Priceless, absolutely priceless. Farmers vs. “The Railroad”

[Convicted One]

greyhounds

and charging lower rates than any other U.S. railroad?

 

The author's choice of words here seems a little odd.  If this was (as stated earlier in the account) America's first rail line, and among the first shipments on that line, then just how valid is a comparison to what "other US railroads" would have charged them?

[dakotafred]

Also, we're all more or less like former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver, who -- in one of my own favorite stories -- explained to an umpire one day, in the heat of their dispute: "All I want is my fair advantage!"

[Ulrich]

I would extend this observation from farmers to humankind in general. It's far easier to piss someone off than to make him happy. So in any venture get the most you can for yourself... the person you're dealing with is going to be unhappy anyway regardless of the outcome. 

[tree68]

Had B&O paid the farmers to take the selfsame flour off their hands (over the actual sale of the flour), the complaint would have been that it wasn't enough.

And that's not just limited to farmers...

[greyhounds]

First, let me start out by saying that some of my best freinds are farmers.  (and I hope none of them sees this.)

Many of us are familiar with the old joke about the Canadian prairie farmer who comes home to find his crops destroyed by hail, his barn burned to the ground, his beloved dog dead, and his wife run off with a traveling salesman.  The farmer takes this all in and then turns to the sky shaking his fist and says:  "GD that Canadian Pacific Railroad".

More recently, in the current Canadian farmer vs. railroad go 'round, I've heard that Canadian wheat is 13% protein and 87% politics.

It's generally the same down here in "The States".  I went to a small town high school that offered four years of Vocational Agriculture classes.  (I never took one.)  I reason that at least one semester was devoted to Complaining About Anything and Everything.

We've had some discussions on this forum about farmer vs. railroad.  After reading several of them I made up my own (very) lame joke.  It goes like this:  "When the first large commercial railroad in the US, the Baltimore and Ohio, was being built they initially opend service to Baltimore from 10 miles away.  A farmer took a bushel basket of potatoes to the train and shipped it in to Baltimore for sale.  When he got back home he immediately sat down and wrote his congressman complaining that the railroad charged too much and that congress should do something about it."

As it was it ever shall be.

But I wasn't too far off.  In another thread about books for railfans BaltACD recommended "The Great Road" about the building of the B&O.  It sounded interesting so I bought a used copy.  These guys had to invent about everything.  There was little, if any, prior experience.  They had to figure out how to locate a rail line, what type of rails to use (they tried stone), etc.

They also seem to have been involved in the first farmer vs railroad political fight.  

While locating their line they found that it would bypass the town of Frederick, MD.  Not to worry they told the people of Frederick, we'll build a branch line to your town.  And they did.  At considerable expense to the railroad.  I'll let the book's author take it from here:

"Flour, Frederick's, chief product, began to flow almost immediately.  Four thousand barrels were shipped by the B&O in an eleven-day period in January, 1832.  This represented a saving of $2,000 to the Frederick farmers, but they thought it was not enough and they appealed to the legislature for lower rates.  Thomas (a B&O honcho) exploded.  Was this the B&O's reward for spending $70,000 on the Frederick Branch and charging lower rates than any other U.S. railroad?  'The attack upon us from Frederick is amongst the most unkind returns for a benefit conferred that I have ever in my life witnessed.'"  (page 149)

Save them money and they complain that you should have saved them more money.  You can make this stuff up, but it's better to let reality tell its own story.