South Side Railroad

“ States like Louisiana and Georgia are fairly gridironed with railroads, and new ones building all the time: indeed, in the “Delta” of Mississippi a railroad can live on local business if it has a belt of its own twelve miles wide.
[Pg 227] Nevertheless, the present railroad system in the South, comprising about 80,000 miles, has been mostly built since 1880. This system includes several lines from the Middle West to the seaboard, so that Baltimore, the James River ports, New Orleans, and Galveston are enriched by commerce passing through their ports to regions outside the Southern states. ”

“ Louis and all points east all electric lighted trains with observation, parlor, cafe dining cars and Pullman sleeping cars; the Chicago & Northwestern, whose through train service to Chicago and the East from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Salt Lake, Ogden and Denver is not excelled in any land; the Illinois Central Railroad, whose eight track entrance to Chicago from the south along the lake front is one of the triumphs of Yankee railroading, and whose train service is elegant in the extreme. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the time he was writing, 1835, there were seven hundred and ninety-seven miles of railroads in operation in the United States. Passenger coaches were patterned after the old stage coach, the track iron straps on wooden stringers, yet here he was outlining what today is an accomplished fact. A railroad with stone ballast from Chicago to the South Pass (Granger, Wyo.) one branch diverging from there to the mouth of the Columbia, (Portland, Ore.,) the other to California, (San Francisco and Los Angeles, Cal.,) traversed by trains comprised of sleeping cars, dining cars and buffet cars. ”

“ The whole transportation to the rich placers of the Stanislaus, Mokelumne, Tuolumne, Merced, and Mariposa, as well as the famous mines of the Middle, North, and South Forks, Feather and Yuba rivers, must pass the new city. The great railroad, destined to connect the Pacific Ocean and the Mississippi River, will undoubtedly terminate at New York, as it is in a direct line with the only pass in the mountains through which a railroad can reach the waters which empty into the Bay of San Francisco. ”

“ Turnpike roads were also built into the interior of the state; and the railroad from Charleston to Hamburg—140 miles—completed in the thirties, was the longest continuous line of railroad then in existence. Down to the Civil War Charleston had an ambitious scheme for a direct line across the mountains to Cincinnati. The effort to keep transportation up to the times for various reasons was not successful; settlements were sparse, exports other than cotton scanty, distances great, free capital limited.
In the last ten years the South has seen a wonderful advance in railroad transportation. ”

“ I therefore feel that the southern railroad situation is gradually becoming better understood, not only by the public at large, but by the railway men of the South, who are jointly appreciative of the fact that the greatest need of southern railroads is the confidence and support of the communities through which they run and serve. ”

“ During the past 25 years the total products of the South, from agriculture, forest, mines and manufactures, have increased in valuation over 225 per cent. During the last five years of this period, ending in 1906, the increase has been 50 per cent.
The common fallacy that a railroad is completed when opened for traffic has long since passed away, at least in the minds of intelligent men.
The railroad of today is no sooner completed as a single track, than it becomes necessary to provide industrial spurs; additional or enlarged terminals ”

“ By this method the farmer saved himself the long hard drive to the city over poor roads and the produce arrived faster and in fresher condition at the market. Besides this, the train's capacity for loads was far beyond that of one wagon. The plan caught on slowly but by late fall the freight depot was full of grocerymen from New York and Brooklyn buying supplies.
In March of 1875 the company arranged to expedite the movement of freight from Hunter's Point over the East River to New York by engaging a barge and renting a dock on the New York side. ”

“ Even a small road, like the Algomah Central, has its own freight and passenger steamboats running south from the Soo as far as Cleveland, Ohio. It is a pretty poor line with Great Lakes terminals that cannot boast some sort of steamship service of its own.
In the development of the coastwise and the inland waterways of the United States, the railroad may be doing the nation a far greater service than it imagines. For the general trend of railroad expansion in the country to-day seems to be toward a development of the auxiliary water-routes rather than toward their curtailment. ”

“ The installation of a second track on any road is virtually equivalent to building it twice over, for it necessitates doubling the width of the graded area and doubling the size of all the bridges and culverts. When one considers that the South Side RR was running at its peak only nine trains a day each way, it is obvious that the second track was a luxury not strictly justified by the traffic. ”

“ Thirty years ago competition for trade throughout the South was very keen between the great cities in the East and in the Middle West. Direct lines to the northwest from Atlanta and Nashville opened up a new avenue of communication with ambitious cities like Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati. The state of Georgia constructed the Western and Atlantic Railroad in 1851 for the express purpose of developing this trade. As western manufactures developed, a keen rivalry between the routes respectively east and west of the Alleghany mountains into the South was engendered. ”

“ Men began to dream of a link of railroads all the way through from Albany to Buffalo and even the troubles of a decade, marked with a monumental financial crash, could not entirely avail to stop railroad-building. The railroads came, step by step; one railroad from Schenectady to Utica, another from that pent-up city to Syracuse, still another from Syracuse to Rochester. ”

“ The railroad from the mine to the pier, five miles and a half below, whither iron cars, propelled by 231 gravity, can carry three thousand tons per day, is chiefly remarkable for its unusual grade down the first mile and a half, through which the descent is two hundred and seventy-four feet to the mile. To meet this unusual, but unavoidable necessity, heavy locomotives, of peculiar design and construction, were invented and built at San Francisco. They weigh twenty tons, have three pairs of thirty-six-inch driving wheels, with complex and powerful brakes for the enormous friction necessary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Here were located numerous side tracks, freight spurs and a turntable. The Hunter's Point station building had been erected in October and November 1869, and embraced an iron structure 190 × 48 feet long, with a car shed 77 × 54 feet. Covered passageways led to the ferries and to the Long Island R.R. depot nearby. When the Central R.R. became part of the North Side system, Central trains were also accommodated here. ”

“ Also, a train starts from Philadelphia on the same Sunday as the train starts from San Francisco, another on Monday, another on Tuesday, etc., up to Saturday—that is, seven trains, all of which it meets, making, with the six trains previously started, thirteen trains in all which it meets. A train leaves Philadelphia on Sunday at the same time the Pacific Express reaches there, but this is not counted as a meeting.
A switch siding to a single-track railroad is just long enough to clear a train of eight cars and a locomotive. ”

“ First listed on the timetable of May, 1873, and last listed in October, 1876. As of February, 1874, there was neither depot nor freight house, but Mr. Smith, the agent, used one of the rooms in his own house for a public waiting room. The station was located on the east side of Stewart Avenue in today's Plainedge. A side track was installed for freight cars in January, 1874, and a swing pole for farmers to load hay and straw onto the freight platform. ”

“ Here's eleven railroads reaching west to Buffalo, called the Central System. Here are others that go on to Chicago and others that run east to Boston. Here is the steamer line from New York to Albany, closed half the year. Here are two lines of railroad that run north from New York to the capital—the Harlem and the Hudson River. The Harlem road can be bought for less than six cents on the dollar. ”

“ Intimates of James J. Hill, the transportation giant of the northwest, say that the ambition of his life is to [632] encircle the world with a system of railroads and steamships, all of which shall be under his guiding hand. He has nearly attained it. He owns the Great Northern railway, which stretches from Seattle, Washington, to St. Paul and Duluth, Minnesota. He is proprietor of the line of steamers which ply between Duluth and Buffalo. He is largely interested in the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, which covers the territory between Chicago, Philadelphia and New York. ”

“ In the beginning he would change cars four or five times between Albany and Buffalo; and when fifteen or sixteen years later the railroad had extended itself all the way out to Chicago there were three or four more changes to be made. To-day a solid train from New York or Boston to Chicago or St. Louis is so much a part of our regular order of things as to cause no comment whatever. Yet even to-day one cannot ride across the North American continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific without a change of cars—that is, not in the United States. ”

“ The familiar Maryland, which is operated jointly by the New Haven and the Pennsylvania systems upon this route, will receive an entire passenger train of ordinary length, excepting, of course, the locomotive, upon her great deck, which is, in reality, a miniature railroad yard, equipped with two long parallel tracks that can be quickly attached to the ferry-bridges at Port Morris and Jersey City. The trip, with the loading and unloading of the train, is accomplished, under favorable weather conditions, in about an hour. ”

“ Culverts have been laid for each small run or kill or creek; the bridge-builders along the new line finish their work and cart off their kits; the day comes when there is an unbroken railroad from one end of the new line to the other. It links new rails and new towns; its localities produce for new markets, commerce from strange quarters pours down upon the land that has known it not. Passenger trains begin regular operation, the fresh-painted depots are brilliant in their newness, the shriek of the locomotive sounds where it has never before sounded. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Twenty of that New York Central fleet are kept in constant use in the North and East Rivers, and along the harbor shores to Jersey City, Bayonne, and the southern parts of Brooklyn. They do not lie idle, save when they are finally forced to “lay up” for a little time for repairs. And then a reserve tug is in service without delay.
Here is the modern economy of railroad equipment—even though this be the part of the railroad that is afloat. ”

“ Engine the 107 was not rebuilt for a long time and was never again employed in passenger service. The foreman in one of the repair shops wrote to Philadelphia and learned that the 109 was completed on Thursday and the 107 on Friday. As I said a while ago, railroad employees are not superstitious,—they will all tell you so,—much less railway officers; but it is a fact to-day that a new locomotive or a locomotive that has been rebuilt is never taken out on the Denver and Rio Grande on Friday. ”

“ At 6:30 the next morning, Wednesday, January 8, 1873, while it was still dark, and without any festive ceremony whatever, the engine Farmingdale pulled out with one car and two passengers, marking the first regular passenger trip on the Central Railroad of Long Island. As it grew light and word spread through the sleeping village, more persons drifted through the snow down to the Central depot, and took their first ride on the new Stewart road. ”

“ There is not a railroader coming into the big passenger terminal—from either the New York Central or the New Haven system—who is not welcome to it, day or night. Engineers, firemen, conductors, trainmen all come into its hospitable door after a long hard run to find the clean comfort of good meals, bath, comfortable beds, good fellowship awaiting them. There is the peculiar and the successful field of the railroad Y. M. C. A. ”