Facts and Figures Concerning the Hoosac Tunnel

by John J. Piper

Mr. Bird makes a calculation that the capacity of the Western Road can be so increased, by finishing the double track, increasing the rolling stock and adding special auxiliary force to draw its freight trains up the steep grades, that it can bring 1,797,120 tons of freight in a year. It may be presumed that he means both local and through freight. But his "calculation" is as baseless and flimsy as any of his numerous statistical bubbles which have already been pricked. The best answer to his whole argument is contained in a memorial of the Albany Board of Trade to our legislature, with some extracts from which, our review of this topic will be closed. But a few more of Mr. Bird's misrepresentations must first be exposed. On page 56 he represents Mr. Brooks as claiming that the whole through freight from the West to Boston eight years hence, will amount to 448,101 tons. This estimate was made three years ago, and the words "eight years hence" were used at that time, and not now, as Mr. Bird represents.

On page 50, is a list of names purporting to have been taken from the original subscription list of stockholders in the Troy and Greenfield Railroad. Mr. Otis Clapp is represented as having subscribed $200 in "services;" and Daniel S. Richardson's name is appended, with ciphers and exclamation points. The first of these misrepresentations has been exposed by Mr. Clapp, who writes to the Boston Advertiser that he never charged the company for any service, nor was ever credited by them for services, but that he did subscribe and pay $1151.43 for stock of the road. Mr. Richardson also writes to the Advertiser, and mildly suggests that he was never in any way connected with the Troy and Greenfield Railroad. On page 51, E. H. Derby is represented as being president of the Fitchburg Railroad a pure fabrication; and Alvah Crocker as having "large investments" in the same road, when its books show that at that time he owned but six shares of stock. The truth is, Mr. Bird has no hesitation or scruple in using other people's names in the same manner as he uses figures and statistics in his calculations.

Mr. Bird says lie never had any communication or correspondence with, and never received a dollar from, any person connected with the Western Railroad. That may be; but it is well known that Mr. D. L. Harris, president of the Connecticut River Railroad, has been for years the "fidus Achates" of Mr. Bird in "fighting the Tunnel," his colleague in the "Third House," his companion at the Hoosac Mountain, and the guide of his inexperienced feet in the wilderness of facts and speculations of civil engineering. It is not so well known, but nevertheless true, that Mr. Harris is made director and president of the Connecticut River Railroad by the influence and vote of Chester W. Chapin, president of the Western road. His zeal in the service of his benefactor has been manifested by an active hostility to the Tunnel, as persistent and unscrupulous as that of Mr. Bird; and, were it possible for that gentleman ever to act from other than disinterested motives, or a sense of public duty, his intimate relations with Mr. Harris might justify a suspicion that the "sinews of war" might be supplied through that channel. At all events, we may be permitted to say that, if these two men have organized and led the opposition to the Tunnel every winter for the last ten years, printed thousands and thousands of pamphlets, and spent a considerable part of each year in the lobby, and all this at their own cost, from a sense of public duty, then they have better deserved statues in front of the State House than Webster or Mann; and the Western Railroad management is even meaner than it has been generally considered. A corporation must indeed be without a soul, which can look upon such sublime virtue, and suffer it to pay its own expenses. But enough of Mr. Bird and his motives.

The statements we have made in regard to the necessity of a new route are, in every particular fully confirmed by a memorial which has been recently addressed to our Legislature from the Albany Board of Trade, through a committee of seven of their number, The gentlemen comprising this board are not theorists, but practical, clear-headed and reliable business men, who have been compelled by the urgent demands of yearly increasing business, to appeal to the people of Massachusetts for aid and relief.

From a table in their memorial, it appears, that, while the increase, during the last fifteen years, of miles of railroad in eleven other States through which Western products press to the seaboard, averaged 169 per cent, that of Massachusetts was only 26 per cent. But we proceed to quote from the memorial:

"Twelve years of experience have convinced us that the Western Railroad is wholly inadequate to the prompt, rapid and cheap transportation of the commodities so extensively consumed by the people of the New England States. To illustrate the diversion of trade from the natural route to Boston via Albany, occasioned by the incapacity of the Western road to meet the wants of commerce, we call your attention to the article of flour. We collate our facts from reports of the Boston Board of Trade arid the official reports of the Western Railroad. In 1865, the Western road, according to its own report, transported from Albany and Troy to Boston, one hundred and fifty thousand barrels less than it did in 1847, nearly twenty years ago. During the thirteen years, including 1848 and 1860, the average of its transportation of this article, per annum, between the Hudson and Boston was 287,698 barrels. For the same period, there were received in Boston, via other and more circuitous routes, an average per annum of 670,233 barrels. The next four years, including 1861 and 1864, the average per annum by the Western road was 572,637 barrels. Boston received from other routes an average, per annum for the same period, of 824,937 barrels.

Now, we hold that, by the natural laws of trade, most of this vast quantity of flour, which reaches Boston in these roundabout ways, would have left the Hudson river at Albany and Troy, had the requisite facilities for a cheap and rapid transportation been afforded. About one-fourth of the average quantity received in Boston from other routes, for the four years named above, reached that place via the Grand Trunk Railway and Portland, aggregating 956,945 barrels. Taking Detroit as the starting point, the distance from there to Boston via Portland, is 228 miles greater than the route to Boston via Albany. Yet, owing to the inadequate railroad facilities between Albany and Boston, the consignors of this flour prefer to send it via Portland, and pay the charges on 228 miles of additional distance. What is true of the article of flour is equally true of all the staple commodities produced at the West and consumed by the New England States. Large quantities were last year turned aside at Rochester and other points in our own State, to say nothing of points west of Buffalo, and sent to Boston and contiguous localities via the New York and Erie Railroad. Boston is even now receiving flour from Albany, Troy and Schenectady, by way of Rutland, a distance of some fifty miles further than by the Western road."

"We have no words but of commendation for the noble work which your State is pushing with such energy to open a still shorter route to the Hudson. We have no feelings of jealousy toward the new route, because it terminates in another city than Albany; a healthy rivalry will do more than moral suasion, to wake up the old route from that lethargy which seems so near akin to death. Had the Hoosac Tunnel been completed twelve years ago, we have reason to believe it probable that the people of Massachusetts alone would have saved an amount in the way of cheap transportation, nearly if not quite sufficient to equal its cost."

"We have spoken more freely in this paper than might be considered becoming in us, but for the fact that in the day of its need, Albany, along with Massachusetts, came to the aid of the Western Railroad. And now that we are suffering so much from its insufficiency to meet the public want, we trust the presentation of these views and facts will not be regarded as obtrusive, but rather as properly coming from those, who, with you, aided to produce a common benefit, and are now suffering with you from a common cause."