Southern Railway Company

“ Congress desired to connect by a railway the states on the Mississippi with the Pacific coast, and for that purpose, by the act of July 27, 1866, created a corporation known as the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company, and gave it a grant of lands to aid in the construction of a railway between Springfield, in the state of Missouri, and the Pacific coast. ”

“ But as pointed out in Public Aids to Transportation, supra, p. 42, 'The land-grant railroads are parties to these agreements for the reason that, in many instances, a non-aided portion of a land-grant railroad competes with a reduced-rate portion of another land-grant railroad.'↑ These consisted of 147 shipments of livestock by the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation from midwestern points to southeastern points ”

“ 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. ”

“ The prosperity of the South in the next decade, and in those to follow after, depends upon the ability of the owners and managers of southern railways to foresee and provide for future necessities, and upon the promptness with which the work is accomplished. ”

“ Finally in 1907 Morgan sold his Georgia properties to Charles W. Morse. They subsequently passed to Edward H. Harriman, who afterwards merged them into the Illinois Central system, under which control they have since remained.
As compared with the old Richmond Terminal aggregation with its broken-down rails and roadbed, poor equipment, and miserable service, the modern Southern Railway system shows startling changes. The Southern States have grown enormously in population and wealth during the last generation ”

“ In its calls for capital the southern railroads must come into competition in the markets of the world, not only with the railroad requirements of the North, of the East and the West, but with all the lines of human industry and endeavor throughout the wide world. ”

“ The adoption of a policy of fairness and liberality towards the railroad interests on behalf of all the Southern States, and the ability to convince the financial world that this action is sincere and genuine and will be permanent, is the great paramount need of the railroads of the South today. ”

“ True Southerners thank God that human slavery has been abolished. They are striving earnestly and successfully to adjust conditions created in the birth pangs of a social revolution. Well managed railroads like the Louisville & Nashville adjust their working policies to these basic conditions. Nearly a decade ago Samuel Spencer, as president, felt that the Southern Railway needed an infusion of new operating blood and a rotation of types, both excellent things in themselves, but, as experience showed, easily overdone and carried to an irrational degree. ”

“ So great is this material development and so great the consequent demand for transportation facilities, that every railway in the South may well need double tracking, while to keep pace with the South’s present rate of progress, thousands of miles of new railways will have to be constructed every year for many years to come. The South should therefore continue to encourage capital no less than immigration, on a scale extensive enough to meet all its legitimate requirements. ”

“ The earning power of the system cannot yet, therefore, be said to be secure. Moreover, the capitalization of almost $72,000 per mile,400 as well as the less dense railroad business in the South, the slight construction of many of the Southern Railway lines, the lack of adequate facilities which compels an operating ratio of 76 per cent, and the absorption of minor roads less prosperous than the main stem,—all these factors have kept down the net surplus from operation. ”

“ A gentleman who was in the carriage with them said they would find equally good work on the western line of railway, the one on which they were traveling being the southern.
“The range of mountains that winds around the whole coast of Australia,” said the gentleman, “has made our railways cost us very dearly. To go any distance at all into the interior, we had to traverse the mountains, and for a long time it was believed that it would be absolutely impossible to get through them. The first railway line in New South Wales was surveyed about 1847, and ground for it was broken in July, 1850. ”

“ I doubt if there is a single southern railway system, the officers of which would not gladly today take up, consider and block out a scheme for the improvement and betterment of their property, and commence preparations to enable their system to fully perform the increased functions of a common carrier, which the abundant years [64] of the immediate future promise to require, if they could be sure, and in turn could assure their financial backers, that the earnings of their road would be amply and safely sufficient to provide for, and take care of, the investment necessary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The accommodation of Herefordshire, Worcestershire, South Wales, and the important districts lying to the west of the present lines of Railway, will evidently, at no distant period, require not only a wide-gauge Railway along the Southern coast, to place them in communication with London, but also a narrow-gauge Railway to place them in direct and unbroken communication, through Birmingham, with the manufacturing districts and the great Railway system of the rest of the kingdom. ”

“ In the main we have relied on the force of competition to secure for us reasonable service at not unreasonable rates; and as I still cherish a long-formed belief that English railroads are on the whole among the best, if not actually the best, in the world, I am far from saying that competition has not done its work well. But competition is an instrument that is at this moment breaking in our hands. Within quite a few years the South Eastern Railway was united with the Chatham; the Great Southern has obtained a monopoly over a large part of Ireland ”

“ These are usually located at important terminal stations.
Coal Car, Central Railroad of New Jersey.
To them are billed all mixed cars containing through freight. These cars are unloaded and reloaded, and out of a hundred "mixed" cars will be made probably eighty straight and the balance local. This necessarily causes some delay, but it is practically a gain in time in the end, as otherwise every car would have to be reloaded, and held at every station for which it contained freight.
The variety of articles that is offered to a railway company for transportation is endless. ”

“ The difference between the five or six per cent paid by southern railroads for the money which goes into their additional facilities or equipment, and the three or four per cent which may be yielded by the high-class world investments, is merely the gauge by which the confidence of the capitalist is measured in the integrity of his investments.
Today it is difficult to secure money for railroad development, either South or North, at any ordinary rate of interest. ”

“ Norris Bell, the eminent engineer who controlled the construction of the line, and is now running it in such a way that, despite almost total absence of local traffic, it is nearly paying its working expenses, a remarkable achievement considering the desolate nature of the country through which it passes. The railway connects the populous States of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, with the vast and potentially rich, but presently undeveloped, western territories. ”

“ The goodwill of their business is of very great value if they can keep their present facilities for transportation. The longer their lines and the more favorable their connections, the greater will be their own profits and the better their means of serving the public. In making their investments and in extending their business they have undoubtedly relied on securing and keeping favorable railroad transportation, and in this they were encouraged by the apparent willingness of railroad companies to accommodate them ”

“ All-red speeches might adorn a banquet or win an election, but facts—or fictions—as to freight and dividends were needed to beguile the capital from investors' pockets. The hope of securing for the Canadian provinces the trade and traffic of the golden West was, in early years as in late, much the strongest factor in railway policy.
When the white man came to North America, he found himself hemmed in to the Atlantic coast by the long range of the Appalachians. ”

“ In 1870-80 there were important gains in the Upper Mississippi Valley and in eastern Texas, which was the first Southern State to show activity in railway construction after the war. In 1880-90 the Southern States doubled their mileage. Since 1895 (in which year there was the least construction after the Civil War, 1650 miles) the most rapid progress has been between the Gulf of Mexico and the Kansas and Missouri rivers. The greatest railway density is in the region north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers. New Jersey leads with 30 miles of line for each 100 square miles of area. ”

“ In talking with the manager of the Central South African Government railway, I explained the nature of the favors granted to the big shippers in the United States, using the Beef Trust, Salt Trust, Oil Trust, Fuel Company, etc., as illustrations, and said: “Suppose a big concern tried to get special rates or concessions of some kind on your railroads, and made a secret agreement with the railway management?”
“They couldn’t do it.”
“Why not? Human nature is the same in South Africa as in America. ”

“ The present greatly increased efficiency of the railroads as compared with 1920, their greatly improved credit, and their present prosperity, are, in large measure, due to the advances made toward introducing the improved instruments of rail transportation which have become available. ”

“ Hence it was found that, to use that train, any person in the territory covered by the branch roads would be obliged to leave home the day before and pass the night at Rocky Mount. The fourth train relied upon, that is, a connection made by Coast Line No. 39 at Selma under the new schedule with a later train over the Southern road for Raleigh, was found to be but a connection with a Southern freight train, having no passenger car, but only a caboose. ”

“ In 1889, the name of the company was changed to the Great Northern Railway, and under this title the extension to the coast was rapidly carried forward and was opened in the panic year of 1893. When all the other transcontinental lines went into bankruptcy, Hill's road not only kept out of the courts but actually earned and paid annual dividends of five per cent on its stock. The five years from 1896 to 1901 were years of uninterrupted prosperity for the Great Northern Railroad. Each year its credit rose; each year it grew to be more of a force in the Western railway situation. ”

“ Important as the above causes have been in contributing to the improved position of the New South Wales railways, nothing has probably contributed more to this result than the increased efficiency of the staff, and of the labour employed. Mr. Eddy has striven hard to create amongst the New South Wales railway employés the same esprit de corps which exists amongst the employés of his old service, the London and North-Western Railway Company in England, and there is good evidence that his efforts have been attended with success. ”

“ But making the number of local trains dependent upon the volume of business is but to say that if a railroad has enough interstate business, besides its local business, to cause it to run one local and two interstate commerce trains each way each day, the increased trains thus required for the essential purposes of interstate commerce shall be local trains, while another railroad, which has no interstate commerce, but only local business, requiring but one train a day, shall continue only to operate the one local train. ”

“ As the country traversed develops and more traffic accrues to the road, rendering improvement advisable, the track is overhauled and relaid with heavier metals, the lighter rails being shipped to another point to enable the pioneering process to be continued.
This is an elastic system eminently adapted to such a country as South Australia, which is still in its infancy, and where the demand for railway communication is confined almost entirely to agricultural requirements and to the transportation of farming produce, especially in the more remote up-country districts. ”