The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1871-03-09
whole No. 1915.


From the R. 4. Record. Feb. %.
Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad.
We have received the following in
teresting letter from the President of
the HillsborD Railroad, and invite our
readers to give it a careful perusaI.
It's high time we were thinking
seriously of matters suggested by this
document.
Hr1LsDRo, O, 21st Feb, 1871.
ED1roRs RAILROAD RECORD In
a recent number you aIlude to my neg
Iect of an important point-the en-
trance to Cincinnati. Regarding the
selection of fthe entrance to Cincinnati
by line connecting the city with the
Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad as ques-
tiOn Of great inpOrtance,and not by any
means free from difficulty, I told Mr..
Huntington I should not undertake to
settle that question without his aid.
The 1ihe to be engineered from Hills
boro by Fayetteville to Cincinnati will
be in position, when it strikes the
Miami Railroad, to pass either by
Mill Creek valley, the Tunnel, or by the
track of the Little Miami Railroad, to
the city. AS Mr.. H. proposed to join
me in April with Mr.. WhitcOmb, his .
chief engineer, to examine the country
and proposed lines of connection for
their important work, you will per-
ceive 1 was not tleaving the vital point
you make to chance, but providing for
lis solution in the manner deemed
most judicious.
It is gratifying to find my views of
the Importance of the Chesapeake &
Ohio Railroad connection so fully en-
tertained and emphaticaIly expressed
by the editor of the Record. In such
a road as that company is building
with grades from the Ohio river to tide
water no higher than 80 feet per mile
lies in my judgment the best hope
of the people of the Ohio and Missis-
sippi valleys for reduced freights. The
line have been making some effort to |
give the prominence I think it de-
serves, can be made to correspond in
its grades facing west with slight
comparative cost) to those of the Ches-
apeake & Ohio road, viz 80 feet to
the mile, unless the ascent to the Lit
tie Miami summit should prove an ex-
ception.
This is true of either the line by the
Scioto and Ohio valleys, or by the line
over Beaver creek and Symmes creek
valleys (the point of departure being
at the Scioto river, the length of the
former 155 miles, of the latter 147 !
miles.) There is but one point on the
line between the mouth of Symmes
creek and Cincinnati where the same
result may not be achieved with the
grades facing east. 1t is a stretch of
miles of continuous grades Of 80 feet
to the mile, in passing from Sunhsh
valley to the table land of Highland /
county.
In curvature this Ohio line will have
greatly the advantage of the Virginia
line. That portion of the line estab
Iished and partly worked has no curve
of less than 5730 feet radius. This
splendid system of curvature may not
be maintained throughout, but my |
knowledge of the ground over which |
lines are yet to be laid justiies me in
saying that no Objectionable curve will !
exist on the entire line.
The favorable valleys and table lands
traced by this line, give the advantages
of cheap construction, and economic
maintenance and working in future.
From railroad stand point, with
out considering the short and favOra-
bic connection with the coal and iron
field of Southern Ohio,) 1 contend
that this is the true line of connection
from the c. & o. R. R., at the mouth
of Symmes Creek, to Cincinnati, and
forcing that connection over any other
projected or even possible line, would
be found in the future as great rail
road error as was the forcing the Bal
timore connection over the Marietta
line instead of the line from Cincinnati
by HillsborO and jackson to Parkers-
burg, the line approved by President
Swan and his chief engineer Latrobe.
The line recently traced by my chief
engineer and myself, passed from the
end of the tangent line of. IA miles,
bearing S. of Z. from PiketOn BY ia
vorable valleys, maintaining S. Z.
course to Symmes Creek and with it to
the Ohio river. At the point Of depart
ure it was miles from Jackson, and
the line across the country was about
the same distance from Jackson at a
point due South. The connection
with Jackson would be by a line of 8
miles of the old grade of the former
HilIsboro and Jackson line, or if the
main line pursued the Scioto and Ohio
valleys, the branch to Jackson would
be made up Of the IL mile tangent and
the miles, or % miles, on most of !
which the work was completed II I
years since. Very respectfully,
VIM. H. TRIMBLE.
One of the blackest of negroes sat