“At present market rates, and I shall pay no more, the total amount that will be required to buy in both stocks and bonds, will be, in round numbers, $150,000,000. I am advised by experts that the cost of widening roadbed and bridges, and laying additional iron, so as to make four tracks from New York to Kansas City, and a double track from the Missouri River to the Pacific, will, with the necessary buildings and shops, be about $70,000,000.”
“Then the proposed line, when completed, will have cost you about $220,000,000?”
“Exactly, less the sum which may be received for rolling stock, which I propose to sell. But I am informed by my engineers that a similar line might be built now for $150,000,000, and I therefore take $150,000,000 as the actual value of the roadbed, station buildings, and shops for repairs, and I estimate traffic charges upon that basis.”
“Why do you sell the rolling stock? How can a road be used without locomotives or cars?”
“I propose that the company I will cause to be organized shall, except in certain contingencies, run no trains whatever on the road except repair trains. The roadbed will be open at uniform tolls to any person, firm, or corporation who may wish to run trains upon it. The tolls will be fixed upon such a basis as will provide means sufficient to keep the roadbed up to the highest standard, and pay five per cent per annum upon the actual value of the road, which, in the first instance, will be fixed at $150,000,000.”
“Will not the value of the road advance, Mr. Morning?”
“I expect so,” was the reply. “All values will advance with the increase of standard money, caused by the yield of the Morning mine, and there will be a revaluation of the roadbed each year, by disinterested and competent engineers. If the amount received for tolls in any one year shall exceed the sum of five per cent on the valuation of the previous year, the tolls will be reduced for the next year. If it shall fall short of that sum, the tolls will be increased for the next year.”
“Will not the ownership of the roadbed by one company, and the ownership and management of rolling stock by a dozen or a hundred other companies, be productive of confusion and accidents?”
“Not at all. On the contrary, accidents will be almost impossible. Switches and side tracks, capable of accommodating from one to a dozen trains or more, will be provided every five miles, with buildings for receiving freight and passengers, at every station. Between Boston and Kansas City two tracks will be devoted to passenger trains and two to freight trains, and a uniform rate of speed be established, of thirty-five miles per hour, including stoppages on the main track, for passenger trains, and fifteen miles an hour for freight trains. Between Kansas City and San Francisco, so long as there shall be only one double track, on which both freight and passenger trains must run, a uniform rate of speed of twenty miles an hour for both freight and passenger trains will be established, except on mountain grades, where the speed must be lessened. There will be an interval of not less than fifteen minutes between trains east of the Missouri, and half an hour west of it, and whenever a train leaves or passes by a station, its passage over the rails at that station will, through an electric wire, be made to ring a bell, set a signal, and close a switch at the next station behind it, and no train will be allowed to leave or pass by a station until a signal shall be received that the preceding train has passed by the station ahead.”
“Suppose a train conductor or engineer should proceed without receiving the signal, and in defiance of orders from the station master?”