Northern Pacific Railroad

“ The line of railroad in the possession of the receivers extended from Duluth, Minnesota, to Tacoma, Washington. The receivers had contracts with various carriers reaching points on their line, by which through bills of lading were issued from and to points not upon the line of the receivers' railroad, where the freight passed over some part of that line in transit. Among the carriers with whom the receivers had such arrangements was the Northern Pacific Steamship Company. This was an English company, operating a line of steamers between Tacoma and points in Japan and China, including Yokohama. ”

“ An iron railroad bridge, that of the great Northern Pacific, spans the stream near its mouth, over which roll trains of palace coaches at short intervals, while commercial freights en route from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or vice versa, pass over it almost every hour. From the mouth of the stream to the foot-hills of the mountain range, amid whose snow-capped peaks it rises, is now a well-beaten road over which supplies for the various ranches in the valley are carried, and over which the gallant knights of the plains—the cowboys—dash to and fro in the performance of their various duties. ”

“ Congress renounced all rate concessions in 1945.
Monument commerating the last spike on the joining of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads into the first transcontinental railway in this country.
Railroads Dominate U.S. Transportation
The northern States had such tremendous productive capacity that they were able to fight the Civil War and at the same time push a railroad across the western plains and mountains. This railroad, liberally aided by grants of public land and Government loans, was completed in 1869. ”

“ The Northern Pacific was served for years by the Boston Steamship Company, and the Great Northern Railroad built two of the largest cargo carriers in the world for an extension of service across the Pacific. Most of the ships in these extensions of railroads have been of American build.
In oversea traffic the through bills of lading and special terminal facilities gave the ships owned by railroads special advantages in the world's traffic. A great corporation is able to purchase supplies at the lowest prices. ”

“ Union Pacific, Northern Pacific and their short-line connections provide exclusive rail service between many points in the Pacific Northwest and Portland, Oregon. From Portland, the two competitive routes in question descend, at times parallel, at times intertwined, to Southern California. The route closest to the seacoast consists largely of Southern Pacific. To the east of this route lies the so-called Bieber route whose completion in 1931 was authorized by the Commission to provide competition with Southern Pacific. ”

“ With the completion of its through line, moreover, earnings increased so materially as to cover the interest on the new bonds; and though the road was never to enjoy a monopoly of transcontinental traffic, in February, 1883, it had concluded an agreement with the Union Pacific concerning through rates and a division of territory, and a period of prosperity was hoped for. Meanwhile the Oregon & Transcontinental Company had been hard hit by the decline in Northern Pacific stock, due to the publication of the construction deficit. ”

“ The purpose of the granting act and resolution was to bring about the construction and operation of a line of railroad extending from Lake Superior to Puget Sound and Portland through what then consisted of great stretches of homeless prairies, trackless forests and unexplored mountains, and thus to facilitate the development of that region, promote commerce, and establish a convenient highway for the transportation of mails, troops, munitions and public stores to and from the Pacific Coast, with all the resultant advantages to the government and the public. ”

“ A company controlling 7,300 miles of railroad and 3,500 miles of water lines, and operating between Portland, New Orleans, and New York, was unusually large even to men accustomed [349] to the great eastern corporations which operated in the nineties. The railroad mileage of the Southern Pacific in 1896 exceeded that of the Union Pacific by 2,600 miles, that of the Santa Fé by 940 miles, and that of the Northern Pacific by 2,800 miles. ”

“ The climate is remarkably healthy, and with the coming of railways will be greatly sought by invalids. The Southern Pacific Railroad crosses the southern section of the Territory from west to east, and the Atlantic and Pacific the northern portion from east to west, while a branch line of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe connects the southern portion with the Gulf of California at Guymas. ”

“ It was on the part of our government a sublime recognition of the power of steam, that, while it was struggling for existence, it gave its sanction to the Pacific Railroad enterprise. Curiously enough, it is through Kansas and Nebraska—the Epidaurus of our Peloponnesian war—that the two great rival Pacific Railroad routes are to run.
In the summer of 1861, the project of a trans-continental railway connecting our Pacific communities with the older population of the East first assumed a practical aspect. ”

“ Born during the thirties, the idea of a Pacific railway was of uncertain origin and parentage. Just so soon as there was a railroad anywhere, it was inevitable that some enterprising visionary should project one in imagination to the extremity of the continent. The railway speculation, with which the East was seething during the administrations of Andrew Jackson, was boiling over in the young West, so that the group of men advocating a railway to connect the oceans were but the product of their time. ”

“ The rail on the east was brought forward by the Union Pacific laborers—Europeans, that on the west by Chinese, both gangs having Americans as bosses. Consequently here were Europe, Asia, and America joining in the work, the Americans dominating.
(p. 098) Next morning the Union Pacific Railroad brought in from the East half a dozen passenger coaches for the Central Pacific Railroad, these being attached to the special train of Governor Stanford when he was returning to California, constituting the first through equipment. ”

“ Commencing with the session of 1835, when a memorial on the subject of railroad communication between Lake Michigan and the Pacific Coast, was presented by Hartwell Carver, up to the present, the Pacific Railways have been ever present in Congress. The Catalogue of Government Publications gives one hundred and eighty-five having the Union Pacific, or Pacific Railroads as their subject.
It is not necessary to recount the many schemes for the construction of these roads that were proposed to Congress. We have already outlined the principal ones previous to 1861. ”

“ There are no protracted and painful struggles to build a Pacific railroad for your next great step. The right of way is assured, the grading is done, the rails are laid. You have but to buy your rolling-stock at the Union Iron Works, draw up your time-table, and begin business. ”

“ The building of this railroad was a gigantic undertaking and its construction cost the Russian Government four hundred million dollars. With all our boasted American hustle it took twenty years to build the Canadian Pacific railway from coast to coast. The Trans-Siberian is more than [Pg 44] twice as long and was completed in half that length of time. Before the war there was hardly ever an accident on this railway. Every verst (about two-thirds of a mile) there is a little guardhouse and there was always a man or woman, generally a woman, standing with a flag as the train passed. ”

“ For the Pacific Railroad is not simply a gigantic public work, it is the world's great highway. The world has had several grand routes, along the line of which, for certain periods of time, the life-blood and intelligence of humanity have coursed. Such was the route which history discloses as the most ancient from India overland to the Mediterranean, whence it was continued by that old Phœnician Coast Navigation Company to the shores of Britain. ”

“ The North Pacific Railroad stretches across the great continent from Duluth at the head of Lake Superior, and from St. Paul, the 94capital of Minnesota, to Portland, on the Pacific, a distance of nearly 2,000 miles.
DINING CAR.
Of its commercial success or the value of its shares in the market I know nothing, but as a simple traveller over more than 1,200 miles I can speak well of it; its track is all steel rail, and its road-bed solid. All its passenger trains are equipped with the Westinghouse air-brake, Miller platforms, 95and patent steel-tired car-wheels. ”

“ Thirty millions of dollars have already been invested on the Pacific railroad, and if the time of completion is hastened one year by this tracklayer, as it will be if Central and Union Companies have money enough to grade each five miles a day, there will be a saving of three million dollars on interest alone on that one road. ”

“ Prior to 1878, bulky, low-grade articles moving between the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts usually went by sea. Rates were lower and saving in time not important. High-grade goods and freight requiring quick transportation went by rail. It was the idea of the railroad that if compelled to choose, Pacific Coast business men would prefer to import all their freight by rail rather than to bring it all in by water, and that this would substantially increase railroad revenues even though incidental concessions in rates had to be made. ”

“ In that event, steam vessels, running from Astoria to China and Japan and all the islands of the northern Pacific, would soon be seen on the Upper Pacific, conveying the productions of the whole world to a market. Such a rail-road might be made by the nation,61 from the land sales in the new regions to be settled by our people. What a sublime, moral, political and commercial prospect is held out to our enraptured eyes! ”

“ For the greater part of the distance it traversed country where the white man was not in occupation, and where several years were certain to pass before it yielded any economic value capable of producing traffic to the railway. The enterprise was jeopardised seriously by the financial panic in the United States, and the Northern Pacific railway crisis, which misfortunes did not augur well for the success of another trans-continental railway. ”