. we already have one that reaches 3 coasts, since cn bought illinois central. most of it is in canada, though.
Quote from: ebtnut on September 24, 2012, 01:21:18 PM
My recollection is that Gould lost control of his transcontintal dream as a result of the Panic of 1907. Think of the 2008 crash on steriods. The Connellsville extension was begun in 1910. The association of rail lines from Gould' scheme were the genesis of the Alpabet Route from Chicago to Baltimore.
undoubtedly, the panic had something to do with it, bht gould incurred so much debt building what became the p&wv that it wouldn't have taken much to put him under.
ironically, the last link, the p&wv from pittsburgh to connellsville, was completed during another time of economic uncertainty, in 1932.
Gould hindered Moffat's progress of the denver and salt lake railways line through rollins pass
Moffat died spending all he had trying to finish the route
Doneldon, what war between D&RG & Santa Fe are you talking about? The only one I'm aware of was the Royal Gorge War.
Mystified.
Paul G
Paul-
That's the one. The two railroads had hired guns and were ready for a shooting war.
-- D
Hi Doneldon,
La Junta is about 100 plus miles E of the Royal Gorge. No action occured around La Junta that I'm aware of. If I remember correctly, the main confrontation between Bat Masterson & co. and the D&RG occured at the Pueblo roundhouse.
Paul G
Another good read if you can find it is The Scarlet Woman Of Wall Street. Written by John Steele Gordon. About the Erie R.R..
Quote from: beampaul7 on September 28, 2012, 11:42:25 PM
La Junta is about 100 plus miles E of the Royal Gorge. No action occured around La Junta that I'm aware of. If I remember correctly, the main confrontation between Bat Masterson & co. and the D&RG occured at the Pueblo roundhouse.
Paul-
You're correct, but the Santa Fe sent their people from La Junta and built some of the right-of-way from La Junta.
-- D
The "war" between the Santa Fe and the Rio Grande involved not only the Royal Gorge but also the Raton Pass (between Trinidad Co and Raton NM).
The Santa Fe was trying to build south through Raton Pass while the Rio Grande wanted to also. This was part of the overall plan to connect Denver with Mexico concocted by the Rio Grande.
The Santa Fe wanted to build west through the Royal Gorge to reach the rich mining area of Leadville, CO.
The problem was, each disputed pass only held enough room for one railroad.
The Santa Fe held the upper hand at Raton Pass. The land in the pass was owned by Dick Wooten, who was a Santa Fe sympathizer who operated a toll road there.
Santa Fe had also beaten the Rio Grande to the Royal Gorge and had constructed track through it, including the famous Hanging Bridge.
Santa Fe's main line passed through Dodge City Kansas and La Junta, Colorado. It then continued southwest to Trinidad CO, the north end of the pass. A Santa Fe branch built northwest from La Junta to Pueblo, and on north to Denver. Another Santa Fe branch ran west from Pueblo to Canon City and the Royal Gorge.
The main thrust of the Santa Fe was to follow the Santa Fe trail from Kansas City to Los Angeles. Santa Fe wanted to go through the Royal Gorge to compete with the Rio Grande in the mineral traffic of central Colorado.
Rio Grande really wanted to be a north-south railroad. But it could not afford to pass up traffic in Central Colorado. So, in addition to its main line to Trinidad, it also built west from Pueblo to Canon City.
Both railroads wanted to build up the easy grade of the Arkansas River Canyon to Salida. The only real physical obstacle was the Gorge itself.
I don't know how far the Santa Fe got, but they did make it west of the Royal Gorge.
At Parkdale, just west of the Gorge, they constructed a little stone fort to defend it from the Rio Grande. I was there last summer, and saw what I believe are the remains of the fortification.
Both railroads maintained roundhouses at Pueblo, which also were impromptu forts.
And both railroads built stations in Canon City.
Federal Courts finally settled this turf war. The Santa Fe was awarded sole rights to Raton Pass. Rio Grande was awarded sole rights to the Royal Gorge, and had to pay Santa Fe $5million for the track they had constructed through the Gorge.
Rio Grande's dream of a great north-south railroad was squashed. Rio Grande eventually did reach into New Mexico, by narrow gauge branches out of Durango and Chama, reaching Farmington and Santa Fe. But the terrain was too rugged for standard gauge trains, and these lines eventually were abandoned.
Santa Fe eventually reached Santa Fe, but the New Mexico capital was never on the main line. It was served by a branch out of Lamy.
Santa Fe also built a more southerly main line via Oklahoma and Amarillo TX that connected with the Raton line.
Rio Grande became an east-west railroad reaching Leadville and crossing Tennesse Pass to reach Salt Lake City. It also established a narrow gauge rail network by running west of Salida into the southwest part of the state. While Santa Fe became a major trunk line railroad, Rio Grande became more of a regional railroad by today's standards. It lived on bridge traffic between Denver and Salt Lake City.
Les
Quote from: Desertdweller on September 30, 2012, 01:12:32 AM
The main thrust of the Santa Fe was to follow the Santa Fe trail from Kansas City to Los Angeles. Santa Fe wanted to go through the Royal Gorge to compete with the Rio Grande in the mineral traffic of central Colorado.
Les-
Not really true. The Santa Fe Trail ran from west Central Missouri to the city of Santa Fe. The lines from Chicago
into KC and west from Northeast New Mexico to Los Angeles had nothing to do with the Santa Fe Trail.
-- D
The Santa Fe trail had two routes into New Mexico: the northern route via Raton Pass, and a southerly route that ran from Kansas City through Oklahoma and Amarillo Texas that roughly paralleled old Route 66.
I think Belen NM is the meeting point of these two routes. The Los Angeles main continues west (again the route of Highway 66) through Gallup and northern Arizona.
A secondary main splits off at Belen to serve Las Cruces NM and El Paso TX.
The original Santa Fe trail was a military road connecting Central Missouri with Santa Fe, as you state. The line from Belen to El Paso had also been a military road.
Some of these routes were Spanish Colonial Roads. A Spanish Colonial Road connected El Paso with Las Cruces and Santa Fe. Another ran from Santa Fe via Raton Pass up the Front Range of the Rockies to the Denver area.
This route was followed by Interstate 25 from Las Cruces to Denver. North of Raton Pass, it was the route used by the Rio Grande and the Colorado Southern.
I don't know if the route between Belen and Southern California was a road before the Santa Fe built it. The route between El Paso and Los Angeles used by the Southern Pacific had been another Spanish Royal Road.
The Spanish Royal Roads were built to connect missions, and to connect the main Colonial Capital of Mexico City with the Provencial Capital of Santa Fe.
Les
Dd-
The route through Amarillo was not part of the Santa Fe Trail, only the the path from central Missouri which split into two
routes from western Kansas to Santa Fe. The Santa Fe Railway built the Oklahoma/Amarillo line explicitly to avoid the steep
grades on the split section of the Santa Fe Trail west of Kansas, particularly Raton Pass. Even passenger trains with light
tonnage (compared to freights) and powerful modern diesels crawl up Raton.
I know this because I jumped off of the Cap up there one day, picked a bunch of brown-eyed Susans (my fiance's favorite
flower) and was able to run and jump back on the train with them. She was getting on the train in Chillicothe IL and I wanted
to surprise her. I stored them in a food locker until we got to Illinois. It turned out to be quite exciting for the people in the
diner because no one thought I'd be able to reboard. I was a little worried about that myself as it turned out. It seems the
flowers were a lot farther from the train than they looked to be.
-- D
That reminds me of "The Silver Streak" where that guy keeps getting tossed off the train!
Did you have trouble getting back on?
At least you would have been stranded in pretty country.
Les
LES & DON
You guys are both right and..........................not so right. First off the Santa FE trail was not established by the military, but by a man named William Becknell in 1821 using pack mules and was so succesfull that he returned with wagons for a second trip more succesfull than the first. The trail was then a trade route tho the military certainly used it in the years to come. The mountain branch indeed used Raton Pass. The Cimmaron Cutoff which was used in wet years as there was little water on the cuttoff split off from the main route west of what is now Dodge City, ks. The Santa Fe trail was never used by the ATSF tho the RR paraleled the trail across ks.
Les, the route I think you're trying to include as part of the sf trl as Rt-66 and I-40 was actually the National Trail or hwy that was extended from Ft Smith, AR to the West Coast & was never a part of the SFT. That story is very interesting as well and involves a man named Edward Fitzgerald Beale, Jefferson Davis, a flagstaff at what became Flagstaff, AZ, the camel corp and a man called Hi Jolly.
History Is Fun.
later,
Paul G
t
What books or sources are you drawing off this info from this would be great projects for the kids at school to help them learn some geography!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!
m1fredq,
I refreshed my memory with wickipedia before I posted, but was verifying info I had in my head, but the thing that sent my warning bells clattering was when someone said that the sft was built as a military road which I knew was false. Over the years I have read many books and articles about the trail and the western U.S. so while I may be a little fuzzy about the details (hence the verifying on wiki, I have a pretty solid, tho not infalible, memory of history in the west. don't know if this is all that helpfull, but my only advise is to read, read some more, and read read read.
Paul G
Quote from: beampaul7 on October 09, 2012, 12:30:45 AM
someone said that the sft was built as a military road which I knew was false.
Paul-
The military did use the Santa Fe Trail but it was built as a commercial endeavor.
-- D
History is fun, and railroad history (the financial shenanigans part) is especially fascinating. One word of warning about doing reading - don't rely on Wikipedia (or any encyclopedia for that matter) as anyone can join and edit things. Also, Wiki articles often have no references. If you are really interested in a Wiki article - check out the reference. Wiki articles can be wrong or edited with a certain bias.
Another interesting topic - although very dry - is the background to the creation of Penn Central.
To Donaldon & Woody
Hi guys.
Doneldon, My original post to you and Les was done on a time deadline and I'm afraid that spelling, contect, and punctuation left a lot to be desired. If you will reread that post carefully you will find that I did mention that the military used the trail but it was developed, as you mentioned, as a trade route.
Woody, thanks for the heads up about Wiki. As I said, I use Wiki merely to help confirm info I'm pretty familiar with already. I'm well aware about their biases and get some pretty good laughs when they get political. I't has reached the point where one must skeptically filter everything one reads, especialy from the media. Thanks for your're concern.
Now back to railroading. :o ;D 8)
Later, Paul G
Quote from: beampaul7 on October 10, 2012, 11:12:17 AM
thanks for the heads up about Wiki. As I said, I use Wiki merely to help confirm info I'm pretty familiar with already. I'm well aware about their biases and get some pretty good laughs when they get political. I't has reached the point where one must skeptically filter everything one reads, especialy from the media.
Paul-
The validity and accuracy of Inet material worries me a good deal. There is wonderful information but a lot of outright rubish, too. I fear
that many people aren't able to tell the difference which means that the web ends up making a larger gap between people's knowledge
than reducing it. I had hoped the web would make us all a little more equal but I think it may be doing just the opposite. Actually, I'm
afraid that might be true for our communication, too. Instead of enhancing communication and bringing us closer together, the Inet
enables us to have virtual communication without the real contact or relationship which is part of personal contact.
-- D
Fully agree, Doneldon, we are losing the form and texture of our language also. Texting is making things even worse. What disturbs me even more, however, is watching the people around me, constantly tuning out with electronics of every kind, never alone with their own minds and selves. What's wrong with a little self annalyis once in a while?
My wife and I are watching a video about the decade of the "50's" and they show TV commercials of the day. We were amazed that the ads seemed to be a full minute and people spoke much slower. You can actually understand what they are saying. People today speak so fast that with my artificially enhanced hearing I'm just not able to process quickly enough in many cases to carry on a conversation. End of rant!
History is still lots of fun tho.....
Paul G
Paul-
They speak so fast on commercials so they can stuff more into the ad. Have you noticed that Tony the Tiger is back selling corn flakes but
now he doesn't say, They're Grrrrrrrrreat!" he says, "They're Great!" That's so there is an extra second or two for the ad.
-- D
I believe Tony the Tiger did the Frosty flakes not corn flakes. Kids have to have that extra sugar.