Persistant little D&RG

[Railway Man]

...............and the Pacific Coast schemes never seemed more than token and half-hearted, designed merely to attract the small and naiive investor who expected ANY railroad west of the Mississippi to have Pacific plans in its portfolio.

RWM 

  Wasn't that more or less what they aimed at later, when hooking up with line to Salt Lake City, and later yet, with WP?

Not really.  The connection across the desert was a convenience to enable profitable commerce between western Colorado and Utah, a connection which occurred when it became obvious that the eastern extent of the Utah lines in the Book Cliffs Coal Field, and the western extent of the Colorado lines at the junction of the Grand and Gunnison Rivers, would be only separated by about 150 miles of open desert. 

The WP venture came two decades later under the aegis of George Gould.  Almost nothing has been documented about the business methods or life of the junior Gould, unfortunately.  It's not known if he genuinely thought it was valuable to build a coast-to-coast system, and if so, what possessed him to think it could be economically muscular with such a peculiar skeleton.  Perhaps he was engaging in a bear run on Harriman with the WP, thinking to connect with the CB&Q or C&NW in central Utah, and the D&RGW was a stepping stone that would soon revert to its logical role as a feeder line.  Or, perhaps he was merely a guileless inheritor of great wealth who was driven to demonstrate his importance and boldness, and thus step out from the shadow of his feared and brilliant father.  I most think it was the latter, as the railroad expansion era was already obviously drawing to a close and if one was to make a mark in the early 1900s as a railroad builder one had to do it quickly and with whatever kit was handy.  There wasn't much left in the way of untapped new routes that had even the barest of economic reason.  Senator W.A. Clark of the SPLA&SL was another of that type.

RWM

[Railway Man]

From the limited amount of reading I have done on the D&RG, it would seem a major turning point took place in 1878, when the AT&SF won control of Raton Pass. I believe this turned the D&RG westward into the Rockies, while the ATSF continued on to the coast.

Would anyone care to speculate what would have happened if the D&RG had been the victor at Raton? I'd guess the D&RG would not have aimed for California, while the ATSF would have found a differnt route. 

I think the race to Raton Pass is mythology informed by the knowledge of what played out much later rather than what people actually were thinking when it happened -- an answer in search of a question.  While the event did occur I do not think it greatly mattered at the time to the parties.  Either railroad could have gone around Black Mesa to the east, which the C&S did much later on its way to Texas, or used a couple of other passes, if it wanted so badly to reach the coalfields of Raton Mesa or the rude adobe village that was Santa Fe.  Neither the Santa Fe or the D&RG was sure at that time where its destiny lay.  The Santa Fe was not en route to Los Angeles at that time -- Los Angeles being a dusty hamlet adjacent to an intermittent stream in a hot desert basin.  Raton Pass was a convenient path to ... something.  But they didn't know what yet.

RWM

[Railway Man]

"General" Palmer (I stand corrected I just remembered it was a high military rank) certainly knew how to sell the big idea, just like PT Barnum did when you think about it the two were not that very different.

I've always found it fascinating, how seems like there was always someone willing to invest with people promoting big schemes.  When you think about how many fortunes were made and lost, just in the railroading business, you wonder how new investors were found.

"Found"?  They were born.  Their descendents were last seen clutching fistfuls of worthless shares of pets.com while watching the repo man hauling off the big-screen plasma TV after flipping one too many houses in Las Vegas.

RWM

[Railway Man]

One of the great things about the Rio Grande was their ability to turn lemons into lemonades over several decades.  The operated "succesfully" in the expansion times, the progressive era of the Trust Busters, the Public Utility period (1920-1929), the Great Depression, WW II, the Rise of Trucks (1945-1970, and Collapse of the National Rail System.  They finally ran out of gas with Phil's arrival.  It was a long and great run but dust to dust...

The secret to that success was coal.  And even though the name might be gone and the railroad not much of a through transcon route these days, the coal moves in greater volume than ever before.  The transcon business lasted for 70 years whereas the railroad's last spike was driven 127 years ago. 

So today the Rio Grande has come full circle to its original rationale, a railroad that moves minerals from the mountains to the cities, but it's not dust yet nor is it likely to be as far as I can see into the future.

RWM

[bobwilcox]

One of the great things about the Rio Grande was their ability to turn lemons into lemonades over several decades.  The operated "succesfully" in the expansion times, the progressive era of the Trust Busters, the Public Utility period (1920-1929), the Great Depression, WW II, the Rise of Trucks (1945-1970, and Collapse of the National Rail System.  They finally ran out of gas with Phil's arrival.  It was a long and great run but dust to dust...

[zardoz]

"General" Palmer (I stand corrected I just remembered it was a high military rank) certainly knew how to sell the big idea, just like PT Barnum did when you think about it the two were not that very different.

Well, they did name a lake after him....

(Palmer Lake--the high point between Denver and Colorado Springs on the Joint Line)

[Norman Saxon]

With all due respect that I'm able to muster, would you mind doing the rest of us a favor, and taking this somewhere else?  I realize, that you feel you must refute anything you disagree with.  On the surface, there's nothing wrong with that, as that's the nature of a message board forum.  Where I do find fault, is in your predictable need to *joust* with the same people over and over. 

Actually, it's the ideas that I find offensive, perpetrated everywhere, that misrepresents history in the guise of personal agendas. I agree, the original comment about regulation was completely off topic on this thread, but there it was, and of course, you had no problem with it until I commented on it because it was a grevious mistatement of historical fact. Where I "find fault", is your predictable need to make it personal when you, as you often are, found welded to pre-determined conclusions based poorly on fact, or research.

Your comment is no different than many you have made in the past, and hopefully your efforts to personalize yet another discussion of history has gratified you once again, ironically, as you took the considerable time to interrupt a discussion on railroading to complain about interrupting a discussion on railroading

Your uncensored comment on another thread about me being your "arch-nemesis" certainly likewise had nothing to do with that thread, was purely a personal assault that had no place on these forums, but suggests the highly personalized nature of your attitude, and your enthusastic willingness to express it.

Unlike you, I don't call people names and use forums, as you have here, for purely personal purposes and to make a highly exaggerated point. I might call an opinion "dumb", or even "baloney" but unlike you, I'm not here to call people names. You apparently are. I did not initiate the comment about regulation. However, I did make a pointed comment about the historical inaccuracy of it. And history is important. Oddly, that might be a lesson of this thread as well, since these railroads rarely rose and fell without a regulatory angle. Indeed, if you will read the remark by another -- "1980-2000: De-regulation whacks the rate prop out from D&RGW's ability to compete for transcon traffic" -- you will see, but probably not understand, that industry expectations regarding rates after the Staggers Act relates directly to my comment. That is a key to the D&RG's circumstance, and understanding that is at a minimum a key for the historical context of the period.

But, then you couldn't make your highly personal point about your avowed "arch-nemesis" could you? Frankly, I think that's just weird for normal people to even think that way. I think forums would be best served if you kept your obviously deeply felt personal problems to yourself, and cease spreading them, now, to two different threads, well, three since you felt a "need" to start one with my name on it. Three threads? And I didn't offer anything to say about you on any of them? You are intentionally trying to create personal animosity here, and up until now, I haven't commented on your name-calling.

But look at your own comments on a recent steam thread someone tried to start. All sarcasm and off-topic remarks. The guys that wanted to discuss a nuclear locomotive gave up. Or the recent "CN wants Conductors to wave!" where you completely went off topic, the person who started the thead gave up, you started insulting all sorts of people who hadn't even posted on the thread, including me, and finally got the thread locked.

Since you are one of the people who often show up on threads only to make sarcastic remarks -- it amazes me how clever such people must think they are -- your feigned indignation on this thread rings quite hollow. So hollow in fact that you missed the fact that my comment related directly to what happened to the D&RG after 1980. Indeed, if and when you take the time to reflect on the original poster's comment, you will see that his contention that the inability to lower rates was the real problem shows up as utterly false when the D&RG finally had all the opportunity in the world to lower rates after 1980.

History is important. Your agendas aren't. I think that's why you often have trouble synthesizing coherent opinions from evidence made available to you: and I have always offered you the courtesy of facts, and citations, and statements relating to them. Courtesies you never acknowledge nor reciprocate. And other than your intemperate outburst here, distracting from a conversation about railroads, my comments here were directed to a specific remark, included citations, and was, in fact, about railroading, and the specific historical expectation regarding deregulation and how it backfired on railroads like the D&RG, and nearly everyone else as well. 

My recommendation to you is: keep it about railroading.

 

      And now you've had your say on the issue as well.  Most posters on this forum will be able to make up their minds about my and your attitudes and behavior over the long haul.  If anyone wishes, he or she may certainly PM me, if I am out of line.

     Now kindly move along....shoo....shoo...

Why PM when one can call you out on your own thread?  I agree with Michael.  His comment is in line with the subject matter, perhaps a bit hardball, so what?  Your comment on the other hand is purely vidictive, totally off topic.

You need to get real.  My two cents.

 

Now, play nice before someone gets a whippin'........

[MichaelSol]

     Now kindly move along....shoo....shoo...

Wow, name calling, moving threads around, not understanding relevant content, disrupting yet another thread for your own reasons, ordering people what to post and where to post ... you're getting quite an attitude these days. This is the third thread in a row that you've brought your personal agendas to. How about this: mind your own business, and let people who wish to discuss railroading do so without your personal problems getting in the way.

[Murphy Siding]

"General" Palmer (I stand corrected I just remembered it was a high military rank) certainly knew how to sell the big idea, just like PT Barnum did when you think about it the two were not that very different.

I've always found it fascinating, how seems like there was always someone willing to invest with people promoting big schemes.  When you think about how many fortunes were made and lost, just in the railroading business, you wonder how new investors were found.

[Murphy Siding]

deleted by the author, to keep the peace.

[vsmith]

Colonel Palmer, as he was known, was a visionary alright, his "vision" was a railway that would extended from Denver, south into New Mexico and eventually to the silver mines of northern Mexico and eventually all the way to Mexico City, and westward thru the gold fields of the rockies to Utah and eventually to the Pacific. Making Denver the Chicago of the west capitalizing on mining, agriculture and transcon shipping traffic from the entire southwest. Didnt quite pan out, that initial vision never got much farther than the gold fields of the nearby rockies but it was certainly a "visionary" dream.

It's very hard to discriminate between what Palmer said and what he believed.  Were his schemes visionary?  Or merely clever marketing schemes to separate British investors from their money?  There's an interesting (and very rare) set of volumes entitled "Early Financing of the Denver & Rio Grande" that argues that the organization was about 98% a real-estate development plan and 2% a railroad.  There is much evidence that Palmer was a front man for the real players who remained out of the limelight.  The visionary schemes of Mexico evaporated from the promotional efforts once the railroad reached the land grants of southern Colorado and the San Luis Valley that the promoters controlled, and the Pacific Coast schemes never seemed more than token and half-hearted, designed merely to attract the small and naiive investor who expected ANY railroad west of the Mississippi to have Pacific plans in its portfolio.

From a logical point of view the Palmer projection to Mexico City was just two points on a map with a thick line drawn between them.  There was no traffic moving that way nor any solid expectation there ever would be.  One suspects Palmer selected Mexico City simply because it was a place investors might have heard of -- it "looked" like a destination.  Imagine a prospectus that said "we intend to build to a mining town that doesn't yet exist, in a range that we haven't been to."

(Usually Palmer was referred to as "General".)

RWM 

"General" Palmer (I stand corrected I just remembered it was a high military rank) certainly knew how to sell the big idea, just like PT Barnum did when you think about it the two were not that very different.

[MichaelSol]

With all due respect that I'm able to muster, would you mind doing the rest of us a favor, and taking this somewhere else?  I realize, that you feel you must refute anything you disagree with.  On the surface, there's nothing wrong with that, as that's the nature of a message board forum.  Where I do find fault, is in your predictable need to *joust* with the same people over and over. 

Actually, it's the ideas that I find offensive, perpetrated everywhere, that misrepresents history in the guise of personal agendas. I agree, the original comment about regulation was completely off topic on this thread, but there it was, and of course, you had no problem with it until I commented on it because it was a grevious mistatement of historical fact. Where I "find fault", is your predictable need to make it personal when you, as you often are, found welded to pre-determined conclusions based poorly on fact, or research.

Your comment is no different than many you have made in the past, and hopefully your efforts to personalize yet another discussion of history has gratified you once again, ironically, as you took the considerable time to interrupt a discussion on railroading to complain about interrupting a discussion on railroading

Your uncensored comment on another thread about me being your "arch-nemesis" certainly likewise had nothing to do with that thread, was purely a personal assault that had no place on these forums, but suggests the highly personalized nature of your attitude, and your enthusastic willingness to express it.

Unlike you, I don't call people names and use forums, as you have here, for purely personal purposes and to make a highly exaggerated point. I might call an opinion "dumb", or even "baloney" but unlike you, I'm not here to call people names. You apparently are. I did not initiate the comment about regulation. However, I did make a pointed comment about the historical inaccuracy of it. And history is important. Oddly, that might be a lesson of this thread as well, since these railroads rarely rose and fell without a regulatory angle. Indeed, if you will read the remark by another -- "1980-2000: De-regulation whacks the rate prop out from D&RGW's ability to compete for transcon traffic" -- you will see, but probably not understand, that industry expectations regarding rates after the Staggers Act relates directly to my comment. That is a key to the D&RG's circumstance, and understanding that is at a minimum a key for the historical context of the period.

But, then you couldn't make your highly personal point about your avowed "arch-nemesis" could you? Frankly, I think that's just weird for normal people to even think that way. I think forums would be best served if you kept your obviously deeply felt personal problems to yourself, and cease spreading them, now, to two different threads, well, three since you felt a "need" to start one with my name on it. Three threads? And I didn't offer anything to say about you on any of them? You are intentionally trying to create personal animosity here, and up until now, I haven't commented on your name-calling.

But look at your own comments on a recent steam thread someone tried to start. All sarcasm and off-topic remarks. The guys that wanted to discuss a nuclear locomotive gave up. Or the recent "CN wants Conductors to wave!" where you completely went off topic, the person who started the thead gave up, you started insulting all sorts of people who hadn't even posted on the thread, including me, and finally got the thread locked.

Since you are one of the people who often show up on threads only to make sarcastic remarks -- it amazes me how clever such people must think they are -- your feigned indignation on this thread rings quite hollow. So hollow in fact that you missed the fact that my comment related directly to what happened to the D&RG after 1980. Indeed, if and when you take the time to reflect on the original poster's comment, you will see that his contention that the inability to lower rates was the real problem shows up as utterly false when the D&RG finally had all the opportunity in the world to lower rates after 1980.

History is important. Your agendas aren't. I think that's why you often have trouble synthesizing coherent opinions from evidence made available to you: and I have always offered you the courtesy of facts, and citations, and statements relating to them. Courtesies you never acknowledge nor reciprocate. And other than your intemperate outburst here, distracting from a conversation about railroads, my comments here were directed to a specific remark, included citations, and was, in fact, about railroading, and the specific historical expectation regarding deregulation and how it backfired on railroads like the D&RG, and nearly everyone else as well. 

My recommendation to you is: keep it about railroading.

 

[gabe]

The "visionary" wasn't that great a businessman (and was a worse engineer). The folks he surrounded himself with rescued him more than once, but still couldn't save him. One of those people started a competing railroad 15 years after displacing the visionary and pulling the railroad back from the brink.

I wholly agree that Palmer was all legend and little substance, but he still manages to fool people today.

RWM

Awesome . . . there is still hope for me.

Gabe

[nanaimo73]

From the limited amount of reading I have done on the D&RG, it would seem a major turning point took place in 1878, when the AT&SF won control of Raton Pass. I believe this turned the D&RG westward into the Rockies, while the ATSF continued on to the coast.

Would anyone care to speculate what would have happened if the D&RG had been the victor at Raton? I'd guess the D&RG would not have aimed for California, while the ATSF would have found a differnt route. 

[Murphy Siding]

...............and the Pacific Coast schemes never seemed more than token and half-hearted, designed merely to attract the small and naiive investor who expected ANY railroad west of the Mississippi to have Pacific plans in its portfolio.

RWM 

  Wasn't that more or less what they aimed at later, when hooking up with line to Salt Lake City, and later yet, with WP?

[Murphy Siding]

Deleted by the author, to keep the peace.

[Railway Man]

Colonel Palmer, as he was known, was a visionary alright, his "vision" was a railway that would extended from Denver, south into New Mexico and eventually to the silver mines of northern Mexico and eventually all the way to Mexico City, and westward thru the gold fields of the rockies to Utah and eventually to the Pacific. Making Denver the Chicago of the west capitalizing on mining, agriculture and transcon shipping traffic from the entire southwest. Didnt quite pan out, that initial vision never got much farther than the gold fields of the nearby rockies but it was certainly a "visionary" dream.

It's very hard to discriminate between what Palmer said and what he believed.  Were his schemes visionary?  Or merely clever marketing schemes to separate British investors from their money?  There's an interesting (and very rare) set of volumes entitled "Early Financing of the Denver & Rio Grande" that argues that the organization was about 98% a real-estate development plan and 2% a railroad.  There is much evidence that Palmer was a front man for the real players who remained out of the limelight.  The visionary schemes of Mexico evaporated from the promotional efforts once the railroad reached the land grants of southern Colorado and the San Luis Valley that the promoters controlled, and the Pacific Coast schemes never seemed more than token and half-hearted, designed merely to attract the small and naiive investor who expected ANY railroad west of the Mississippi to have Pacific plans in its portfolio.

From a logical point of view the Palmer projection to Mexico City was just two points on a map with a thick line drawn between them.  There was no traffic moving that way nor any solid expectation there ever would be.  One suspects Palmer selected Mexico City simply because it was a place investors might have heard of -- it "looked" like a destination.  Imagine a prospectus that said "we intend to build to a mining town that doesn't yet exist, in a range that we haven't been to."

(Usually Palmer was referred to as "General".)

RWM 

[vsmith]

William Jackson Palmer, promoter and president of the D&RG.  Began his railroading career at the PRR where he rose to secretary to J. Edgar Thomson.  Purchased a colonel's commission in the Union Army and was field-promoted to Brigadier, enabling to adopt the title General Palmer. Post war became a locating engineer after a fashion for the Kansas Pacific.  Incorporated the D&RG in 1870 but soon chased out by the bondholders, whereupon he became president of the then-independent Utah side of the railway, the Denver & Rio Grande Western (later Rio Grande Western).  Left railroading in 1901.  Also founded Colorado Coal & Iron Company, the west's first successful steel maker and a major coal mining concern, which later became CF&I Steel, and is now Rocky Mountain Rolling Mills.  CF&I was funded by John Rockefeller.

RWM

Excellent summaries RWM

Colonel Palmer, as he was known, was a visionary alright, his "vision" was a railway that would extended from Denver, south into New Mexico and eventually to the silver mines of northern Mexico and eventually all the way to Mexico City, and westward thru the gold fields of the rockies to Utah and eventually to the Pacific. Making Denver the Chicago of the west capitalizing on mining, agriculture and transcon shipping traffic from the entire southwest. Didnt quite pan out, that initial vision never got much farther than the gold fields of the nearby rockies but it was certainly a "visionary" dream.

[SALfan]

What a great thread!  Succinct and incisive analysis by knowledgeable people, tied closely enough to the real world that I can understand most of it.  I wish the contributors to this thread would collaborate on a  "business history" or "history from a business perspective" on a couple of my favorite railroads.  Thanks, folks.

[Murphy Siding]

The "visionary" wasn't that great a businessman (and was a worse engineer). The folks he surrounded himself with rescued him more than once, but still couldn't save him. One of those people started a competing railroad 15 years after displacing the visionary and pulling the railroad back from the brink.

I wholly agree that Palmer was all legend and little substance, but he still manages to fool people today.

RWM

That's sort of the Liberty Valance approach to history that's all around us.  When the legend becomes the truth, print the legend.

[MichaelSol]

The signficant fights the railroads had with the regulators were not about raising rail rates, they were about lowering rail rates. 

Baloney. This is historically, absolutely, factually, wrong, and, notwithstanding isolated instances of the circumstance, it reflects neither historical experience nor the attitude of the industry. This is historical revisionism at its worst.

Prior to the enactment of the ICC Act, railroad rates were plummeting as a result of competition. Historian Gabriel Kolko, among others, has thoroughly documented the proposition that railroad rate regulation was the result of the railroads themselves attempting to mitigate the effects of true competition which was putting unacceptable downward pressure -- to fat cats desiring to remain fat -- on rail rates. The rail industry acted in concert to stop that process and to force rates to rise by political fiat, notwithstanding economic trends in the opposite direction -- the normal result of a successful Capitalistic system. It was a raw exercise of political power to exempt the rail industry from the usual rules of economics. It enabled and perpetuated an attitude of entitled inefficiency that served the industry poorly when confronted by changes in the modern world, for which the industry has continued to blame: the modern world. The attitude has plagued the industry ever since.

That never changed. Even though railroad rates were at an all time high, railroads wanted them to go even higher and the primary impetus behind the Staggers Act was the perception, and the avowed complaint, that the ICC was not allowing sufficient increases in rail rates. There is abundant testimony in the record to this effect. The railroads wanted to raise rates, and fully intended to do so when deregulated. When rates were deregulated two things happened: railroad rates plummeted, just as they had been doing prior to the enactment of the original ICC Act, and truckers increased their share of the market -- neither of which had been anticipated by the rail industry.

 

[greyhounds]

The counter-argument was that minimum-rate regulation preserved rail service to small shippers, remote areas, and small towns, and redressed the balance of power between urban and rural.  As that is first an ideological statement and only by its method of execution a seeming economic position it is not my perogative to declare it good or bad.  At a minimum it rather depended on who you were or where your interests lay, and if one's vision of a America was through a Jacksonian lens it seemed quite proper. 

As we know the formula exploded with the advent of trucks, autos, and paved roads, and given a choice between nationalizing railroads and immense subsidies to preserve a modicum of rail service to rural areas and their small shippers, or loss of service to rural areas and small shippers, Congress chose the latter.

RWM

Well, we both agree that the system quit working when trucks became viable.  One major problem of regulation was that it didn't change with the new technolgy.

I do disagree that rural areas and small shippers have lost rail service.  Small shippers use rail via 3rd parties, such as UPS.  Some of the rail functions have shifted to trucks, but the small guys can still use rail when it makes economic sense.  Grain still moves out by rail, again with a shift of some functions to truck.  The rail gathering system is naturally different when the grain is loaded into a semi in the field than it was when the grain was hauled by a team and wagon.

The minimum rate regulation had its foundation in the concept that one person should pay more so than another person could pay less.  That gives the person paying less a "claim" on the earnings of another person.  Jackson certainly felt he had a "claim" on the earnings of his slaves, but I don't know if he would have extended the thought beyond that.  (bad enough as it was.)

Anyway, we seem to agree that the regulatory system fell apart with the advent of trucks.

[Railway Man]

If two or more railroads served a route, they often didn't do so with similar costs. So where to set the common, regulated rate?  Did the regulators set it to allow the low cost carrier to make what they considered to be a "reasonable" profit.  If they did that, then the higher cost carrier would fail financially. So trying to be the wise men they weren't, they kept the rates at a level so a high cost carrier like the DRGW could possibly earn a buck.

This obviously ill served the public by keeping rail rates higher than they would have been absent regulation. 

The counter-argument was that minimum-rate regulation preserved rail service to small shippers, remote areas, and small towns, and redressed the balance of power between urban and rural.  As that is first an ideological statement and only by its method of execution a seeming economic position it is not my perogative to declare it good or bad.  At a minimum it rather depended on who you were or where your interests lay, and if one's vision of a America was through a Jacksonian lens it seemed quite proper. 

As we know the formula exploded with the advent of trucks, autos, and paved roads, and given a choice between nationalizing railroads and immense subsidies to preserve a modicum of rail service to rural areas and their small shippers, or loss of service to rural areas and small shippers, Congress chose the latter.

RWM

[greyhounds]

 

Some points to consider:

1.  Had the U.S. never regulated railroads, most of the D&RGW would have been abandoned during the Great Depression.  It would never have been rebuilt by the MoPac in the 1920s, and that rebuild breathed life into a corpse.

RWM

One of the many problems of regulation was the "Strong Road/Weak Road" delima.

If two or more railroads served a route, they often didn't do so with similar costs. So where to set the common, regulated rate?  Did the regulators set it to allow the low cost carrier to make what they considered to be a "reasonable" profit.  If they did that, then the higher cost carrier would fail financially. So trying to be the wise men they weren't, they kept the rates at a level so a high cost carrier like the DRGW could possibly earn a buck.

This obviously ill served the public by keeping rail rates higher than they would have been absent regulation.  Despite this hampering of the US economy the system kind of "worked" until truck competition developed.  Then it began to hurt all railroads by artificially holding (through government fiat) rail rates high and limiting the railroads ability to compete with the truckers.

The signficant fights the railroads had with the regulators were not about raising rail rates, they were about lowering rail rates.  Can you imagine any logic that propted a government economic regulatory agency to order prices to be kept high?  Such was economic regulation of rail rates.

With the reduction of economic regulation the DRGW has assumed its rightful place in the US economy, as determined by a bumpy ride into a market driven world.

[Railway Man]

William Jackson Palmer, promoter and president of the D&RG.  Began his railroading career at the PRR where he rose to secretary to J. Edgar Thomson.  Purchased a colonel's commission in the Union Army and was field-promoted to Brigadier, enabling to adopt the title General Palmer. Post war became a locating engineer after a fashion for the Kansas Pacific.  Incorporated the D&RG in 1870 but soon chased out by the bondholders, whereupon he became president of the then-independent Utah side of the railway, the Denver & Rio Grande Western (later Rio Grande Western).  Left railroading in 1901.  Also founded Colorado Coal & Iron Company, the west's first successful steel maker and a major coal mining concern, which later became CF&I Steel, and is now Rocky Mountain Rolling Mills.  CF&I was funded by John Rockefeller.

RWM

[Murphy Siding]

     I'm lost.  Who is/was Palmer?

[Railway Man]

The "visionary" wasn't that great a businessman (and was a worse engineer). The folks he surrounded himself with rescued him more than once, but still couldn't save him. One of those people started a competing railroad 15 years after displacing the visionary and pulling the railroad back from the brink.

I wholly agree that Palmer was all legend and little substance, but he still manages to fool people today.

RWM

[mudchicken]

The "visionary" wasn't that great a businessman (and was a worse engineer). The folks he surrounded himself with rescued him more than once, but still couldn't save him. One of those people started a competing railroad 15 years after displacing the visionary and pulling the railroad back from the brink.

[Murphy Siding]

 

Stage 1, 1870-1890:  Development railroad built opportunistically at very low cost to capture very high-rated traffic, with virtually no effort at permanence.  Management, clear-eyed about the potential of the road, refrain from wasting the money on fool's errands like building to the Pacific.  Real-estate and land development/mineral development programs run in parallel reward the developers richly.

Stage 2, 1890-1910:  Very high positive cash flow, particularly from coal, enables a second set of owners to finance ventures such as WP, many of which were indistinguishable from bear runs on the stock value of established competitors.  D&SL built in parallel with no apparent rationale other than a bear run both on Rio Grande and the UP.

RWM

  Why was there a second set of owners, when it appears the first set were doing pretty good by themselves?

[Railway Man]

(1) Good people ... loyal to a fault.

(2) This railroad could adapt & change where others could not. It handled adversity well.

(3) Hodge-podge - NO..Survivor -YES.

     What was there, that made their people loyal, when so many weren't?  Today, most consider DRG as something of an underdog.  Did the railroad feel that way?

The railroad was small enough that Mr. Holtman knew practically everyone by first name, small enough that managers could grasp its instant situation at a glance, small enough that competing views of its future were at a minimum; small enough that everyone knew that if they didn't care and didn't work hard they would soon be out of a job; big enough that it mattered to the states and the shippers; big enough to command enough resources to tackle monumental jobs like the Thistle Mudslide with elan and speed; big enough to make competitors wary; big enough to be a career springboard for those with big ambitions; big enough to make the homeguard satisfied with their workday.  It was the right size for its time and its territory

RWM