Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1860-05-04
Muscatine, Upton and AnamOsa
Railroad.


A few weeks since, in speaking of the recent
transfer of the Iowa Central Land Grant to
the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River R. R.
Co., we expressed the belief that one result
would be to hasten the completion of the
Auscatine and Upton Railroad to its intersec-
ton with the Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska
Road. The recipient of the Land Grant is an
extension of the latter road, and this transfer
has already added very greatly to the strength
and Importance of the Chicago, Iowa and
Nebraska Company, and will enable it to
carry out so much the sooner its original
plan of assisting IN the construction of a road
from its line to Upton. When this is accom-
plished, it will need only 20 miles of road,
between the G., I. & N. line and Anamcsa, to
complete our railroad connection with Du-
buque. This would finish long link in the
great north and south road which the wants
of commerce already demand on the west side
of the Mississippi.
We conclude, from the information we have,
thai the prospect for the building of this 20
miles is now better than it ever has been
before. The parties who now control the
Dubuque Western, are seeking an extension
of their line. Before the Land Grant was
disposed of, they proposed to extend their
line enthusiastically to Marion. But, as
the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Com
pany are to commence their line at Marion,
and as they proposed to build the five or six
miles between Marion and Cedar Rapids at
once, and thus make that link, together with
the Marion and Anamosa line, a feeder, or
virtually an extension of the Chicago, lava
and Nebraska Road, we understand that the
Anamosa and Marion project has been aban.
doned.
A line from Anamosa to the terminus Of
the proposed Upton road would manifestly
be vastly more profitable extension of the
Dubuque Western road. The line to Marion
would simply afford the means for ruinous
competition for the Jones county business,
the distance from Anamosa to Chicago being
about the same via Dubuque, and pia Cedar
Rapids and Clinton. On the other hand, an
extension to the Upton road would be a link
in north and south road, which, for a large
part of the year, would have to do the bust
ness of the Mississippi river. At all seasons
Of the year, the st. Louis freights, even from
the line of the Dubuque and Pacific road,
would take this route, and we are by no
means certain but that much of the Chicago
freight would pass over that part of the line
between the Dubuque and Pacific and the
Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska roads. From
Cedar Falls, for instance, and from all points
on the Dubuque and Pacific west of Farley
Junction, the distance to Chicago is but eleven
or twelve miles further Ola Anamosa and
Clinton than Ola Dubuque. This difference
in distance is more than counterbalanced by
the heavier grades of the latter route, the
lack of facilities for crossing the river at Du-
buque without breaking bulk, and the bitter
feud between the Illinois Central and Galena
and Chicago Union Companies.
Taking all these matters into consideration,
we consider the prospects of our north and
south road as more promising than ever
before.