Our Railroads To-Morrow

by Edward Hungerford

So much then for our four regional railroads to lie north of the Potomac, west of the Hudson River and east of Buffalo, Pittsburg, and Wheeling. How about the region that lies immediately west of these three last important gateway cities? Shall we consider those great railroad States of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan (the lower peninsula), and Illinois as a great single non-competitive region, in full accord with the high theory of the regional plan? No, not if we have any real regard for the feelings of the residents of those four great States. A single railroad for those four States might be workable, but I doubt it. I even doubt if you could operate successfully either a single railroad for either Ohio or Indiana. Illinois we shall leave out of consideration for the moment, while Michigan would probably be pleased as Punch to have her beloved Michigan Central returned to her as her own regional railroad, with its eastern terminals, as of yore, at Buffalo and at Suspension Bridge and its chief western one at Chicago—a single, independent, autonomous railroad property with a genuine presidential headquarters at the very important city of Detroit.

It is south of Michigan that the problem complicates. And here it is that I can only see to-day, and for many many hundreds of days to come, the retention of a pretty generally competitive transport plan. Regions, yes, if we still like the sound of the word. But regions which interlace so that in reality the word becomes a good deal of a misnomer. The New York Central Lines West (formerly the Lake Shore, the Big Four, and the Pittsburg and Lake Erie and the Lake Erie and Western), reaching from the terminal of the parent property at Buffalo out to Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Pittsburg, would have a president and real headquarters at Cleveland; the Erie-Lackawanna West would consist of the Wabash (east of the Mississippi River), the Nickel Plate, the Erie (west of Jamestown), the Wheeling and Lake Erie, the Clover Leaf and the Bessemer and Lake Erie. The Pennsylvania Lines West would be virtually as they existed prior to the recent after-the-war reconsolidation, but with the addition of a needed feeder into Detroit; and finally the Baltimore and Ohio West would consist of its present property plus the Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Western, the Monon, and the Hocking Valley—all with headquarters at Cincinnati. That interesting little cross-country road of the interesting Henry Ford, the Detroit, Toledo, and Ironton, might easily fit into the westerly region of the Pennsylvania, while the Baltimore and Ohio would be given at least a trackage entrance into Detroit over the Père Marquette, so as to keep it on par with its three regional competitors. The rest of the Père Marquette would be merged into the embracing Michigan Central.

Just as this region, almost immediately east of the Mississippi River, bids fair to remain competitive for an indefinite time, so is the territory immediately west of that great stream also bound to remain competitive. Reserve the greater part of Illinois Central for future and separate consideration, and now come to that Middle West territory. Are we going to create simon-pure regions there and ignore the fine traditions of properties such as the Burlington, the Rock Island, and the Santa Fé? No, not if we have any real sort of wisdom. North of them the problem is far easier of solution. The Milwaukee will merge quite easily into the Northwestern; although to operate the combined properties through to the Pacific coast would require at least three separate regional organizations—the Northwestern, between Chicago and the Missouri River, the Montana Lines from there to Spokane, and the Puget Sound Lines from there to the actual shore of the Pacific. Into these almost purely regional systems would also be merged the Great Northern and the Northern Pacific. The Burlington’s line into the Twin Cities (St. Paul and Minneapolis) would cease to be. And in fairness to that road the Milwaukee’s lines to Omaha and Kansas City would be withdrawn from the new Northwestern combination and parceled out between Santa Fé, Rock Island, and Burlington. Into such parceling would also go the always perplexing Chicago Great Western and the extraneous arm of the Illinois Central between Chicago and Omaha, running at right angles to the main-stem of that important system and to a larger extent disassociated from it.

It might be found more practicable to bring Union Pacific directly into Chicago over the rails of one or the other of these last two properties (Union Pacific’s financial interest in Illinois Central already is a powerful one), although the Union Pacific’s operating heads would probably prefer one of the routes between Chicago and Omaha discarded by the larger Northwestern grouping; the present Milwaukee between those two cities is better built and so more easily operated than Illinois Central or Chicago Great Western. Union Pacific for a long time has felt that it has the same right as its chief transcontinental competitor, the Santa Fé, to a direct entrance into Chicago. In a way such as this it would be brought to a parity with the direct, although longer, southern route.

“But,” you interrupt, “how about Southern Pacific in such a case? It is also a pretty warm competitor of the Santa Fé.”

To bring both Santa Fé and Union Pacific into the Chicago gateway as transcontinental competitors and bar out Southern Pacific would be indeed grossly unfair. I have no intention of doing anything of the sort. Cross quickly with me from the Middle West territory to the lovely Pacific coast. Here again we think clearly in our own terms of purely regional railroads. Two of them would occupy the extreme coastal district all the way from the Mexican line to the Canadian. The most southernly of this twain is the Californian railroad, a fine, dignified name for a fine, dignified railroad extending well beyond the bounds of even the great Golden State, north to Medford, Oregon, and east to El Paso, to Albuquerque, to Salt Lake, and to Ogden. Within this huge and rather sparse territory—sparse as compared in a rail traffic sense with the territories west of the Mississippi River—we should have an absolutely non-competitive railroad, but under strict regulation operated for the greatest good of the greatest number. That has been done before in California; it is being done to-day and most successfully. The Southern Pacific is usually most responsive to its huge non-competitive territory. It gives to it in most cases an adequate service.

New England lends itself to the non-competitive and highly economical regional railroad. So does the west coast too, but because of its giant sweep we give this last seaboard two regions, the one to the north of the Californian railroad, the Puget Sound Lines, extending, as we have seen, north from Medford, and west from Spokane as well as south from Vancouver, British Columbia, and northwest from Ogden, Utah.

East of these two great railroads—and yet neither of them too intensive for successful management by a single executive head—are the Colorado Lines, embracing roughly the main mass of railroad trackage within the State and extending north to Cheyenne and west to Salt Lake, by way of the present lines of the Denver and Rio Grande as well as by the yet uncompleted Denver and Salt Lake. It is a far smaller region than the two we have just considered, yet a territory of a considerable traffic and, because of its location, necessitating the most intensive sort of operation.

Now we begin to get these roads running down into the immediate Southwest from Chicago and into their proper relationship—the Rock Island, with its lines from Chicago, St. Louis, and Memphis, coming together and reaching to El Paso and out to the Colorado Lines near the eastern Colorado border; the Santa Fé, taking the original Missouri Pacific between Kansas City and St. Louis for a much-needed entrance into the latter city and touching the Colorado Lines at La Junta and the Californian both at Albuquerque and at El Paso; the Burlington shorn of its Twin Cities line, but given either the Missouri Pacific west of Kansas City or the former Kansas Pacific (to-day a detached but well-built branch of the Union Pacific) or both and terminating both at the Colorado State line and, by the acquisition of the Kansas City, Mexico, and Orient and the building of a few hundred miles of railroad, with the Californian somewhere in the general neighborhood of Albuquerque.

Here is balance. Here is a fair adjustment between logical competitors, the retention of competition where it is not practicable to eliminate it, and its abolishment where it is feasible to uproot it and establish great operating economies in the wake of the change.