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The Rock and Mr Ingram: An Insider's View.
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<p>Well-engineered superior route = Milwaukee is an opinion I do not agree with. I don't hold any grudge against people whose opinion differs with my own, however. <span class="smiley">[:)] </span></p><p>But regardless of that question, the EP&SW was the second-choice location; SP took the best one, as the first-on-the-scene railroad usually does. Excess circuity matters, and most of the circuitous routes are gone now -- too many crew starts, too many locomotive-miles, too much per diem, too many train-miles for the revenue. </p><p>There's a common belief I see in this forum that traffic that moves long distances <br />(1,000 miles or better) is the only traffic that matters. Today that more and more true but prior to the 1960s long-distance traffic was minor in the business of a railroad. The average lumber haul by rail circa 1955 was 125 miles! The preponderance of coal moves nationwide in the 1950s were under 300 miles. Railroads without heavy and consistent local traffic and short-haul traffic (originating and terminating on-line) were perennial losers. Take a look at the traffic sources of any western railroad at any given date you wish prior to 1970 and it's not at all mysterious which ones were healthy and which were failing. </p><p>The EP&SW despite its copper smelter and mine traffic was extremely thin on local traffic after especially after the smelters converted from coal to fuel oil, and since the transcon traffic that was being offered was substantially less than the capacity of the Sunset Route, and the costs and service of the Sunset Route superior to the EP&SW, there was absolutely no way the EP&SW could compete with SP except for the occasional leftovers the SP didn't want. That's why Phelps-Dodge sold it to SP -- it was a loser!</p><p>But even if the Rock Island had purchased all this stuff it still would have had to build new paralleling the SP from Tucson 600 miles to Los Angeles, and built into the Central Valley probably on its own route, another 300 miles, an expense circa 1906 of about $1.5 billion for a properly equipped, properly engineered railroad, which would have been inferior to the SP in every regard. Worse, since the customers had already invested in plant along SP and Santa Fe, this new road would have had to look for new customers or offer better service (rates being regulated). Since its route was longer, it couldn't do that. It's a vicious circle.</p><p> Assuming any bondholders could be found who wanted to take that kind of risk, plus compete with Harriman and Santa Fe, they'd have soon been relieved of their money. David Moffat tried that fool's errand, found no suckers, and not unsurprisingly failed. </p><p>S. Hadid </p><p> </p>
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