schlimmNot so fast. The precise treatment of the land grant parcel sales by the SP to settlers is disputed among historians.
OK,who are these historians that dispute the SP's treatment of land grant parcels? I'm more than willing to read what they say. If you'll just be good enough to point them out and direct me to their writings.
schlimmNorris wrote a novel which was based on many interviews of the farmers who were at the center of the land controversy. Those were first hand accounts and oral history and interviews are the basis of much of our knowledge of the past.
I'm sorry. He did the interviews 20 years after the fact. Stories grow and get embellished over time. And which stories he used and which stories he ignored we'll never know.
The Octopus is a work of fiction and should be seen in that context.
greyhoundsEverybody just remember, it's fiction. Norris may have talked to a few locals, but he wrote fiction. For example, Norris turned the railroad's land sale policy on its head to make up his story. It was SP's policy to sell the land as soon as possible to people who would live on the land and work it for agricultural production. They did not want large, absentee land owners. They wanted stable communities whoes people had an ownership stake in the development of the community. SP was not about to give the land away. But they priced it to sell. Norris has the railroad holding on to land in order to get a better price for the land. This is the exact opposite of what acctually happened. The railroad was interested in making money from hauling the production of the land and the supplies to the producers. Making the maxium money from land sales was not their policy.
Not so fast. The precise treatment of the land grant parcel sales by the SP to settlers is disputed among historians. To baldly make your pronouncement above as gospel (on the basis of your reading of one rather one-sided revisionist history based on SP archives) is misleading at best. As I said before, Norris wrote a novel which was based on many interviews of the farmers who were at the center of the land controversy. Those were first hand accounts and oral history and interviews are the basis of much of our knowledge of the past. To smugly dismiss it as mere fiction (as though it were of the same ilk as some fantasy or dimestore novel) reveals your lack of understanding of literature, as well as the historiography of the period.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
UlrichDon't knock fiction. Upton Sinclair's fiction brought about changes in the meat packing industry. Jack London, George Orwell and others also wrote powerful fact based fiction that was intended to bring about social change. And you would probably prefer Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" over her protege's hugely boring tome on the merits of Objectivism.
Nope, I never finished Ms. Rand's Atlas Shrugged. I had/have no interest in even starting "The Fountainhead". I found Tom Clancy's early novels interesting and entertaining. But aside from that I read very little, if any, fiction. I find reality much more interesting.
I have nothing against fiction. Whatever floats your boat. The problem I see comes about when people start treating fiction as actual historical fact. That certainly has been done with "The Octopus". It seems "The Jungle" by Sinclair, another work of fiction, is also questionable as to its accuracy. The authors were: 1) out to sell books and, 2) out to promote a political point of view. (at least in Sinclair's case.) Those two things in a work of fiction can produce a distorted picture of reality.
Just keep that in mind.
Don't knock fiction. Upton Sinclair's fiction brought about changes in the meat packing industry. Jack London, George Orwell and others also wrote powerful fact based fiction that was intended to bring about social change. And you would probably prefer Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" over her protege's hugely boring tome on the merits of Objectivism.
UlrichI'm going to read it again too. I read it back when I was 19 years old.
Everybody just remember, it's fiction. Norris may have talked to a few locals, but he wrote fiction.
For example, Norris turned the railroad's land sale policy on its head to make up his story. It was SP's policy to sell the land as soon as possible to people who would live on the land and work it for agricultural production. They did not want large, absentee land owners. They wanted stable communities whoes people had an ownership stake in the development of the community.
SP was not about to give the land away. But they priced it to sell. Norris has the railroad holding on to land in order to get a better price for the land. This is the exact opposite of what acctually happened.
The railroad was interested in making money from hauling the production of the land and the supplies to the producers. Making the maxium money from land sales was not their policy.
The Octopus is a work of fiction and should be treated as such. Disclosure: I have not read The Octopus and I do not intend to. I don't read much fiction.
No, Larry, I did not have a transistor radio (they had not been invented yet); I had a radio that I had put together, primarily from military surplus parts, and used a pillow speaker. It was was too big to take under the covers. Except for the rectifier (5 volt filament or mercury vapor tube), the tubes had 6 volt heaters.
Johnny
Broadcasting stations - there were a few (and probably still are, although fewer people listen to AM, what with niche FM, satellite, and Internet) that were well known as "clear channel" stations - they owned the frequency pretty much nationwide. WLS (Chicago), WBZ (Boston), CKLW (Windsor, ON), KOMA (OKC), and plenty more - all could be heard for huge distances at night. It was something of a game to hide under the covers with your transistor radio and see who you could hear. If it was a Top 40 station it was interesting to see what was on their playlist vs what was playing locally.
I'm sure most have seen the multi-antenna arrays (three in a row, a square, etc). Those were required for smaller AM stations to "shape" their signal to a target area. Oftimes you could listen to the local station during the day, but if you were in the wrong area, you could not hear that same station at night... Turn down the transmit power and switch in the full array at sundown...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
I'm going to read it again too. I read it back when I was 19 years old. Norris may have had his biases, and I'm sure there were good people with the railroad. But railroads and big business in particular were fairly recent developments in 1880, and there were few laws to govern behavior (and consequently few laws that could be broken). It was possible for large companies (who often had the local elected representatives in their pockets), to run roughshod over the interests of common people. Apparently that's what happened in California. Since then laws as well as checks and balances have been developed to prevent this from happening again. Nevertheless large corporations still push the envelope in terms of skirting tax laws and walking that very thin line between tax minimization and downright tax evasion. Now imagine if we had no laws at all.
A. You people certainly interfere in my life; here I am, re-reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and you induce me to re-read The Octopus . The blurb on the front cover of Bantam edition that I have reads, "A monument in the course of realistic writing in America, THE OCTOPUS is a vivid picture of the struggles of California's wheat farmers against the encroaching railroad, their only road to the market" On the back cover, we find the following, "Etched in sharp, pitiless detail, here is the Nineteeth Century's historic clash between the men who grew the wheat that made America rich and strong. and the ruthless, power-hungry railroads, thrusting their steel tentacles relentlessly across the fertile California valleys. Frank Norris's THE OCTOPUS is America's first big novel of social protest, a milestone in modern realism."
B. As to broadcasting stations, AM stations were limited to 50,000 watts of radiated power.
I grew up 50 miles south of Charlotte, N.C., and we listened to the CBS station (50,000 watts) there, quite clearly. For a time, I went to sleep listening to WWL in New Orleans--and woke up to a station in Kannapolis, which is about 30 miles north of Charlotte--the same frequency. Many local, lower-powered stations broadcast during the day only, on the same frequencies used by more powerful stations far away.
greyhoundsI'd like to see a source for this writing. I'd also like to see some specifics regarding the "manifold sins and transgressions of the railroad", which the writer leaves unspecified. I do not claim that the SP was run by a bunch of little angles. But here they've been pronounced guilty with no specific charges. There are two sides to a story and unless we know what is being charged it is impossible to understand what really happened. What, specifically, did they do and when did they do it? I've seen too many cases where a legitimate, honest, normal business practice has been vilified because people either don't like the result or don't understand what is being done and/or why it is being done. In making charges such as these, there need to be some specifics.
Sorry it was a summary review of his book, putting it in the context. I neglected the link. It is a balanced review, taking into account the previous research. I am trying to get a link to a long review in a a scholarly history journal through a friend. I have not read the book, but it seems that its author made a career of a revisionist aprroach to looking at the SP, with some acceptance and success. However, his research was conducted by examining the SP archives, not through first-hand accounts of the people involved in the Mussel Slough incident.
This summary was written by a historian, for readers (mostly other historians) already familiar with the historiography on the topic. I or you would have to do a lot of reading of journals and monographs and some books to look at that.
For the purposes of the discussion I brought up SP and Frank Norris's book to show that perhaps events leading up to Mussel Slough served as a catalyst for change i.e in more economic regulations, antitrust laws, curtailment of monopolies, and even in the formation of the ICC.
One version of the Mussel Slough story was that the SP was clearing the squatters to allow the people who actually pay for the land to move in. Another side of the story is that the farmers' crops wouldn't be worth much without transportation to a market.
FWIW, I did read "The Octopus" as part of the Califonia History course at UC Berkeley.
UlrichPaul_D_North_Jr Ulrich [snipped; emphasis added - PDN.] Some time ago I read "The Octopus" by Frank Norris. . . . The premise of the book was a railroad (the Southern Pacific but not named as such in the book) that was using its monopoly to drive the farmers in central CA out of business. . . . Illogical and counterintuitive - instead, carry that premise to its conclusion: If the SP had succeeded in driving the farmers out of business - then what traffic would be left for SP to carry from there ? What would it gain from that ? A lot of track and railroad, but no traffic ? "Charging all the traffic would bear" I can believe - that's still with us today (see above). There's an important difference between maximizing profit, and going too far and losing it entirely. But not putting a whole class of shippers in a region - the SP's customers - out of business. That just makes no sense from a business perspective. The SP's management - the successors to the "Big Four" - was too smart to make that kind of a mistake. Would any of us do such a thing ? - Paul North. Well, no. Charging what the traffic will bear generally doesn't lead to a bloodbath like Mussel Slough. There would have to be a little more to the story don't you think? It was a land dispute between the farmers and the SP which led to the conflict known famously as Mussel Slough. I don't think SP was opposed to farmers or food or the cultivation of the land... SP disputed the value and ownership of the land and wanted those who were (in its estimation) squatters off of it. You've really got to read the book as a paragraph or two here doesn't do this important event in American history justice.
Ulrich [snipped; emphasis added - PDN.] Some time ago I read "The Octopus" by Frank Norris. . . . The premise of the book was a railroad (the Southern Pacific but not named as such in the book) that was using its monopoly to drive the farmers in central CA out of business. . . . Illogical and counterintuitive - instead, carry that premise to its conclusion: If the SP had succeeded in driving the farmers out of business - then what traffic would be left for SP to carry from there ? What would it gain from that ? A lot of track and railroad, but no traffic ? "Charging all the traffic would bear" I can believe - that's still with us today (see above). There's an important difference between maximizing profit, and going too far and losing it entirely. But not putting a whole class of shippers in a region - the SP's customers - out of business. That just makes no sense from a business perspective. The SP's management - the successors to the "Big Four" - was too smart to make that kind of a mistake. Would any of us do such a thing ? - Paul North.
Ulrich [snipped; emphasis added - PDN.] Some time ago I read "The Octopus" by Frank Norris. . . . The premise of the book was a railroad (the Southern Pacific but not named as such in the book) that was using its monopoly to drive the farmers in central CA out of business. . . .
Illogical and counterintuitive - instead, carry that premise to its conclusion: If the SP had succeeded in driving the farmers out of business - then what traffic would be left for SP to carry from there ? What would it gain from that ? A lot of track and railroad, but no traffic ?
"Charging all the traffic would bear" I can believe - that's still with us today (see above). There's an important difference between maximizing profit, and going too far and losing it entirely. But not putting a whole class of shippers in a region - the SP's customers - out of business. That just makes no sense from a business perspective. The SP's management - the successors to the "Big Four" - was too smart to make that kind of a mistake. Would any of us do such a thing ?
- Paul North.
Well, no. Charging what the traffic will bear generally doesn't lead to a bloodbath like Mussel Slough. There would have to be a little more to the story don't you think? It was a land dispute between the farmers and the SP which led to the conflict known famously as Mussel Slough. I don't think SP was opposed to farmers or food or the cultivation of the land... SP disputed the value and ownership of the land and wanted those who were (in its estimation) squatters off of it. You've really got to read the book as a paragraph or two here doesn't do this important event in American history justice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mussel_Slough_Tragedy
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Paul_D_North_Jr Ulrich [snipped; emphasis added - PDN.] Some time ago I read "The Octopus" by Frank Norris. . . . The premise of the book was a railroad (the Southern Pacific but not named as such in the book) that was using its monopoly to drive the farmers in central CA out of business. . . . Illogical and counterintuitive - instead, carry that premise to its conclusion: If the SP had succeeded in driving the farmers out of business - then what traffic would be left for SP to carry from there ? What would it gain from that ? A lot of track and railroad, but no traffic ? "Charging all the traffic would bear" I can believe - that's still with us today (see above). There's an important difference between maximizing profit, and going too far and losing it entirely. But not putting a whole class of shippers in a region - the SP's customers - out of business. That just makes no sense from a business perspective. The SP's management - the successors to the "Big Four" - was too smart to make that kind of a mistake. Would any of us do such a thing ? - Paul North.
When the FCC was formed in 1934, radio stations were interfering with other radio stations signals. Regulation by the FCC was both to serve the public AND to protect the radio stations signals. Radio stations in Denver, Louisville, Fort Worth, and Minneapolis all were broadcasting on a frequency very close to each other on the AM band. The FCC regulated the signal patterns so that these stations so that these stations could conduct their broadcasts without interference. These radio stations could not have conducted business without FCC regulation because the listeners would not have tolerated interference from out of town radio stations.
The United States has opted for the private sector in broadcasting unlike most of the rest of the world. THe British created the BBC as a government entity which allowed no competition with it until the 1970's. Since the airwaves belong to the public in the United States; The FCC regulations serve both the public and the companies that want to serve the public, or at least they are supposed to. Today communications are far different than when the telephone industry was deregulated in 1983. It was a world without home computers and cell phones.
Ok AT&T aka Ma Bell was loath to service rural areas and such there are a number of small phone co-ops and companies out there. Did the State PUCOs and the FCC had to make sure that the small towns got service even at a loss??From what I know we had Chatuaqua Phone Company out at my cottage in the 1980s in Mayville NY.
schlimmOnly on occasion does Orsi directly challenge any of the numerous allemgations that have been leveled against the Southern Pacific throughout its very controversial history. Indeed, most of the manifold sins and transgressions of the railroad are too well documented to be refuted. Accordingly, Orsi’s revisionism depends much more heavily on balancing the books rather than purging the debit side of the historical ledger.
I'd like to see a source for this writing.
I'd also like to see some specifics regarding the "manifold sins and transgressions of the railroad", which the writer leaves unspecified.
I do not claim that the SP was run by a bunch of little angles. But here they've been pronounced guilty with no specific charges. There are two sides to a story and unless we know what is being charged it is impossible to understand what really happened. What, specifically, did they do and when did they do it?
I've seen too many cases where a legitimate, honest, normal business practice has been vilified because people either don't like the result or don't understand what is being done and/or why it is being done.
In making charges such as these, there need to be some specifics.
Just as an addendum to Greyhound's post discussing Ramsey pricing, another factor influencing higher freight rates for high valued items is that unfortunate item known as Freight Claims. Whether by petty theft or complete destruction in a derailment, that hypothetical business of carloads of Swiss watches has the potential to cost the railroad a lot more than carloads of grain or coal.
I have no idea if there is any attempt to adjust freight rates for intermodal to accommodate differences; most likely it is just assumed that most of that traffic tends to the higher end of the value spectrum.
John
greyhounds Ulrich Some time ago I read "The Octopus" by Frank Norris. It's an American classic set in 1880's California. The premise of the book was a railroad (the Southern Pacific but not named as such in the book) that was using its monopoly to drive the farmers in central CA out of business. The book was fictional but based on actual events. I'm not sure if these events had anything to do with subsequent economic regulation or the formation of the ICC. It's work of fiction that stands reality on its head. Norris wrote a sensational novel with the railroad as the vilain. It may have been good fiction but it was not good history. Unfortunately, people continue to treat it as a history text instead of what it is. It is sensationalized fiction. See "Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West, 1850-1930" by Richard Orsi for a historian's account. Orsi's (a PhD historian retired from Cal State Hayward) history differs greatly from the fiction of Norris.
Ulrich Some time ago I read "The Octopus" by Frank Norris. It's an American classic set in 1880's California. The premise of the book was a railroad (the Southern Pacific but not named as such in the book) that was using its monopoly to drive the farmers in central CA out of business. The book was fictional but based on actual events. I'm not sure if these events had anything to do with subsequent economic regulation or the formation of the ICC.
Some time ago I read "The Octopus" by Frank Norris. It's an American classic set in 1880's California. The premise of the book was a railroad (the Southern Pacific but not named as such in the book) that was using its monopoly to drive the farmers in central CA out of business. The book was fictional but based on actual events. I'm not sure if these events had anything to do with subsequent economic regulation or the formation of the ICC.
It's work of fiction that stands reality on its head. Norris wrote a sensational novel with the railroad as the vilain. It may have been good fiction but it was not good history.
Unfortunately, people continue to treat it as a history text instead of what it is. It is sensationalized fiction.
See "Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West, 1850-1930" by Richard Orsi for a historian's account.
Orsi's (a PhD historian retired from Cal State Hayward) history differs greatly from the fiction of Norris.
Yes, The Octopus is fiction, but Norris was able to interview many farmers who were impacted. The novel is based on the actual Muscle Slough tragedy. It has more to do with real estate than railroad operations. Although Norris was a so-called muckraker, to dismiss him is foolish. Orsi is a revisionist, and makes a useful contribution. But even in favorable reviews in journals, it is clear he was unable to show the octopus is just a nasty myth:
"It has been a long time coming. Beginning in 1975, Orsi, a professor of history at California State University, East Bay, and a longtime editor of California History, began a prolonged assault on what he calls the “Octopus Myth,” the anti-corporate Progressive Era paradigm that dominated both popular and scholarly interpretations of Southern Pacific history for most of the twentieth century. Following the influential leads of novelist Frank Norris and the early historian Matthew Josephson, the great majority of railroad commentators have invariably condemned the Southern Pacific as a grasping “Octopus” and vilified its owners, the so-called Big Four, as diabolical “Robber Barons.”
Although the much-maligned Big Four have always managed to attract their share of admirers and defenders, none have proven more dedicated or persuasive than Orsi. In a series of trenchant articles and a pair of chapters in his hugely successful California history textbook, The Elusive Eden (first edition, 1988), Orsi has persistently and tirelessly built up the pro-railroad case he now presents fully for the first time in Sunset Limited.
Significantly, however, while he consistently refers to the “Octopus Myth,” it remains clear to any careful reader that the Octopus was, in fact, no myth after all, despite Orsi’s obvious exasperation with that still popular perception. Only on occasion does Orsi directly challenge any of the numerous allegations that have been leveled against the Southern Pacific throughout its very controversial history. Indeed, most of the manifold sins and transgressions of the railroad are too well documented to be refuted. Accordingly, Orsi’s revisionism depends much more heavily on balancing the books rather than purging the debit side of the historical ledger.
Conceding or simply ignoring most of the points scored by previous critics, Orsi’s innovative approach is to leave old arguments behind and to explore new, and more positive, ground."
schlimm greyhounds The railroads did, and do, practice Ramsey pricing. So? That's the way organizations with a declining average cost struture, such as railroads, have to price in order to remain financially viable. A lot of laymen and legislators didn't understand such pricing. For those who wish to learn more: http://www.clt.astate.edu/crbrown/ramsey.htm
greyhounds The railroads did, and do, practice Ramsey pricing. So? That's the way organizations with a declining average cost struture, such as railroads, have to price in order to remain financially viable. A lot of laymen and legislators didn't understand such pricing.
For those who wish to learn more: http://www.clt.astate.edu/crbrown/ramsey.htm
Thank you for the link. There are many ways to explain things and this link is a good primer.
I'd like to add some things.
The link's author says that this type of government price control was used for regulated industries. He gives that "Value of Service/Commodity" system used by the Interstate Commerce Commission as an example.
I'll state that it is the cost structure of the organization, not its regulatory status, that determines the use of Ramsey pricing. I think the author is conflating the "Natural Monopoly" type cost structure (which railroads have) with regulatory status. He seems to assume that all firms with such cost structures will be declared natural monopolies and regulated as such.
The governments sure tried to do this with railroads. The failure of such regulation was spectaculor. Railroads may be natural monopolies in cost structure, but they can't be granted monopoly status by law or regulation. They cannot be granted exemption from competiton based on a geographic service area. They are always in some sort of competitive situation. It is impossible to geographically isolate a railroad as can be done with such things as the distribution of electricity.
The author cites higher rates on high value goods shiped by rail as an example. This was possible before the advent of motor freight competition. A high freight rate had minimal effect on high value goods, such as watches. It accounted for a very small amout of the final price per watch to the consumer. The railroads could charge a high rate for moving the watches because the effects on the demand for transportation of watches was minimally effected by such a rate. (That is: the transportation of watches as relatively inelastic. Watch shipments were not all that sensative to freight rates.)
Conversely, the railroads could not charge high rates for the movement of low value commodities, such as wheat. Transportation costs represented a very significant portion of the delivered cost of wheat. A freight charge that would have little, if any, effect on watches could preclude or cripple wheat shipments. Wheat transportation was much more elastic (price sensative) that watch transportation.
The railroads had figured this out an adopted a Ramsey pricing system well before regulation. It was benificial to the nation's economy. It allowed both the watches and the wheat to move in commerce while also allowing the railroads to be financially successful and grow.
When regulation came about the regulators adopted the exiting rail pricing system. What else could they do? There was not, and is not, any other system that can work. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the lawyers and (generally unqualified) bureacrats who did the regulation failed to grasp the reasoning behind the pricing structure. It was all based to the various relative elasticities for the transportation of the various products/commodities. The regulators enshrined the "Rate Structure" in terms of legal precedents, not in terms of economic reality.
They followed these legal precedents to the end. They failed miserably to understand that the relative elasticities could, and did, change. In particular, the advent of motor freight in the 1920's changed the elasticities but not the legal precidents. Time after time, the regulators rulled that the railroads could not lower their rates on high valued products to levels that were competitive with motor freight.
This lead to more diversion of freight and revenue to trucking than would have otherwise been the case and eventually took a good part of railroading into insolvancy. It also precluded the configuation of our national logistics system into its most efficient structure. This hurt the economy and the people.
In addition to slavisly following the value of commodity system to disaster, the government simply denied the very existance of another form of valid rate differentiation. Some locations have natural, undeniable, cost advantages when it comes to transportation. An ocean port has more competitive options (resulting in lower charges) than an inland city. The freight to/from the port was much more price sensitive (eleastic) than freight to an inland location. When the railroads tried to price in accordance with this reality laymen and legistators went nuts.
The laymen and legislators sought to "Substitute mileposts for brains." They basically outlawed this reality. This too was enforced by the regulators to the end.
jeffhergert (Quote from Paul North) As one example of the weakness of the cartel as a result of the above: At one time there were 7 railroads from Chicago to Omaha - I believe it was Hilton who pointed that out. Most were built as business nuisances, to force another railroad to buy them out at a premium price, lest the competition undermine said other railroad's pricing power. ----- As late as 1980 there were 7 railroads operating between Chicago and Council Bluffs/Omaha: CNW, BN, RI, MILW, ICG, NW and MP. If one counts when the MP started acquiring control of the C&EI in the 1960s, for a short time there would've been 8. The 8th being the CGW which went into the CNW in 1968. I think the real reason for some of the railroads building to CB/Omaha was to tap the bridge traffic to and from the UP. For a while before it was outlawed, the various railroads agreed to pool that traffic. To this day, there is still a yard in the UP's original CB complex called the "pool yard." They still refer to a couple of tracks by the railroad (Q and Rock) that the specific tracks were used for. Today there are 4: UP, BNSF, CN, and IAIS. Jeff
(Quote from Paul North) As one example of the weakness of the cartel as a result of the above: At one time there were 7 railroads from Chicago to Omaha - I believe it was Hilton who pointed that out. Most were built as business nuisances, to force another railroad to buy them out at a premium price, lest the competition undermine said other railroad's pricing power.
-----
As late as 1980 there were 7 railroads operating between Chicago and Council Bluffs/Omaha: CNW, BN, RI, MILW, ICG, NW and MP. If one counts when the MP started acquiring control of the C&EI in the 1960s, for a short time there would've been 8. The 8th being the CGW which went into the CNW in 1968.
I think the real reason for some of the railroads building to CB/Omaha was to tap the bridge traffic to and from the UP. For a while before it was outlawed, the various railroads agreed to pool that traffic. To this day, there is still a yard in the UP's original CB complex called the "pool yard." They still refer to a couple of tracks by the railroad (Q and Rock) that the specific tracks were used for.
Today there are 4: UP, BNSF, CN, and IAIS.
Jeff
Thanks, Jeff - that's exactly what I had in mind. I'd left the 'pool' part out, too, but your description reads better and brings it more to life than even Hilton's.
trackrat888Just between New York City and Buffalo we had the New York Central,Erie,Lackawanna,Pennsy(on a round about way),B&O(Also on a round about way) and the Lehigh Valley, Plus 2 Interurban Lines and the Erie Canal
Can't forget the West Shore...
http://www.fcc.gov/what-we-do
Just between New York City and Buffalo we had the New York Central,Erie,Laccawanna,Pennsy(on a round about way),B&O(Also on a round about way) and the Lehigh Valley, Plus 2 Interurban Lines and the Erie Canal
jeffhergertI think the real reason for some of the railroads building to CB/Omaha was to tap the bridge traffic to and from the UP
I've read that was the main reason Gould built the Wabash line from Bement to Chicago to compete with Burlington for UP bridge traffic from Omaha to points east.
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