Railroad right-of-way

“ But I do believe that the regional railroad system, with its setting of the competitive phase in its proper position in relation to the conduct of our roads, would be a powerful factor in bettering present conditions, and in a way that would bring wholesale operating economies all the way across the land. ”

“ Cloud and Crow Wing, TO THE NAVIGABLE WATERS OF THE RED RIVEr of the north, at such point as The legislature of the territory might determine. By the change effected this branch was to be constructed north only to the intersection designated, and a direct line via St. Cloud and Crow Wing to that point would also be a long way from the lands in controversy. When the termini of a railroad are mentioned, for whose construction a grant is made, the extent of which is dependent upon the distance between those points, the road should be constructed upon the most direct and practicable line. ”

“ Railroads are destined ultimately to lose all of their short haul business and hence the roads which are in comparatively small and compact territories are sure to suffer. The only hope for some roads ... is to sell certain of their rights of way to the state in order that the tracks may be removed and concrete highways laid in their place. Many roads have parallel lines to-day under their control. The wise railroad company will develop one of these for itself and will sell the other at a good price to the state for a concrete truck highway. ”

“ The railroad will probably build the greater part of its freight equipment, although in these days of the supplanting of wood by steel in car-construction the companies are apt to stand appalled at the cost of the steel working machinery, and to buy their cars direct from the manufacturers very much as they purchase their locomotives. Passenger equipment is almost invariably secured in this way. It is a big railroad indeed that seeks to construct for itself the huge travelling palaces that the passenger of to-day has come to demand for his comfort. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Understand that for such farmers a small narrow-gage railroad as this—the feeder to a branch or main line of some standard steam railroad, running all the way from ten to twenty miles in length, inexpensively laid down alongside the highway and equipped with a single small locomotive (with perhaps one held in reserve against emergencies) and from one hundred to two hundred small four-wheeled flat-cars—would be a boon, and the capital outlay would be comparatively slight. It ought to be built and operated by the farmers that it would serve. ”

“ Said right of way is granted to said railroad to the extent of two hundred feet in width on each side of said railroad, where it may pass over the public lands, including, all necessary grounds for stations, buildings, workshops, and depots, machine shops, switches, side tracks, turn-tables, and water stations. ”

“ This is a practical world, however, and the practical facts are that the difficulties in the way of public ownership of railways in this country at present are very great, and that much good may be accomplished by judicious regulation. The long and short haul clause may be made effective; the railroads can be prevented from paying shippers more for cars or switches than they would pay each other; private car-lines, express companies, and water carriers can be brought within the Commerce Act ”

“ In the United States, the railways were mostly built through a new country thinly settled in comparison with Europe, and in many cases not settled at all. The right of way cost practically nothing as compared with the cost in Europe. ”

“ Their facilities for through traffic are alike. The local traffic on the different lines is unlike, since it is affected by the character of the regions through which the railroads pass; but the charges made for local traffic are governed by the comparatively simple principles which we first stated. In contending for freight to way stations we may say that the railroad has to compete with wagons upon the highway, but with nothing more efficient. ”

“ In any event, however, the general introduction of the interlocking apparatus into the American railroad system may be regarded as a mere question of the value of land and concentration of traffic. So long as every road terminating in our larger cities [198] indulges, at whatever unnecessary cost to its stockholders, in independent station buildings far removed from business centres, the train movement can most economically be conducted as it now is. ”

“ These scattered bits of road here and there were, in after years, as the possibilities of railroad development began to dawn upon the minds of far-seeing men, united by connecting links and reorganized into roads of much greater length. In fact some of the most difficult features of the railroad problem of the present day grew out of the failure of projectors of railroads{435} in the early days to grasp the meaning of the system which they were instituting. France, Germany, Belgium and other European cities have had no serious railway problem. ”

“ All the passengers are requested to walk. In single file we march over the bridge, and then await the train. It comes across, lightened of its load, slowly and safely. It is quite likely that in America the engineer would have put on all steam, and dashed across in a second, or, if not, he would have gone down a hundred feet, into a frightful chasm, and the verdict, if any were sought, would have been, “nobody to blame.” Fret as we do about the railroad management in Europe, it is safer and surer than ours. ”

“ Perhaps the most remarkable invention of modern times, in the influence which it has had, and is yet to have, on the affairs of the world, as well as in its total change of all the elements on which land transportation formerly depended, is the railroad system. It is not strange, then, that when we are called to construe a statute relating to this class of subjects, passed before a steam engine or a railroad was thought of, in its application to this modern system, we should be met by difficulties of the gravest character. ”

“ The railways are public highways, they exercise governmental powers and fulfil governmental functions, and it is an atrocious misuse of social power to employ these so as to give special advantages to a few members of the community. The Interstate Commission says: “The railroad is justly regarded as a public facility which every person may enjoy at pleasure, a common right to which all are admitted and from which none can be excluded. ”

“ Parliament has compelled the British railways to adopt, in the interest of the public safety, the block system and continuous brake, and great lines like the New York Central and Hudson River companies should be compelled to adopt such improvements. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sometimes when I contemplate the vastness of the possibilities of rail transport in these United States I am staggered with their enormity. We sometimes say that we now have developed a complete railroad system in this country. ”

“ Legislation should restore the character of public highways to the railways, by securing to all persons the right to run trains over their tracks upon proper regulations, and by defining the distinction between the proprietorship and maintenance of the railway and the business of common carriers. ”

“ For few practical railroaders will deny certain vast advantages to be gained by the complete centralization of our rail properties—not only in financing and in rate-making, but also in traffic solicitation and control, in expert staff study of mechanical and operating problems, and in the production of proper personnel, particularly for the filling of future executive positions. All of these functions and more too, the United States Railroad could and would undertake. ”

“ Necessarily, the same principles apply in reference to the use of the company's station house and depot grounds; for they are held in the same right as are its road, its locomotives, and other property or appliances employed in the transportation of passengers and freight, and must be devoted primarily to public use to the extent necessary for the public objects intended to be accomplished by the construction and maintenance of the railroad as a highway. ”

“ The findings show that the operation of long trains, that is trains of more than fourteen passenger and more than seventy freight cars, is standard practive over the main lines of the railroads of the United States, and that, if the length of trains is to be regulated at all, national uniformity in the regulation adopted, such as only Congress can prescribe, is practically indispensable to the operation of an efficient and economical national railway system. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You American railroad officials ought to stop talking about double-tracking your roads as if that were the end of the improvement. The time will come when you will have not only double tracks, but you will have four, six, eight, ten, twelve tracks. We are at that stage in England to-day, and yet the railroad problem in England is nothing compared with the United States. ”

“ Transportation salesmanship?
Properly played it is one of the most subtle games in the world, and one of the most fascinating—and for the railroad, one of the most profitable.
We have seen a good deal in the public prints in the last few years about the prime necessity of nationalizing the railroad in the United States in a far more thorough fashion than has ever before been even attempted. One of the potential dangers which forever faces a land as physically great as ours is the inherent possibility of its falling apart through its sheer size and weight. ”

“ No one would travel in that manner who could help it—who had time to go leisurely over hills and between hedges, instead of through tunnels and between banks: at least those who would, have no sense of beauty so acute as that we need consult it at the station. The railroad is in all its relations a matter of earnest business, to be got through as soon as possible. ”

“ Railroads are not like stages or steamboats, which, if furnishing no profit at one place, and under one prescribed rate of transportation, can be taken elsewhere and put to use at other places and under other circumstances. The railroad must stay, and, as a permanent investment, its value to its owners may not be destroyed. ”

“ Besides, the road once graded, there would be a great gain in laying rails, that is, in making a complete railroad, however little might be the amount of transportation; for on a Macadamised road the force of friction is ten times that on iron rails, so that the use of these new locomotive carriages can never supply the place of railways. ”

“ There should be additions to the Interstate Law, or a special law regulating the methods of construction companies, which are probably doing more to demoralize the railroad system—and doing it very insidiously, too—than any other factor connected with these great arteries of the country's prosperity. ”

“ We know, as well as we know the sense of any phrase in the English language which has a historical meaning and application, what is meant when a railroad is spoken of in a law as a 'public highway.' We know that it refers to the immovable structure stretching across the country, graded and railed for the use of the locomotive and its train of cars. ”

“ We have been donating millions of acres of land to new railroads. It is important that the tracks should be laid with steel rails, that the companies should get the rails as cheaply as they can; it is equally as important that the old roads, when repaired, should be repaired with steel rails. This is the only mode by which the railroads can ultimately become laid with these rails. It is estimated that a railroad needs a renewal of the rails once in ten years. ”

“ This, in the growing, progressive, and expanding states of the West, is a steady and constant complaint, and it requires much time, money, and energy for the railroad-owners and officers to keep the supply of transportation up to the demand. The complaints come in for more freight-cars, for more passenger-trains, for better passenger-stations, for more side-tracks, for more switch-engines, for under-crossings and over-crossings in growing cities, for branch lines into new and undeveloped sections of the country ”