Northern Pacific Railway

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ The Canadian Pacific Railway is now fed by branches many hundreds of miles in length in all parts of Canada. In the North-West a new competitor has arisen in the shape of the Canadian Northern Railway, a line begun only ten years ago, which runs westerly from the head of Lake Superior, and already has about 1,400 miles of railway in operation. ”

“ In the meanwhile the Northern Pacific has forged ahead in its earnings and profits, and the stock of the road has come to be known as one of the highest class of investment issues. Although new competition appeared, in both the local and the through business of the company—notably by the extension of the St. Paul system largely through Northern Pacific territory to the Puget Sound region—the superior modern business management of James J. Hill, backed by the strong resources of the Morgan banking interests, made the Northern Pacific one of the standard railroad systems of America. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The railway came in the face of opposition and predictions of disaster. The builders were men to whom difficulty merely meant more effort, men who were not to be denied. The Pacific Railroads, as they were styled, were two; the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific. Starting, one from the center, the other from the extreme westward verge of the United States, they rapidly moved towards a junction; the Union Pacific being built westward 8 from Council Bluffs; the Southern Pacific eastward from Sacramento. ”

“ By the first section of that act the Northern Pacific Railroad Company was incorporated, and authorized to lay out, construct, and maintain a continuous railroad and telegraph line, with the appurtenances, from a point on Lake Superior, in the state of Minnesota or Wisconsin, and thence westerly by the most eligible route, as should be determined by the company, within the territory of the United States, on a line north of the forty-fifth degree of latitude, to some point on Puget Sound, with a branch by the valley of the Columbia river, to a point at or near Portland, in the state of Oregon. ”

“ One of them permitting the Kansas Pacific Railway to connect with the Union Pacific Railroad at any point its projectors saw fit at or east of a point fifty miles west of Denver, Colo., instead of at the hundredth Meridian. This created a competitor instead of a feeder. The second was allowing the Central Pacific Railroad Company to build on east one hundred and fifty miles to meet the road from the East instead of stopping at the California State line. ”

“ Little did these adventurous pathfinders who discovered mountain passes and ocean lanes think that, before a century had passed, a group of men with vision and courage would follow the inspiring example of the explorers by land and sea, and achieve not only the crossing of a continent, but the girdling of the earth in a magnificent transportation system. Yet despite the gloomy prophecies of failure uttered by sceptics who declared that the thing could not be done, the Canadian Pacific Railway has driven its iron horses through the mountains to stand by the Western Sea. ”

“ Sir Thomas Shaughnessy maintained the progressive policy and the honourable record of straightforward management which has distinguished the Canadian Pacific—a railway singularly free from the questionable manipulations which have brought so many great American systems to bankruptcy. Other men left their impress on the road: men like Sir William Whyte, for over twenty years in charge of the western lines, David M'Nicoll, and George M. Bosworth and many others, gave most effective service. ”

“ The first locomotive required for constructional purposes upon the Central Pacific, and which weighed some 60 tons, had to be hauled across country on the deck of a trolley by teams of horses. When the trans-continental railway was taken in hand, however, the eastern railways were pushed forward with great speed to reach Council Bluffs, in order to carry the thousands of tons of supplies of every description requisite for building purposes.
The scarcity of one commodity was felt severely. In this country one may travel for miles and not see a single tree. ”

“ I have known the West all my life, but I do not recall any period more generally discouraging than that after-the-boom period in the 80’s, during which the Canadian Pacific Railway was begun and carried to an amazingly successful completion. The sudden drop in everything, as well as the rumblings and then the outbreak of the Riel Rebellion on the plains, put, in large measure, a damper on immigration; and railway building through an uninhabited land is not exhilarating work. ”

“ Canadian railroads compete with those of the United States for our traffic, and without the restraints of our interstate-commerce act. Their cars pass almost without detention into and out of our territory.
The Canadian Pacific Railway brought into the United States from China and Japan via British Columbia during the year ended June 30, 1892, 23,239,689 pounds of freight, and it carried from the United States, to be shipped to China and Japan via British Columbia, 24,068,346 pounds of freight. ”

“ Probably never in the history of railway building, not even in the case of the 'Big Four' who built the Central Pacific—Huntingdon, Stanford, Crocker, and Hopkins—had the call of the railway brought together in a single enterprise men of such outstanding individuality, of such ability and persistence, and destined for success so notable. ”

“ A shipdock twelve hundred feet long will be constructed, with over five thousand feet of side-tracks and other facilities for receiving and discharging grain, the whole to cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
A belt-line railroad around Lake Washington is reported projected, to be built by the Lake Shore and Eastern and Northern Pacific. The Northern Pacific, it will be observed, is at the bottom of most of the greatest enterprises in the Evergreen State. ”

“ Castell Hopkins, of Toronto, as they met on a Canadian Pacific Railway train in the Rockies, “These vast ranges exceed in grandeur the Himalayas, the Alps and the Andes, all of which I have seen.” The matchlessly inspiring scenery of this route will always remain to make it an irresistible magnet to tourists and travellers generally. For the rest of it, any problem in gradients will vanish at any time desired, by the lowering of grades and electrification, if ever the situation demands such action. ”

“ It was about this time that the prospect of a railway from Toronto to the Georgian Bay was first mooted, the mouth of the Nottawasaga River being the expected terminus. A talented Toronto engineer whose name I think was Lynn, published a pamphlet containing an outline route for the railroad, which was extended through to the North-West. To him, doubtless, is due the first practical suggestion of a Canadian Pacific Railway. We, in Sunnidale, were confidently assured that the line would pass directly through our own land, and many a weary sigh at hope deferred did the delusion cost us. ”

“ Eventually, most railways will have to yield the palm—at all events, as regards wonderful accomplishment—to the Great Pacific Railway, to which, therefore, we beg leave to accord precedence in our descriptions. ”

“ I think most people have an idea that the engineering feats of the Pacific Railway were performed in the crossing of the Rockies. They do not realize, any more than we did, that we have another and far more difficult range to surmount, before reaching the Pacific coast. ”

“ In it he says, "There would be no difficulty in the way of constructing a railroad from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean * * * * and the time may not be so far distant when trips will be made across the continent as they are now to Niagara Falls to see Nature's wonders."
To just whom belongs the credit of being the first to advocate a railroad to the Pacific Coast is in dispute. No doubt the idea occurred to many at the time they were being introduced and successfully operated in the East. ”

“ The Canadian Pacific Railway, while traversing but one small northeastern corner of the United States, is essentially an American railroad, both in equipment and in operation. It forms an important half of that all-British Red Line encircling the globe, of which any Englishman is so very proud. ”

“ The Bieber route carriers presently enjoy joint through rates among themselves. Moreover, the other two participants in that route have expressed willingness to join with Western Pacific in the joint rates it seeks with Union Pacific and Northern Pacific. Union Pacific and Northern Pacific, for over 50 years, have maintained through routes and a full line of joint rates with Southern Pacific via Portland. They have refused, however, except for a few commodities, to offer through routes and joint rates on traffic moving on the Bieber route through Portland. ”