Facts and Figures Concerning the Hoosac Tunnel

by John J. Piper

We congratulate our New England neighbors, and, especially, the citizens of Boston, upon the improved prospect of the completion of the Hoosac Tunnel, and the opening of another great route to the West, through, instead of over the mountains which lie between them and us. We trust that the obstructions which have existed, and still exist, in the channels of commercial intercourse between New England and the West will speedily be removed, never again to be manifested in freight blockades or threatened diversions of trade."

The statements contained in these two articles are substantially true; and they are not only interesting, but important, as throwing much light upon a subject which will, doubtless, occupy much of the attention and time of the Legislature: for the Western Railroad managers have already opened their annual attack upon the Hoosac Tunnel, through their well known agents and tools, Bird, Harris and Seaver, who shamelessly advocate the entire abandonment by the State of an enterprise to the completion of which her word, and bond, and honor are irrevocably pledged.

The Western Railroad Company was organized in January, 1836, and its road was completed in 1847, having received aid from the State, during the period of its construction, to the amount of five millions of dollars. The terms upon which State aid was granted were very liberal, as they should have been; for the opening of this line of road had become as much a necessity to the development of the commercial and industrial interests of Massachusetts and the wants of her whole population, as the establishment of schools and churches had ever been to her moral or educational welfare. The involvement of the State in so great an enterprise was strenuously resisted by timid and narrow minded legislators; but the representations of those sagacious and far seeing men who had devoted themselves to the work, prevailed, and Massachusetts was, thus early in the history of railroads, committed to a policy which has, within a few years, not only trebled her productions and wealth, but made her the first and foremost of all her sister States which are honored for enterprise, prudence and wisdom. Many of the short sighted legislators, who voted against granting State aid to the Western Railroad Company are now living, but we doubt if one can be found who is not ashamed of his action.

The increase of business over the Western road since the first year of its operation, would seem incredible, were it not so thoroughly established by the figures of its early and later annual reports. Yet, with a double track nearly to Albany, and every means which ingenuity can devise, or money procure, at their command, its managers are unable to meet the demand upon it its capacity is nearly exhausted and was, long ago, so great is the pressure against our western border, from the overflowing granaries of the West. From a feeble association, begging for assistance at the doors of the State House, the Western Railroad Company has become a powerful corporation. Its certificates of stock, which, about the time the road went into operation, were a drug in the market at $40, now command $130 to $150. Yet it is a fact that on the first day of last November, five hundred car loads of freight were delayed at Albany, and could not be transported over the Western road in less time than ten days. And the inability of this road to meet our public needs, and the demands made upon it, from the West, is no new thing; it has been so, for years, though four competing lines have opened since 1850, which, together, transport about the same amount of through freight as the Western road. The bridge over the Hudson at Albany, the completion of the double track, and better management might afford a temporary and partial relief. But if these improvements had been already effected, they would not have prevented the freight blockade at Albany last fall.

Should our friend of the Salem Gazette, or any of the editors who quote Mr. F. W. Bird, and write short paragraphs, more flippantly than intelligently, about the Hoosac Tunnel, chance to be at the freight yard of the Fitchburg Railroad in Charlestown, on the arrival of a train of New York Central Railroad cars, laden with flour, grain, or other products of the West, he would doubtless be as much puzzled to know how they got there, as he would be, if, standing at the heading of the tunnel, he should endeavor to reconcile his situation (half a mile from daylight) with the calculations, statements and predictions of Mr. Bird and other opponents of the Tunnel enterprise. If our friend were set down at the freight depot of the Worcester and Nashua Railroad, in Worcester, he would again be surprised to witness the arrival of freight-laden cars, bearing the same mark as those he saw at Charlestown. Upon inquiry of the freight agents he would learn that freight for Boston and Worcester, is transported from Schenectady, over the Washington and Saratoga road, and from Troy, over the Troy and Boston and Western Vermont, to Rutland, Vt., and thence, by the Rutland and Cheshire roads to Fitchburg, and from there to Boston and Worcester over other roads. By glancing at a map the intelligent reader will at once observe what a circuitous and lengthened line of communication between the New York Central road and the cities of Boston and Worcester is furnished by the connecting roads above named. The distance from Schenectady to Boston via Rutland is 247 miles, while it is but 217 by way of the Western road. The distance from the same point to Worcester by the Rutland route is 222 miles, and by the Western road only 172. Yet because the Western road has not capacity to do the business, the produce dealers of Eastern and Central Massachusetts are compelled to resort to this roundabout way of transportation as one of their means of relief. But this is not the only channel, nor the most indirect, which the irrepressible stream of Western trade with the East has created, as it approaches its natural outlet, Boston; as the Mississippi, scorning the narrow embouchure which satisfied its youthful flow, now pours its resistless torrents, through numerous passes to the Gulf. Besides that already described, there are three other lines competing with the Western road in the transportation of Western freight to Boston. These are the Grand Trunk, the Ogdensburg, and the Providence and Erie. Few persons know that cotton from St. Louis, for supplying the mills of Lowell and Lawrence, is unladen in Boston from vessels which received their cargoes at Portland, but such is the fact, the cotton having been transported over the Great Western and Grand Trunk roads.

But these four long, and indirect lines, with their single track, are in the frame situation as the Western road; their capacity is exhausted, so far as through freight is concerned, this part of the business of all the four hardly exceeding that of the Western road.

To prove the utter incapacity of these five lines of communication between us and the West, to supply our wants, and meet the demands made upon them, we need only state the fact that in November and December last, many of the produce dealers and grocers in Worcester, were unable to supply their customers, on account of the detention of freight at Albany, Detroit and Ogdensburg. We may add, by way of illustration, that the immense loss of property occasioned by the burning of a large freight depot at Detroit, and by which so many New England consignees severely suffered, was one of the incidental consequences of the incapacity of these lines of New England railroads to do the work required of them. We shall have occasion to consider further the capacity of the Western Railroad, but the facts already given are sufficient to show the necessity of opening another through and direct route from the Hudson to Boston.

The next question to be considered, if, indeed, there can be any question about it, is how shall the new route be located? We have shown that another is necessary in order to accommodate through business, to meet the demands of the West, and to promote the prosperity of the entire State. But this is not by any means the whole argument. Central and Southern Massachusetts are covered with a net work of railroads, from Cape Cod Bay to the New York border, yet Northern Massachusetts, from Fitchburg westward, has but a single road, and that terminating at Greenfield, nearly forty miles from North Adams, where the broken line of communication is again taken up. Hence it is, that, while villages have become large towns, and towns populous cities, all over the rest of the State, this section has remained comparatively undeveloped; and the whole tier of towns lying along the line of the Vermont and Massachusetts, though steadily growing, through the energy and enterprise of their skillful artisans and mechanics, and the facilities afforded them by the last named road, have yet suffered and languished for want of the material so abundant in this undeveloped region between Greenfield and the mountain barrier beyond.

The water power of the Deerfield river is immense, its fall along the line of the Troy and Greenfield road being nearly six hundred feet; and this magnificent force is now idle, except at Shelburne Falls, though the finest privileges are scattered along the whole course of the river. Messrs. Lamson & Goodnow, who employ four hundred men at Shelburne Falls, in manufacturing cutlery, state that the Deerfield and North rivers, at that place, afford a one-thousand-horse power. Along the course of Miller's river, between Athol and Deerfield are also many excellent privileges unimproved. At Montague are Turner's Falls, on the Connecticut, with a power sufficient to operate the mills of Lowell, Lawrence and Manchester. All these splendid privileges only await the opening of the Tunnel route. Many of them would be at once improved were the road completed to the mouth of the tunnel. Messrs. Lamson and Goodnow state that they shall double their present force of four hundred men, as soon as it is open to Shelburne Falls.

Some fifteen or twenty miles from the Eastern end of the tunnel lie extensive forests of spruce and pine, through which a highway has already been surveyed, and which will be built to the tunnel, as soon as the road is completed to that point. The whole surrounding region abounds in lumber of almost every description, which would become very valuable when the road is built, to say nothing of the extensive formations of stone, soapstone and serpentine which are found there. Though the Deerfield meadows afford some of the finest farms in New England, the tillage land will not compare in extent with that along the Western road; but in every other respect the resources and latent wealth of the Tunnel route are infinitely superior to those of the Western line.