Santa Fe Railway

“ And when all these are completed the boast of the Handbook of the Company will be justified, and the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé will be the longest railway in the world under one management. It will have every reasonable chance of being also the main continental route to China, Japan, Australia, and South America, tapping a large share of the passenger traffic to India, and leading across the American Continent streams of voyagers and tourists. When the Guaymas line is finished there will be a saving of not less than 1400 miles over the San Francisco route between New York and Australia ”

“ New interests, however, came into the property, and, though it was hoped that they would support a conservative policy, the former programme of expansion was resumed until in 1890 the St. Louis and San Francisco system was merged with the Santa Fe on a very extravagant basis. Within a year it was clear that the St. Louis and San Francisco would prove more of a liability than an asset. During the same time the less important purchase of the Colorado Midland Railway also turned out to be a poor investment. ”

“ The location of El Paso, whose lights were fast fading in the distance behind us, is in every way desirable, being the connecting point of the Mexican Central with the railways of the United States. Five connecting lines of railway enter the city: the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio; the Southern Pacific; the Texan Pacific; the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, with good prospects for another. There can be no doubt but that it will be a great railroad center and distributing point for the Southwest. ”

“ At the time of the formation of the Company, the nearest railway was that belonging to the Central Argentine Railway, and the nearest railway station was Rosario, but some years later, the lines now belonging to the French Railway Company of the Province of Santa Fé were laid between Santa Fé and San Cristobal. Subsequently the Central Norte Railway, which stretches northwards from San Cristobal to Tucuman, was built by the National Government, and in 1907, the National Government built a line from Santa Fé to San Cristobal via San Justo. ”

“ To finish with the things of the mundane, you strike in to Santa Fe from a desolate little junction called Lamy, where the railroad has built a picturesque little doll's house of a hotel after the fashion of an old Spanish mansion. To reach the Jemez Forests where the ruins of the Cave Dwellers exist, you can drive or motor (to certain sections only) or ride. As the distance is forty miles plus, you will find it safer and more comfortable to drive. If you take a driver and a team, and keep both over two days, it will cost you from $10 to $14 for the round trip. ”

“ What a wonderful change has taken place in the traffic with New Mexico in less than three-quarters of a century! In 1825 it was all carried on with one single annual caravan of prairie-schooners, and now there are four railroads running through the Rio Grande Valley, and one daily freight train of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe into the town unloads more freight than was taken there in a whole year when the "commerce of the prairies" was at its height! ”

“ A North-South trade route had existed for some two hundred years connecting Spanish Santa Fe, far north toward the headwaters 9 of the Rio Grande, south through the Paso del Norte to the settlements in the mother country of Mexico. The Santa Fe Trail extended to California, would cross this trade route at Santa Fe, well up in the Rocky Mountains, while the route through Texas would cross it at El Paso. And so these two places became the supply dumps where the great wagon trains took on horses, mules, beef and other supplies that would see them across the final leg of the journey west. ”

“ There should be a railroad from Coban to the capital. At present it takes as long to cover the intervening distance of one hundred and twenty-five miles as to travel from Chicago to San Francisco on the overland flyers. There are also several important and fair-sized cities, such as Huehuetenango, Totonicapan and Santa Cruz del Quiché, in the mountains which have no railway communication and where such an enterprise would be welcomed. Nothing is more needed and no improvement will aid more in developing the country than new railroads connecting these cities with the outside world. ”

“ The advantages of uniting the two opposite points of the country by means of a railroad, will not only help its speedy settlement—an important consideration in many respects—but will be equal to gaining a free port on the coast of Mexico for the exclusive benefit of American citizens. By the means of Santa Fe and San Diego, should the railroad be constructed as indicated above, the Union will have the command of the largest share of the Mexican trade. ”

“ The first train of the Santa Fé Railroad to enter the city of Los Angeles ran from Colton over the rails of the Southern Pacific, on November 29th, the two corporations having come to an agreement to use the one set of tracks until the spring of 1887, when the Santa Fé finished building from San Bernardino to its junction with the Los Angeles & San Gabriel Valley Railroad. ”

“ The Southwest was yet but sparsely settled; and no railroad which had as its objective the plains or alkali deserts of Arizona or New Mexico could thrive—at least it could not for decades to come. And yet in the early eighties the real objective of the Atchison system had not been determined. Having passed its original objective point, Santa Fe, the road had reached Albuquerque, but it could not afford to stop there. Through traffic it must have or die. ”

“ The ferry-house at the foot of Market Street is a huge granite building (with a lofty clock-tower on top) wherein are to be found the various ticket offices of the Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, the North Shore, California & North Western and other railroads. Up stairs in the second story is an extensive horticultural exhibit, where are displayed the products of California; there are the offices of various railroad and other officials, there, too. To take a train on any railroad one must cross the bay on a ferry-boat. Each railroad line has its own line of ferry-boats and slips. ”

“ When I first heard of the Santa Fe trains running to the edge of the Grand Canon of Arizona, I was troubled with thoughts of the disenchantment likely to follow. But last winter, when I saw those trains crawling along through the pines of the Cocanini Forest and close up to the brink of the chasm at Bright Angel, I was glad to discover that in the presence of such stupendous scenery they are nothing. The locomotives and trains are mere beetles and caterpillars, and the noise they make is as little disturbing as the hooting of an owl in the lonely woods. ”

“ A few miles west of Topeka, the capital of Kansas, when the train reaches the little hamlet of Wakarusa, the track of the railroad commences to follow the route of the Old Santa Fe Trail. At that point, too, the Oregon Trail branches off for the heavily timbered regions of the Columbia. Now begins the classic ground of the once famous highway to New Mexico; nearly every stream, hill, and wooded dell has its story of adventure in those days when the railroad was regarded as an impossibility, and the region beyond the Missouri as a veritable desert. ”

“ New Mexico's railroad facilities may be estimated from the fact that not a county in the territory is without a railroad, while many have the benefit of three lines. With twenty-five hundred miles of railroads within the territorial limits already in operation, it is confidently expected that this number will be increased to four thousand miles within two years, as much of this anticipated increase is already under construction. Of the present railways eleven hundred miles belong to the Santa Fé system alone. ”

“ The passenger looking out of the window of the train on the Santa Fe Railroad will see this trail running for miles parallel with the track, and will be able to people it with the historic traditions which have made the Santa Fe Trail one of the most romantic and, withal, one of the most tragic national highways in the United States. ”

“ In 1843, the American traders commenced to establish regular communication between Missouri and Santa Fe and in 1849, started to run a stage from Independence, Mo., to Santa Fe. The fare was $250. Each passenger was allowed forty pounds of baggage. The capacity of the coach was ten passengers in addition to the driver and messenger. Relays of horses were stationed along the trail every fifteen to twenty miles.
The vehicles used by the traders and pioneers were for the greater part Conestoga wagons drawn by horses or mules. ”

“ In the meantime the Central Pacific, operating from Ogden west to the coast, had added many branches, while a new company—known as the Southern Pacific Railroad of California—had for some years been constructing a system of lines throughout that State south of the Central Pacific and by 1877 had penetrated to Yuma, Arizona, 727 miles southeast of San Francisco. It had also built lines into Arizona and New Mexico and soon joined the Santa Fe route, which had for some time been working westward. ”

“ Independence very soon became the best market west of St. Louis for cattle, mules, and wagons; the trade of which the place was the acknowledged headquarters furnishing employment to several thousand men, including the teamsters and packers on the Trail. The wages paid varied from twenty-five to fifty dollars a month and rations. The price charged for hauling freight to Santa Fe was ten dollars a hundred pounds, each wagon earning from five to six hundred dollars every trip, which was made in eighty or ninety days; some fast caravans making quicker time. ”

“ The most thoroughly advertised railroad upon the North American continent is probably the Canadian Pacific. The next is the Santa Fé. And it is estimated that of the round-trip tickets sold in an average year from Chicago and points east to the Pacific coast more than 70 per cent. of them read Santa Fé one way and Canadian Pacific the other. The best advertised single train in the land is the Twentieth Century Limited. And it is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the best patronized one. Does transportation salesmanship pay? ”

“ It was such struggles for local business as this that led the San Francisco Alta California, a paper bitterly opposed to the Central Pacific, to denounce the railway, in 1866, as the "Dutch Flat Swindle." It claimed that the railway would never be built further than Alta and that it was built so far only for the purpose of controlling passenger and freight traffic over their wagon road to Virginia City and other Nevada points. ”

“ No other town of its size in America has been the subject of and focus for as much good literature as Santa Fe. Pittsburgh and dozens of other big cities all put together have not inspired one tenth of the imaginative play that Santa Fe has inspired. Some of the transcontinental railroads probably carry as much freight in a day as went over the Santa Fe Trail in all the wagons in all the years they pulled over the Santa Fe Trail. ”

“ It is on the South Pueblo side that the railways center at the Union Depot. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe sends hither daily its trains from Kansas City, and hence the Denver and Rio Grande forwards its passengers northward to Denver, westward to Silver Cliff, Leadville, Salt Lake City and Ogden, and southward to El Moro, Alamosa, Del Norte, Durango, Silverton and Santa Fe. It is on this side, also, that the factories are, and that others will stand. ”

“ It has been truly remarked by an eminent writer, that the greatest wonder of the age is a locomotive engine; that since its adoption travellers have been multiplied through the facility of transit: and that the greater those facilities, the greater the number of travellers. These facts have become generally known in this Republic, where several railways have already been made, and others are being constructed. The Central Argentine Railway, when completed, will extend from the city of Rosario to Cordova; this will be a great and lasting benefit to the commerce of the country. ”

“ Leaving Enramadas, or San Luis, the road will pass through the towns and villages of Paso del Corralillo, Palma Soriano, Arroyo Blanco, Fray Juan, Baire Abajo, Las Piedras, Jiguani, Santa Rita, San Antonio, Bayamo, Jucaibana, Barrancas, Jara, Palmas Altas, and thence to Manzanillo. At each of these points a substantial station will be built; all bridges will be of iron, and the entire construction will be on the best lines of modern railway building. ”

“ When this little railroad was inaugurated a great celebration was held, and the President delivered an address full of optimism and prophetic of future development. Fortune, however, refused to smile on the project, and money was scarce, so that the national government was obliged to take over the road. It was not a success until an English company took it over in 1890, and began pushing out the extensions over the pampas that are now bringing in the revenue-producing freight, which has placed the Western Railway on the road to prosperity. ”

“ The rapidity of railroad development, which marked the existence of this new reign of peace, astonished even the promoters of the enterprises. In 1880 but 400 miles of track, between Vera Cruz and the capital had been constructed; the total mileage now exceeded 4,000 miles, and by the junction of the International with the Central at Villa Lerdo, the time of travel between New York and the city of Mexico was reduced to four days and twelve hours. Active work was commenced at Tehuantepec and the Atlantic and Pacific Ship railway at last became an entity. ”