Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad

“ When the fleets of the Great Lakes plow the Atlantic, and when Duluth and Chicago become seaports, the water transportation of the Middle West will have completed its evolution. The significance of the development of the railway systems is not inferior to that of the great water way. Chicago has become the greatest railroad center of the world, nor is there another area of like size which equals this in its railroad facilities ”

“ The original Rock Island Railroad, chartered in 1847,646 was completed between Chicago and Rock Island in 1854. Construction was continued from Rock Island to Council Bluffs across the state of Iowa, under the charter of the Mississippi & Missouri, until 1866, when this company was merged with the original Rock Island Railroad Company, and after 1866 under the Rock Island charter until the extension was completed in 1869. Unlike the Atchison, the Rock Island passed through a fairly well-settled territory, which was at the same time one of the most fertile in the United States. ”

“ About 90 per cent of all the passenger traffic over this line consists of people going from Chicago to St. Paul and points in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and the entire Northwest and Canada. Two trains are run each way daily between Chicago and Portland and Seattle. One train leaves Chicago in the morning, and from St. Paul runs over the Northern Pacific line to the Northwest. Another train leaves Chicago in the evening, and from St. Paul goes over the Great Northern line to the Northwest. There are two corresponding trains eastbound. ”

“ But with the decline of water transportation the city has not suffered, for it stands at one of the natural cross roads of trade and travel. Today it is the chief railroad centre not only in the U.S. but in the world. Not counting subsidiary divisions there are 27 railroads entering Chicago, which is the western terminus of the great New York Central System.
Chicago is thus the focus of the activities of half a continent. It is the financial centre of the west and the metropolis of the richest agricultural section in the country. ”

“ The large purchases of stock in other roads have assured it favorable connections in the Illinois Central and in the Baltimore & Ohio, and have modified the severity of competition with the Atchison.539 Including the Southern Pacific, its system reaches from Chicago to Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the Gulf, and has an influential voice in two of the principal roads connecting Chicago with the Atlantic seaboard. At the same time, the extensive investment of Union Pacific funds to secure gains unconnected with increase of traffic over its lines has provoked merited criticism. ”

“ For the Christmas festivities nowadays the long, luxurious trains which roll into Chicago from the East bring many guests who stay a day and dash on to another city in equally luxurious trains. They don’t realize it, but the city which they are visiting so casually is the railroad center of the United States. Mankind surges through its land gates as it surges through one of the great ports of the world. ”

“ Chicago is the most extensive grain and lumber market in the world; and Philadelphia and New York contain the largest and best furnished printing establishments now in existence. The submarine cable, running like a thread of light through the depths of the broad Atlantic from the United States to England, a conception of American genius, is the greatest achievement in the telegraphic line. The Pacific Railroad, that iron highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific, stands at the head of all monuments of engineering skill in modern times. ”

“ It has the finest climate of the continent; its winters are all sunshine and [Pg 17] exhilaration, with few cloudy or stormy days; its summers are those in which oppressive heat is hardly known, and the nights are invariably cool. It is a great railroad centre; it has infinite space in which to extend itself in any direction; it has unsurpassed beauty of location. No city west of Chicago concentrates so many desirable features, for all this wealth of resource and loveliness of scenic setting is the theatre of noble energy and high achievement. ”

“ His rich but sprawling railroad system ran fairly straight after it was well started for Chicago, and fairly straight from that way-point until it became drunken with the monotony of the western foot-hills, where it gangled and angled its way to the far south and around up the Pacific coast, arriving there dusty and rattling, after a thousand mile detour from its course—but that road had no direct entrance into New York city. ”

“ Since that time twelve new states further west have been peopled and admitted into the Union. There was no railroad west of Chicago; now the immense distance between the Mississippi and the Pacific ocean is spanned by four giant railroads, while more than a hundred trunk and branch lines intersect the country in all directions, and lakes and rivers are navigated by hundreds of steamers, which compete with the railroads in carrying the products of the West to the Atlantic, whence they are distributed over the whole civilized world. ”

“ As a center of railroad industry Chicago takes precedence over all cities of the world. Twenty-six of the principal trunk-line railroads of the United States run trains into Chicago terminals, and in addition to these there are numerous belt transfer, terminal and industrial lines which have either a part or all of their trackage in the city. Within the corporate limits of the city are eight hundred miles of main line railway and one thousand four hundred miles of auxiliary track. ”

“ The complaint points out the well-known fact that Chicago is the terminus of a large number of railroads engaged in interstate passenger traffic and that a great majority of the persons making interstate railroad trips which carry them through Chicago must disembark from a train at one railroad station, travel from that station to another some two blocks to two miles distant, and board another train at the latter station. ”

“ We drove first to the Bank and got some money, and then through the best parts of the town, along the Michigan Boulevards, through which we had glimpses of the Lake, but everything here is sacrificed to the almighty dollar, and the railway engines poke themselves in everywhere, down the best streets, and destroying the prettiest landscapes, and making unearthly noises close to your bedroom, or puffing their steam out under your nose as you walk.
Chicago looks a more bustling, and a newer and a more railroad- dominated place than Glasgow, but like it in smoke and business aspect. ”

“ Every railroad of prominence sought an outlet or a feeder at Chicago, and the title of a "trunk line" was adopted for a line of rails between Chicago and the seaboard. The surrounding prairie for miles is crossed in all directions by railways, and a large part of the city and suburbs is made up of huge stations, car-yards, elevators, storehouses and cattle-pens, almost overwhelming visitors with the prodigious scale of their elaborate perplexity. ”

“ And yet she is the greatest railroad center in the whole world. And let me tell you this,” he paused. “New York can never equal Chicago commercially! How can she? Look on the map and see for yourself! From New York to San Francisco, north to the lakes and south to Mexico—that’s where Chicago’s trade reaches! What is there left for New York after that? She can, of course, trade north to Boston and south to Washington, but she can’t go west, because Chicago reaches all the way to New York herself, and [54] there is nothing on the east except the Atlantic Ocean!” ”

“ There is no question but what the company is making a bold bid for an enormous traffic, and that failure will not be due to any narrowness of view.
About the time that it was struggling to reach the Gulf the Rock Island took hold of the Chicago & Alton in the north in order to have another and a more direct line between Kansas City and Chicago.331 A strong minority interest had previously been bought in the Alton by Mr. Harriman, and a board of directors had been elected. ”

“ The lake trade grew to enormous proportions, and the building of the railways, especially the New York Central Lines connecting Chicago with the East, as well as other lines connecting it with the Northwest, and the South, gave the city an extraordinary impetus. ”

“ The Lake Shore Route—selected by the Government to run the famous Fast Mail Trains—is the only double track line between Chicago, Cleveland, Buffalo, New York, and Boston.—During the existence of the White City, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Co. placed in service special trains for the purpose of facilitating railway transportation between the eastern cities and the "Queen of the West." ”

“ Recognizing the future of Cedar Rapids as a railroad, manufacturing and distributing center, the railroads have all been expending vast sums of money in [Pg 339] the past few years in the acquisition of property for terminal purposes. The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, the Illinois Central, and the Rock Island now control absolutely the entire section of the city lying between Fifth and Ninth avenues, the river and Third street, and it is only fair to presume that the four blocks between Third and Fourth streets and Fifth and Ninth avenues will also be devoted exclusively to railway purposes. ”

“ Grade crossings of the steam-railroads are obviated by numerous bridges, viaducts, and by track-elevation—the city containing more than twice as many miles of elevated tracks as are to be found in the combined mileage of all other cities in the United States. The street-railroad system, comprising cable, electric, and elevated roads, operates over 1000 miles of track. There are four elevated roads, having six terminal stations. There is a loop in the business centre, with stations two blocks apart, around which all trains must pass. ”

“ Keeping in view the important points of speed, safety and comfort, together with the attractiveness of the scenery en route, we find the claims of
THE MICHIGAN CENTRAL RAILROAD To be of a character to meet all the requirements of the most exacting traveler. It has long been known as the Niagara Falls Route, and its recent acquirement of the Canada Southern Railway, making now a continuous line from Chicago to the very verge of the famous cataract, more fully than ever entitles it to that appellation. ”

“ These trains carry through vestibuled Sleeping Cars between Chicago and New York, via New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, and between Chicago and Boston, via New York Central and Boston & Albany Railroads. The eastbound "Limited" also carries a through Sleeper, Chicago & Toronto (via Canadian Pacific) , where connection is made with Parlor Car for Montreal. Accommodations secured at the Michigan Central Ticket Offices, No. 67 Clark Street, corner Randolph, and Depot, foot of Lake Street, Chicago.
ASHLAND
M.LS. & W.RY.
ROUTE
The Milwaukee, Lake Shore and Western Railway. ”

“ The deep hollow roar of the locomotive, and the shrill scream from the steamboat, are heard here all day; a continuous stream of life ever bustles through the city, and, standing as it does on the very verge of western civilisation, Chicago is a vast emporium of the trade of the districts east and west of the Mississippi. ”

“ The railway was explorer, carrier, provider, thinker, heart, soul, and intellect for this population that in another generation was to be American. No wonder these folk stand and stare when the railway-train goes by. It has been Providence to them. It is a Providence that has given to Europe what America might have had.
To-day towns do not grow merely because of their location, and this factor of location will become less and less important as the years go by. St. Louis was a city of location; Chicago is a city of transportation. ”

“ The people of Chicago, however, were determined to tap every field of trade within reach. They struck off to California, Denver, Utah, Saint Louis, to the north-west, and down to New Orleans, so that to-day Chicago has a population of one and a half millions, and Saint Louis only 500,000. Bulawayo is more favourably situated for railway expansion than Salisbury, which is inclined too far to the north-east, whilst Bulawayo is almost as near to Beira as Salisbury is. ”

“ In the Chicago of tomorrow the railroads will not hold mile after mile of lake-edge for themselves, the elevated trains will cease to have a merry-go-round on the loop, the arid belt between downtown and uptown will have disappeared, great railroad terminal stations and public buildings built in architectural plan and relation to one another are to arise, her splendid park and boulevard system is to be vastly multiplied. ”

“ The first locomotive in the United States was imported from England and placed upon the rails in 1829, and in 1830 the first American locomotive was built. It was, however, very near the middle of the century before the system of railroads had been completed so as to materially improve the condition of agriculture; and although the fact may sound strange to some, the first railroad train ran into Chicago in 1852. During these years of depressed agriculture, however, the population of the country was rapidly increasing. ”

“ The railroad system of the Northwest has been developed in such a way that no one centre may be fairly regarded as the commercial capital of the region. Chicago, with its marvelous foresight, has thrown out lines of travel that draw to itself much of the traffic which would seem normally to belong to Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth on the north, or to St. Louis and Kansas City on the south. ”

“ Already, in certain parts of the country, the margin between adequate and inadequate transportation is too small. Only last winter, between the Missouri River and Chicago, and in the vicinity of Chicago, the railways could not furnish that prompt and regular service that is essential for a satisfactory movement of the commerce of the country. ”