Am I the only one whose heard the reason Lincoln approved the land grants for the original transcon was because he was afraid that California felt isolated from the rest of the country and perhaps they would take advantage of the chaos of the Civil War to become an indepent nation.
I also heard this about Canada's first transcon. There were those in British Columbia who wanted to go it alone as a country or join the United States.
Reality TV is to reality, what Professional Wrestling is to Professional Brain Surgery.
DeggestyICLandThey did exactly what you would expect when the Government hands out free assets to people who didn't earn it in the first place as part of that era's version of a "stimulus package." So, you do acknowledge that it was the cupidity of the contractors and financiers, and not the grants themselves, that contributed to the panic. The grants were morally neutral; the contractors and financiers, in themselves, were culpable.
ICLandThey did exactly what you would expect when the Government hands out free assets to people who didn't earn it in the first place as part of that era's version of a "stimulus package."
So, you do acknowledge that it was the cupidity of the contractors and financiers, and not the grants themselves, that contributed to the panic. The grants were morally neutral; the contractors and financiers, in themselves, were culpable.
A rock is "morally neutral." A "land grant" however comes out of a legislative process. What's "morally neutral" about that? Are you suggesting all laws are "morally neutral"?
Land grants were ultimately created -- "granted" -- by people who accepted bribes to create them, to favor people who offered bribes. Land grants were corrupt at the outset. There was nothing "morally neutral" about any of it. They were created to be an instrument of corruption.
What's your point? That government projects handing out free money are inherently corruptible? Land grants prove it.
I think it takes a certain amount of moral naivete to suggest that a purely government device invented to transfer money and assets from public to private pockets on the most massive scale in American history, conceived in bribery, was somehow supposed to be the Virgin Mary of financial transactions and just got "messed up" along the way.
I am still waiting, though, for your explanation of why "responsible" people didn't flock to this project, and why they never seem to in huge government subsidy projects or a reference I can look up to an episode where that happened.
A 'historical question', for whatever it will add to or subtract from ICLand's thesis above that land grants either caused or were an indicator of financial shenanigans by the involved railroads: Did the Central Pacific and/ or its successor, the Southern Pacific, ever go through the bankruptcy wringer from the time of the Golden Spike in 1869 to 1900 or so ?
Historical fact, in the same vein: The PRR was entirely privately / self-financed - and even bailed out the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's money-losing investment in a lengthy cross-state predecessor canal and inclined-plane railroad operation - but the PRR never went through a bankruptcy. It was only after the PRR had been merged with the New York Central and New Haven into Penn Central that the then-largest corporate bankruptcy occurred . . .
Trivia, apropos of nothing important: Mount St. Helens was a land grant that was mostly still owned by Burlington Northern when it blew up in May 1980 . . .
- Paul North.
Paul_D_North_JrA 'historical question', for whatever it will add to or subtract from ICLand's thesis above that land grants either caused or were an indicator of financial shenanigans by the involved railroads: Did the Central Pacific and/ or its successor, the Southern Pacific, ever go through the bankruptcy wringer from the time of the Golden Spike in 1869 to 1900 or so ?
Johnny
ButchKnouseAm I the only one whose heard the reason Lincoln approved the land grants for the original transcon was because he was afraid that California felt isolated from the rest of the country and perhaps they would take advantage of the chaos of the Civil War to become an indepent nation. I also heard this about Canada's first transcon. There were those in British Columbia who wanted to go it alone as a country or join the United States.
As to the construction of the CP, this is well-documented in Canadian history--the people in what we know as British Columbia felt that if they were to be a part of what we now know as Canada they must have better communication and transportation than was in existence before the railroad was built.
DeggestyPaul_D_North_JrA 'historical question', for whatever it will add to or subtract from ICLand's thesis above that land grants either caused or were an indicator of financial shenanigans by the involved railroads: Did the Central Pacific and/ or its successor, the Southern Pacific, ever go through the bankruptcy wringer from the time of the Golden Spike in 1869 to 1900 or so ?Thnak you, Paul, for pointing out that not everyone connected with the construction of railroads that benefitted greatly from land grants was avaricious. I have said what I have to say on the matter.
Thnak you, Paul, for pointing out that not everyone connected with the construction of railroads that benefitted greatly from land grants was avaricious. I have said what I have to say on the matter.
"The Central Pacific Railroad and the Railroad Land Grant Controversy," Heywood Fleisig, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Sep., 1975), pp. 552-566: "My conclusion is obtained by showing that the rate of return excluding land grants was sufficient to have induced construction at a maximum rate of speed, implying that the entire land grant was an excessive subsidy -what a reasonable man might reasonably term a "giveaway.""
The CP was one that would have made it without the subsidy. But what the heck, when the Government is just handing it out, why not be avaricious too!
ICLandThe Central Pacific Railroad and the Railroad Land Grant Controversy, Heywood Fleisig, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Sep., 1975), pp. 552-566:"My conclusion is obtained by showing that the rate of return excluding land grants was sufficient to have induced construction at a maximum rate of speed, implying that the entire land grant was an excessive subsidy -what a reasonable man might reasonably term a "giveaway.""
The Central Pacific Railroad and the Railroad Land Grant Controversy, Heywood Fleisig, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Sep., 1975), pp. 552-566:
"My conclusion is obtained by showing that the rate of return excluding land grants was sufficient to have induced construction at a maximum rate of speed, implying that the entire land grant was an excessive subsidy -what a reasonable man might reasonably term a "giveaway.""
The unanswered question from that retrospective conclusion is whether or not CP, UP, NP, etc would have even been chartered without the Land Grant incentives? The fact that the rate return without the grants was good was probably not evident to the owners prospectively. Your comments about legislative corruption may or may not be true, but you present it as if it were a settled matter, without any evidence.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
DeggestyButchKnouseAm I the only one whose heard the reason Lincoln approved the land grants for the original transcon was because he was afraid that California felt isolated from the rest of the country and perhaps they would take advantage of the chaos of the Civil War to become an indepent nation. Post Script: Butch, I had the impression that what you stated about the construction of the railroad to California was known by all who are well-informed about the construction. However, it does seem that this fact is not as well-known as I had thought.
ButchKnouseAm I the only one whose heard the reason Lincoln approved the land grants for the original transcon was because he was afraid that California felt isolated from the rest of the country and perhaps they would take advantage of the chaos of the Civil War to become an indepent nation.
I had noted "Manifest Destiny" early on as one of the driving forces of the land grant railroad effort. There were all sorts of motives. Motives had little to do with results.
However, my arguments were specific, and were pointing to the economic failure of the enterprise based on the economic results of building ahead of markets. And the markets could have given a d**** about what Lincoln was "afraid of"; and neither did the Bankruptcy courts.
Lincoln's opinion was interesting. It didn't change the economics of what actually happened.
schlimmYour comments about legislative corruption may or may not be true, but you present it as if it were a settled matter, without any evidence.
Your comments about legislative corruption may or may not be true, but you present it as if it were a settled matter, without any evidence.
I took the time to run a query through my search engine on published articles that contain the words: transcontinental, railroad, land grants, and corruption and came up with over 2,200 entries. There also appears to be a number of books published on exactly that topic and particularly in conjunction with the Union Pacific. This is to bring me up to date from what I remembered being taught, as a settled matter, well over 40 years ago. I reviewed four or five of the 2,200 professional journal entries and the matter does seem to still be settled.
However, I can see that, for a couple of posters, it is turning to "what they heard somewhere" being the ultimate definition of "well informed," and they must be it since they think they are.
I no doubt am not as well informed on this topic as I would perhaps like to be, and that goes for a lot of things that are, frankly, more interesting. So, in deference to what Mr. Lincoln "feared" as apparently becoming a new defining economic metric, and to those who are trying to turn this into a chest bumping contest, I will politely decline. I've spent too much time today looking things up only to be met with "oh yeah, what about ...?" retorts carrying the topic to some other topic. I can tell, this isn't a search for truth for some; this is a search for vindications of preconceived notions. Those are more important to some folks than anything else. However, there seems to be a considerable amount of good literature and research on the matter -- I found 30 linear feet on the shelf at the library on the matter today -- and that is no doubt the better reference of what was happening at the time than "what I heard," or the absorbed psychology of "Lincoln's fears" and I would encourage that avenue of education. It's undoubtedly a better approach for those truly interested than trying to mine accurate information out of an internet forum.
When I was young and vacationing in Cape Code, the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy were a major attraction at a local railroad and model railroad show. The movie they showed about abandoned rails inspired me to become a railroad historian by hobby. One thing that I did not understand about many of the Rails-to-Trails enthusiasts and activists is that they thought for sure their precious rail-trail would be a public bike and walking trail forever.
The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy recognizes the purpose of preserving these rail corridors for future use as rail corridors. The NIMBYs who don't recognize this are despicable people who seek only their own selfish desires to keep noisy trains out of their neighborhoods, and sadly many of these people do succeed when a rail corridor is denied re-activation.
One thing that is not really mentioned is the fact that many of the so-called NIMBYs are not really NIMBYs. They are the people who voluntarily converted a rail corridor to a trail and are having that trail taken from them and converted back to a rail corridor. This happens even though these people have invested uncountable hours and money into creating this trail that will be obliterated and turned back into a railroad. What of the people's volunteer efforts and raised funds for the trail?
The Crescent Trail here in Washington DC is one example of this.
IC Land: I do appreciate your investigation into the topic of land grants and I am not disputing what you refer to. However, I (and at least some , if not all the other posters) am not engaging in "chest bumping" nor do I particularly appreciate your condescending tone to those who do not totally agree with you. My only point here is that by looking only at economic metrics as an indication of the value to the US of the land grants, you commit the error of not looking at the entire picture. To do that, one must examine these other historical facts that you seem to be inclined to dismiss or at least overlook.
schlimmHowever, I (and at least some , if not all the other posters) am not engaging in "chest bumping" nor do I particularly appreciate your condescending tone to those who do not totally agree with you. My only point here is that by looking only at economic metrics as an indication of the value to the US of the land grants, you commit the error of not looking at the entire picture. To do that, one must examine these other historical facts that you seem to be inclined to dismiss or at least overlook.
However, I (and at least some , if not all the other posters) am not engaging in "chest bumping" nor do I particularly appreciate your condescending tone to those who do not totally agree with you. My only point here is that by looking only at economic metrics as an indication of the value to the US of the land grants, you commit the error of not looking at the entire picture. To do that, one must examine these other historical facts that you seem to be inclined to dismiss or at least overlook.
Well, that's a different discussion, but you could tell from the "condescending" remark that well, "well informed" people know all about land grants, including by a process of overhearing something that wasn't clearly identified. Sorry, I wasn't "well-informed" enough to talk about a completely different topic which the posters feel justifies the whole episode; but, it is right up there proclaiming the entire affair to be "morally neutral" when in fact, "well informed" historians appear to be unanimous that it was anything but morally neutral.
And that's what is passing for "well informed" discussion here. And whether or not I "commit the error" again of "confusing" a discussion of economic results with somebody's idea of original motive, as I mentioned people tend to "daisy chain" these things when they disagree with a point, but have nothing to refute it. This could daisy-chain over all of Western civilization and even back to Original Sin.
I could see that the bright idea of bringing up Lincoln's name was supposed to solve some riddle for somebody. Except that Lincoln didn't think of the idea of the transcontinental railroad, and the concept had nothing to do with the Civil War or California's alleged seccession. Lincoln's General, McClellan, had been on the Pacific Railroad Surveys long before the Civil War erupted, and long before Lincoln was president, for instance. The Railroad Surveys had been ordered by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis.
It is "an error to only look at economic metrics"? Well, that pretty much eliminates any measure of effect on the US economy doesn't it? Anything is OK, because it can, should be measured by someone's level of "fear" as a measure of value to the United States? Is that a serious proposition? Was it worth 40 years of deflation? What is worth regulation of railroads? Was it worth a century of economic wreckage in the rail industry? Since this was a railroad forum, I assumed that discussions aimed at railroads involved their history and economic health, not an assessment of "Lincoln's fears" and whether or not they were justified. I just don't see a point here in going off on the motives of a sitting president during a civil war in relation to the economic results of an operating economic enterprise.
If "Lincoln's fears" answers your questions, then so be it, and if you consider that to be what the poster declares as more "well informed," then so be it as well. It may well have been all that mattered, but it doesn't provide, then, any historical perspective on the likely outcomes of similar government funded projects in the 21st century. And if that wasn't the point, I apologize for missing the point entirely.
ICLand Bucyrus But even if HSR is not a part of railroading, the proponents of HSR including the FRA have made it clear that they intend for HSR to share the existing private corridors of the class-1 freight railroads. They say this will be necessary because wherever HSR wants to go, the freight railroads already have the most appropriate corridors to get there. Well, I am going to get sucked into this. To be truly HSR, l just don't see how it can overlay grade and curvature route structures developed for the most part for 19th century railroads. If proponents -- and I don't follow the literature on this -- really think that somehow that offers a "cheap" construction alternative all that they will get out of it is a "cheap" HSR that really can't perform as HSR and it proposes to foul up the current use of those corridors by the companies that actually are getting -- and maximizing -- the economic use and return from those corridors; sacrificing, I suppose, an economic positive in favor of a subsidized and likely money-losing proposition. That of course means that there are fewer private dollars available to support the public money drain, while increasing the public money drain. That process seems never-ending. That's my short thought on the whole idea and it no doubt fully qualifies as a "short thought." I now feel guilty that someone may have wasted part of their remaining days on this Earth reading it.
Bucyrus But even if HSR is not a part of railroading, the proponents of HSR including the FRA have made it clear that they intend for HSR to share the existing private corridors of the class-1 freight railroads. They say this will be necessary because wherever HSR wants to go, the freight railroads already have the most appropriate corridors to get there.
That's my short thought on the whole idea and it no doubt fully qualifies as a "short thought." I now feel guilty that someone may have wasted part of their remaining days on this Earth reading it.
It does seem to be shaping up that HSR being proposed in the U.S. will operate at a maximum speed that many would argue is below the proper maximum speed of HSR. The U.S. HSR seems happy to begin at around 100 mph or maybe a little faster. Perhaps the pioneering era corridors limit the top speed, or perhaps the cost is limiting the speed. The U.S. vision is for a nationwide system, and since it is a big nation, the magnitude of new HSR construction is very major. I submit that much of the pioneering corridors is straight, so that straight portion could accommodate full speed HSR despite being laid out 150 years ago.
Nevertheless, even with 100 mph passenger rail, I expect that adding it to the freight corridors will require easing curves, acquisition of land, drainage improvements, road and highway overpasses and underpasses, rearrangement of signaling, adjustments to the freight tracks, junctions with the freight tracks, revisions to grade crossing signaling, elimination of grade crossings, etc.
Incidentally, I don’t think that the use of the freight corridors is being advocated because it is the cheapest alternative so much as it is the only choice. For as grandiose as the HSR vision is, adding to it, the acquisition of brand new corridors would be a showstopper. When I read the FRA mission statement on this, it almost sounds like they feel there is a public entitlement to the use of the freight corridors for the greater good of society. Ultimately, HSR will require a greatly expanded and modernized power grid, which will also require new corridors that will face the same level of show stopping opposition as new HSR corridors would. Therefore, existing freight corridors are being considered for the location of new power lines for the same reasons they are being preferred for HSR.
Back to the issue of speed: Aside from the practical limitation on speed, there is a debate within the passenger rail advocacy over the speed limit. Since the main reason being put forth for HSR is to reduce the emission of CO2, some argue that the speed should be limited to 100 mph or less. Otherwise, a train operating at ultra high speed will defeat the purpose of passenger rail by emitting more CO2 per passenger than driving a car or flying in an airplane.
Well, I am sitting here drinking my coffee and trying to absorb some of the interesting stuff (to me!) that I ran across yesterday regarding land grant railroads and government rates, intending fully to get some work done. But your comment raises an interesting point to me when it comes to "planning" and a certain kind of schizophrenia that seems to be driving some of these projects.
You are right, trying to push a solid object, even streamlined, at ground level at high speeds is an enormously energy intensive proposition. If I am remembering the Davis Formula correctly, energy use (using pounds of resistance as the measure) if indexed with 10 mph being "1", works out like this, mph/index of energy used:
Let me expand that a little:
mph/energy use index
ICLand: My point was simply more to an evaluation of the contribution of land grant rails, especially the transcontinental, than only looking at the economic data of the RR. Any historian would suggest also looking at the benefits in developing those areas that were opened by the construction, among other things. I also suggested that those lines would not have been constructed without the grants. Your analysis does not disprove that. And to suggest that any eval that deviated from your path was delving into the mysteries of Lincoln's fears, etc. is either facetious or overlooking large fields in history besides and even within economic history.
schlimm And to suggest that any eval that deviated from your path was delving into the mysteries of Lincoln's fears, etc. is either facetious or overlooking large fields in history besides and even within economic history.
Well, the specific comment I responded to was: "Am I the only one whose heard the reason Lincoln approved the land grants for the original transcon was because he was afraid that California felt isolated from the rest of the country ...".
I don't know whether it was facetious or not as to an explanation of why Land Grant Transcontinental railroads, which were proposed well before Lincoln and the Civil War, were or were not an economic benefit to the country after they were built.
As I attempted to note, I have no idea what the comment was supposed to demonstrate except that it permitted another poster to finally exult because he found someone who was finally "well-informed about the construction. However, it does seem that this fact is not as well-known as I had thought."
It didn't "deviate" from "my path," since motive was not any of the point in my feeble attempt to discuss results. I doubt there is ever a single motive for the expenditure of huge government sums. In my experience many interest groups, with diverse motives, generate support for these kinds of initiatives. HSR may be a modern example. Which motive do you want to pick? Does it matter when it comes to examining the actual results? And that is not an effort to "overlook large fields of history," even though the remarks I had addressed seemed to think that Land Grant Railroads were Lincoln's idea, but I understand that the irony will be lost here in the search for "large fields of history."
Lincoln's alleged fears for the "feelings" of California were interesting, but they still have nothing to do with the economic damage done by the land grant experiment.
If there is a moral to the story of motive and results, it very well could be that the best motives in the world can still lead to economic ruin. The worst motives might also lead there. There was some considerable effort here to the tie the experiment to Lincoln, to the Union, to California's "feelings," and to "morally neutral" government actions. I don't fully know why since the motives weren't part of anything on the thread previously.
But, well, OK, let's say "yes" to all of the above.
What does that have to do with examining what actually happened as a result?
ICLand Let me expand that a little: mph/energy use index 10 150 14100 197150 358200 570250 832300 1143Kind of a "wow," set of numbers, but, the HSR would only have to carry 14 passengers to equal the energy efficiency of 14 people using their individual cars to travel 300 miles. A car and a trainset are a little bit of apples and oranges in this comparison, and so this is very, very rough, but I suppose there is a limited economic argument.
10 150 14100 197150 358200 570250 832300 1143Kind of a "wow," set of numbers, but, the HSR would only have to carry 14 passengers to equal the energy efficiency of 14 people using their individual cars to travel 300 miles. A car and a trainset are a little bit of apples and oranges in this comparison, and so this is very, very rough, but I suppose there is a limited economic argument.
I don’t understand how you arrived at that conclusion. Wouldn’t you need to calculate the energy needed to move the train carrying 14 people, and the energy needed to move 14 automobiles with one person in each?
Moreover, this contention that HSR will emit more CO2 than cars per passenger is predicated on true HSR running the maximum state-of-the-art speeds for such trains, say 250-300 mph or so, versus cars running the conventional highway speed limit. That is the reason for the agument to run HSR slower than the maximum.
But even if the train and the automobiles were both running say 60 mph, I cannot imagine how the train carrying 14 passengers with its gross weight of several hundred tons could possibly use less energy than 14 people each driving a 1.5-ton car. I realize that the train has less friction, but still.
schlimm ICLand: My point was simply more to an evaluation of the contribution of land grant rails, especially the transcontinental, than only looking at the economic data of the RR. Any historian would suggest also looking at the benefits in developing those areas that were opened by the construction, among other things.
ICLand: My point was simply more to an evaluation of the contribution of land grant rails, especially the transcontinental, than only looking at the economic data of the RR. Any historian would suggest also looking at the benefits in developing those areas that were opened by the construction, among other things.
And I attempted to note:
1) Very little development occurred in the areas opened by construction in part because the railroads themselves did surprisingly little to promote development. As one noted historian noted: "It remains a mystery why the transcontinentals took so long to sell their land." "Some Economic Issues Relating to Railroad Subsidies and the Evaluation of Land Grants," Stanley L. Engerman, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 32, No.2. (Jun., 1972). I understand that posters have argued that the construction efforts "opened" the country to something, I am just not sure what. While I have tried to offer substantiation as to why this does not appear true; I haven't seen any support for the alternative. I am getting the impression this is a one-way street argument.
2) The Land Grant process of alternating sections and the delay in "proving" delayed government sale of adjacent lands; delaying rather than promoting development.
3) The railroads sold their lands at lower prices than the mandated price for government lands; lowering in the market matrix the average value of the lands in general.
4) The railroads "opened up" production of minerals, lumber, wheat, corn, cattle, pigs and carried that production into markets that were suffering no shortages whatsoever. I tried to offer a detailed example of the effect that had on the general economy as commodity prices slumped over a fifty year period. What cost $1 in 1869, cost 68 cents in 1893. Farmers were not getting rich in 1869. The significant "opening" of new production in the West had a devastating effect on the economy. Western roads got into rate wars, not with each other, but with the general economic decline. Farmers kept demanding lower rates as their income from their wheat, corn, cows and pigs kept declining.
5) For both the railroads and the farmers, their mortgages were in constant dollars. If the East Broadtrack owed $100 million in bonds and $10 million a year in payments payable out of $20 million a year in income in 1869, it was in poor shape by 1893 when it still owed $100 million in debt, paying $10 million in interest payments, but was earning only $13 million in income because of the deflation. And the farmer was clamoring for relief from his mortgage because the railroad wasn't accepting a pro rata reduction in the farmer's rail rates because the railroad was trying to avoid its own bankruptcy.
6) The Grange became an aggressive force for railroad regulation. Do you think that would have happened if the markets for agricultural products had not been artificially oversupplied because of all the new territory "opened up"? I spent some time to offer a specific example as to how that happened. Where's the counter-argument? You're suggesting I am ignoring "something" here, but what is it? I can't keep offering example after example only to meet with the airy wave of the hand about the "bigger picture." What is the economic impact of the "bigger picture"?
7) I pointed out how the railroads were trying to carry freight at losses because they won't carry anything at all if they charged the fully compensatory rate. The big crack up is in 1893, up until then, the biggest depression in history. The largest companies going bankrupt were western Land Grant Railroads. One of them, for the second time.
8) The building of the transcontinental railroads required enormous sums of capital. Capital isn't just there at the turn of a financial spigot. There is only so much available to an economy. The railroad expansion was consuming up to 7% of the GDP; which is far higher than is typically absorbed or available for capital investment. This meant that other capital needs in the expanding American economy were bereft of that capital for years. Instead of capital being invested in productive -- money making -- endeavors and then reinvested, capital instead was losing money. This slowed the economy down and contributed to the deflation that continuously occurred until 1903.
9) As others, including Railway Man has pointed out, railroads did not build for "transcontinental" purposes. They still averaged line hauls of 120 and 150 miles. The fact that the Government in its wisdom decided to plunk down 2,000 miles of line in a couple of places did not change the nature of railroading. The only thing the 2,000 miles did was bring in those commodities from even further out than the markets for them could bear at a stable price. It maximized the damage, that was all.
10) The Upper Midwest is an example of the alternative and, rather than speculate, it shows exactly what "could" have happened. Railroads built west in 100 and 200 mile increments. Markets did develop that attracted railroads, rather than vice versa. The epic novels of the frontier, "Giants in the Earth," and "O Pioneers," both speak of immigrant farmer communities who were building out on the Great Plains ahead of railroad expansion and, at each 10 or 20 mile expansion of the agricultural frontier, their success justified the railroad coming soon behind, under financially justified circumstances, with private capital, generating positive returns, and producing America's strongest railroads. And when mining offered an economically viable connection, tracks were built to Homestake, to Deadwood. Hill built to Butte on the basis of a strength in mining and agriculture in northern Montana that dated back to steamboat days, not to the Northern Pacific.
11) I attempted to analyze one specifically identified benefit, "Reduced Rates" for government shipments, but the papers I could locate (which were consistent with what I recalled from old-timers) , did specifically nail down the fact that railroads were competing to handle government traffic, including virtually all of the railroads that had no obligation to do so, and I detailed an example of why they were.
Now, if you are suggesting that I have not tried to look at the "benefits" of the "developing areas" I don't know what else to look at. What else do you want?
Perhaps I can only suggest that you detail the specific benefits that you can identify in the fashion that I have tried to detail the economic harm, and then we can compare the measurable impact on the US economy, the effects of the severe depression, and the pressure to regulate railroads that the negatives had with those positive attributes that you believe offset those impacts. That's all I can suggest to your somewhat challenging remark.
You are free to make any suggestions you want, but I am pretty much doing all the work here. What do you see that contradicts or offsets what I have said, and how do you measure its impact?
BucyrusICLand Let me expand that a little: mph/energy use index 10 150 14100 197150 358200 570250 832300 1143Kind of a "wow," set of numbers, but, the HSR would only have to carry 14 passengers to equal the energy efficiency of 14 people using their individual cars to travel 300 miles. A car and a trainset are a little bit of apples and oranges in this comparison, and so this is very, very rough, but I suppose there is a limited economic argument. I don’t understand how you arrived at that conclusion. Wouldn’t you need to calculate the energy needed to move the train carrying 14 people, and the energy needed to move 14 automobiles with one person in each?
And I apologize, after I posted it, I thought, well this is not going to be crystal clear.
The car uses 14 units at 50 mph. The HSR uses 1143 units at 300 mph.
But, the car only covers 50 miles in an hour at 50 mph. To cover the same distance as the HVR, the car has to use 14 x 6, or 84 units of energy equivalents (which are not the same for each type of system) to cover the same distance as the HSR example.
So, in that instance, 14 cars with 14 people would use as much energy as one HSR trip carrying 14 people, each covering 300 miles; to the extent this relatively poor example compares a car and the HSR as equivalent users of energy; however the relationship is relatively accurate in terms of efficiency of use of energy; but they aren't directly comparable except in a broad, "it's all I've got right now," sense. The Davis formula is made for trains. Trying to extrapolate it down to a rubber tired equivalent weighing a couple of tons is not going to offer any engineering precision whatsoever.
Can we move this back to the original topic?
10000 feet and no dynamics? Today is going to be a good day ...
Look, I'm not going to obsess about this at the level of minutiae, where you seem to be missing the forest for the tress. Are you seriously telling anyone that the Western US (and ultimately the entire US) would be now or have been better off if there had been no Land Grants to stimulate railroad construction? That does seem to be the conclusion you are advancing from these economic histories written from a narrow perspective. If so, I am sorry and really do not wish to offend, but that is absurd.
ICLand Bucyrus ICLand Let me expand that a little: mph/energy use index 10 150 14100 197150 358200 570250 832300 1143Kind of a "wow," set of numbers, but, the HSR would only have to carry 14 passengers to equal the energy efficiency of 14 people using their individual cars to travel 300 miles. A car and a trainset are a little bit of apples and oranges in this comparison, and so this is very, very rough, but I suppose there is a limited economic argument. I don’t understand how you arrived at that conclusion. Wouldn’t you need to calculate the energy needed to move the train carrying 14 people, and the energy needed to move 14 automobiles with one person in each? And I apologize, after I posted it, I thought, well this is not going to be crystal clear. The car uses 14 units at 50 mph. The HSR uses 1143 units at 300 mph. But, the car only covers 50 miles in an hour at 50 mph. To cover the same distance as the HVR, the car has to use 14 x 6, or 84 units of energy equivalents (which are not the same for each type of system) to cover the same distance as the HSR example. So, in that instance, 14 cars with 14 people would use as much energy as one HSR trip carrying 14 people, each covering 300 miles; to the extent this relatively poor example compares a car and the HSR as equivalent users of energy; however the relationship is relatively accurate in terms of efficiency of use of energy; but they aren't directly comparable except in a broad, "it's all I've got right now," sense. The Davis formula is made for trains. Trying to extrapolate it down to a rubber tired equivalent weighing a couple of tons is not going to offer any engineering precision whatsoever.
Bucyrus ICLand Let me expand that a little: mph/energy use index 10 150 14100 197150 358200 570250 832300 1143Kind of a "wow," set of numbers, but, the HSR would only have to carry 14 passengers to equal the energy efficiency of 14 people using their individual cars to travel 300 miles. A car and a trainset are a little bit of apples and oranges in this comparison, and so this is very, very rough, but I suppose there is a limited economic argument. I don’t understand how you arrived at that conclusion. Wouldn’t you need to calculate the energy needed to move the train carrying 14 people, and the energy needed to move 14 automobiles with one person in each?
Okay, I understand that aspect of your calculation. The higher speed uses more energy than the lower speed, but the higher speed gets the job done faster, so you have to account for that higher productivity of the higher speed.
But, I further question your conclusion in this regard:
Your table compares energy consumed relative to speed of the vehicle. According to the table, any given vehicle uses 1143 times the energy to travel at 300 mph as it does to travel at 10 mph. All this does is show how energy use rises with speed for a given vehicle. However, I do not see how you can compare two different vehicles, which have vastly different weights and come to any conclusion about energy use comparison according to the table you have cited.
Look at it this way:
A 300-ton train uses 1143 times the energy to travel 300 mph as it does to travel 10 mph.
A 1.5-ton car uses 1143 times the energy to travel 300 mph as it does to travel at 10 mph.
But it does not follow that a 300-ton train uses 1143 times the energy to travel 300 mph as a 1.5-ton car uses to travel 10 mph.
schlimmLook, I'm not going to obsess about this at the level of minutiae, where you seem to be missing the forest for the tress. Are you seriously telling anyone that the Western US (and ultimately the entire US) would be now or have been better off if there had been no Land Grants to stimulate railroad construction? That does seem to be the conclusion you are advancing from these economic histories written from a narrow perspective. If so, I am sorry and really do not wish to offend, but that is absurd.
Now its all "minutiae"? Well, thank you very much.
Are you saying that railroads could have never developed without land grants?
There is a good historical discussion out there about the American "Frontier." Frederick Jackson Turner shows the progress of the Frontier across America, and it was a pretty steady advance from 1700 to 1840. Transportation was by roads, by canal, and by seagoing ships. Not much railroading. But the Frontier covered fully half of America without the benefit of railroading. After 1840, the rate of settlement increased, and that was undoubtedly due, perhaps even in large part, to the development of the rail system. At the same time, what had been called the "Great American Desert" was "greening up" due to increased rainfall. The Frontier followed that increase in precipitation. The corollary was so remarkable that a whole theory of agriculture believed that the precipitation was following the development of the Frontier.
Between 1840 and 1870 another approximate one-third of the nation was settled, as the Frontier continued to move West. At the same times, pockets of "Frontier" appeared along the West Coast, San Francisco, San Diego, Portland, Tacoma. Those Frontiers began to move East. This is why the Southern Pacific could develop a healthy railroad, and support its Central Pacific sister: it was following the Frontier east, and as the study I cited showed, the Frontier had extended far enough East from California that the CP as a Land Grant, was already redundant, just as the Illinois Central, as a Land Grant, was redundant to that need as soon as it was built.
So, the authentic Frontier as of 1870 was the one-fourth of the national geography between Omaha and Salt Lake City. About 750 miles.
You would have to postulate that, after 1870, no railroad would have been able to venture into that 750 miles? That the Frontier, which had done just fine in advancing without railroads, would suddenly grind to a halt? That increasing rainfall would not have provided the natural agricultural railroad expansion across the 400 or 500 miles where wheat was beginning to be grown in the Dakotas, Nebraska, Oklahoma? Just as railroads had expanded across almost exactly the same distance to obtain the agricultural bounty of Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri in the 10 year period before that, and duplicated that feat in the 10 years before that across virtually the same distances and for the same reasons as railroads expanded across Wisconsin and Illinois?
At the 1880s, that natural expansion, which presumably would have been driven by, not incidentally wreck, the natural markets that drove the earlier expansions, the railroads would have been at the foot of the Rockies. In fact, the Rock Island, the Burlington and the Milwaukee were doing just that. You are suggesting that railroads would have never bridged the final 300 miles without a full panoply of Land Grants?
And this is nothing speculative; that is exactly the rate of railroad expansion both east and west, and as the CP example shows, natural expansion of markets had already leapfrogged its need for any outside assistance. Just as the private roads had leapfrogged the IC to build west a mere 20 years earlier. This was all real, and it was happening quite quickly in the broad historical scheme of things.
In Oscar Winther's "Transportation in The Trans-Mississippi West," which is a book assigned in college in my transportation history classes, the pre-railroad era in that one-fourth of the nation that was left before railroads arrived was already productive country. The good lands had already been distributed by Spanish Land Grant, Crown Grant, and by general sales provisions available prior to the Homestead Act. The Missouri and Columbia Rivers were bustling commercial waterways. The military road system was being heavily used by commercial teamsters. Due to the Oregon Trail and the California Trail, the states served by those trails increased by 350,000 people between the 1860 and 1870 censuses. Myriad other roads were populating Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. These were not empty places waiting for railroads.
Why railroads, which had expanded over three-fourths of the country by more or less natural market forces, needed a "boost" across what in reality was the very short segment of country left of the steadily expanding Frontier is really a mystery. Given the natural expansion of railroads, the "normal" rate of expansion would have provided transcontinental railroads at private expense by 1890, which just about dates James J. Hill's adventure over a route that had little to gain from any of the pioneering transcontinentals. But, that IS when it made economic sense to do so, and he was able to do it because it could pay its own way.
I suppose Hill's wisdom could be seen as "absurd," but in fact he was right in time and right in place insofar as the natural expansion of the US rail system would have placed him. I think its "absurd," if you wish to throw strong words around, to speculate on why the expanding US Frontier would have suddenly stopped expanding, which is the only justification for what you propose. It had been a natural process and was proceeding quite rapidly; so much so that it leapfrogged the first big land grant project at the Illinois Central. Isn't there a moral there for what you suggest; this development would have, in fact, happened without massive government corruption and economic damage?
Indeed, the transcontinental railroad effort did more to hinder economic development overall than it did to help, and that is one of those zen things: because of the significant deflation that occurred during the 40 years after the Land Grants were made, the US economy underperformed itself significantly.
Hill had the right idea at the right time, and his success is indisputable.
That evidence suggests that the US economy may well have been considerably farther along had the nation followed his wisdom of what railroads are supposed to do, and what they can do when left alone.
BucyrusBut it does not follow that a 300-ton train uses 1143 times the energy to travel 300 mph as a 1.5-ton car uses to travel 10 mph.
You can't. I tried to say that; it is only a very broad analogy. These are indexed and each is indexed to its own weight and inherent fuel consumption. By and large, indexes cannot be compared to each other except in very broad terms; in this case the efficiency of energy use as the vehicle changes with speed. Both vehicles have relatively good efficiency at low speeds, and both are just awful at high speeds. That's a feature of speed, not the vehicle type. A car can't go very fast, so it retains a degree of relative efficiency. A HSR vehicle, to the extent that it is highly energy inefficient at the speeds it is designed to go, gains economic efficiency if it can obtain a ridership sufficient to overcome the inherent energy efficiency of slower speed modes. This is all compounded by cycle times because the car's slower speed adds a cycle time efficiency to the HSR's advantages.
But, you are exactly right, these are not measures of energy use; they are measures of the efficiency of energy use. Energy use is different for each vehicle type, and so the use x the efficiency would be getting closer to what you are looking for.
ICLand Deggesty Paul_D_North_Jr A 'historical question', for whatever it will add to or subtract from ICLand's thesis above that land grants either caused or were an indicator of financial shenanigans by the involved railroads: Did the Central Pacific and/ or its successor, the Southern Pacific, ever go through the bankruptcy wringer from the time of the Golden Spike in 1869 to 1900 or so ? Thnak you, Paul, for pointing out that not everyone connected with the construction of railroads that benefitted greatly from land grants was avaricious. I have said what I have to say on the matter. This is almost too good. The CP was the only one of the bunch that was associated with an existing, successful railroad: the Southern Pacific. Here's a recent economic study on the Central Pacific: "The Central Pacific Railroad and the Railroad Land Grant Controversy," Heywood Fleisig, The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 35, No. 3 (Sep., 1975), pp. 552-566: "My conclusion is obtained by showing that the rate of return excluding land grants was sufficient to have induced construction at a maximum rate of speed, implying that the entire land grant was an excessive subsidy -what a reasonable man might reasonably term a "giveaway."" The CP was one that would have made it without the subsidy. But what the heck, when the Government is just handing it out, why not be avaricious too!
Deggesty Paul_D_North_Jr A 'historical question', for whatever it will add to or subtract from ICLand's thesis above that land grants either caused or were an indicator of financial shenanigans by the involved railroads: Did the Central Pacific and/ or its successor, the Southern Pacific, ever go through the bankruptcy wringer from the time of the Golden Spike in 1869 to 1900 or so ? Thnak you, Paul, for pointing out that not everyone connected with the construction of railroads that benefitted greatly from land grants was avaricious. I have said what I have to say on the matter.
Paul_D_North_Jr A 'historical question', for whatever it will add to or subtract from ICLand's thesis above that land grants either caused or were an indicator of financial shenanigans by the involved railroads: Did the Central Pacific and/ or its successor, the Southern Pacific, ever go through the bankruptcy wringer from the time of the Golden Spike in 1869 to 1900 or so ?
Thanks, ICLand, for that research, the citation, and the informed and thoughtful reply.
In another, later post you said that there are 30 shelf-feet of books in your local library on the topic of land grant railroads, corruption, etc. I'm tempted to ask which library that is - not because I doubt you, which I don't - but because that seems to me to be an uncommonly large or comprehensive collection on that topic. In other words, it sounds as if they have an awful lot of railroad books !
That said, in my experience most books on the First Transcontinental Railroad are just 'pot-boilers', rehashes, and/ or coffee-table volumes, that merely parrot the conventional wisdom, myths and legends about the project. Rarely is there a fresh view or new facts, research, or insights presented that look beyond the superficial dates, personalities, and quantities. There's plenty enough drama and glory in just that alone, but a deeper exploration would be more satisfying and welcome to learn about.
By 1934, over 1.6 million homestead applications were processed and more than 270 million acres—10 percent of all U.S. lands—passed into the hands of individuals. From the National Archives.
Would this make the Homestead Act a subsidy as well?
ICLand Bucyrus But it does not follow that a 300-ton train uses 1143 times the energy to travel 300 mph as a 1.5-ton car uses to travel 10 mph. You can't. I tried to say that; it is only a very broad analogy. These are indexed and each is indexed to its own weight and inherent fuel consumption. By and large, indexes cannot be compared to each other except in very broad terms; in this case the efficiency of energy use as the vehicle changes with speed. Both vehicles have relatively good efficiency at low speeds, and both are just awful at high speeds. That's a feature of speed, not the vehicle type. A car can't go very fast, so it retains a degree of relative efficiency. A HSR vehicle, to the extent that it is highly energy inefficient at the speeds it is designed to go, gains economic efficiency if it can obtain a ridership sufficient to overcome the inherent energy efficiency of slower speed modes. This is all compounded by cycle times because the car's slower speed adds a cycle time efficiency to the HSR's advantages. But, you are exactly right, these are not measures of energy use; they are measures of the efficiency of energy use. Energy use is different for each vehicle type, and so the use x the efficiency would be getting closer to what you are looking for.
Bucyrus But it does not follow that a 300-ton train uses 1143 times the energy to travel 300 mph as a 1.5-ton car uses to travel 10 mph.
As you say, you need to factor actual energy used per mile in a train versus in a car on the highway. Without that information, there simply is no basis to determine, over a given distance, how many passengers an HSR train would need to carry in order to equal the efficiency of that same number of people using their individual cars on the highway. I don’t see how it even offers a broad analogy. The only thing that the table illustrates is the rapid increase in energy needed for increasing speed. But it offers no way to compare HSR to automobiles.
Bucyrus The only thing that the table illustrates is the rapid increase in energy needed for increasing speed. But it offers no way to compare HSR to automobiles.
Well, I think we beat that one to death.
Paul_D_North_JrIn another, later post you said that there are 30 shelf-feet of books in your local library on the topic of land grant railroads, corruption, etc. I'm tempted to ask which library that is - not because I doubt you, which I don't - but because that seems to me to be an uncommonly large or comprehensive collection on that topic. In other words, it sounds as if they have an awful lot of railroad books !
Not your basic "local library," but a Federal Depository Library. The ICC/STB portion alone occupies about 250 feet of shelf space. There seems to have been an explosion of studies about the land grants between 1912 and 1926, another explosion in the 1950s, and then another flurry of studies published in the early 1970s; this includes in addition to free-standing books on the topic, and bound theses, the hundreds of published scholarly papers. There's plenty to read!
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.