Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1873-04-24
Narrow-G Gauge Railroads.
CoLoRADoS SPRING, CoLoRADol
TERRITORY. March 20. '73

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COLORADO SPRING, ,CoLoRADol
TERRITORY, March 20, '73. {
A short time ago the vice
president of a local organiza
ton in Chester county, Penn
sylvania, described to me hi
plan for connecting Oxforc
with York, sixty miles, by ;
narrow-gauge railroad. This
road is now under construction
much of the grading being
done, and it is intended to car.
ry the line thus built westward
across the Cumberland Valley
to the Broad Top coal fields.
The principal stockholder of
the Leayenworth and Denver
three-foot road stated to me q
few days ago that they had sew
enty miles of track in operation
westward from the Missouri to-
ward the Rocky Mountains
The chief engineer of the
Painesville and Mahoning Val
ley stated recently that he had
twelve miles Of his three-foot
road finished from Lake Erie
southwark, and was running ii
regularly.
The day l left my Office in
Philadelphia I had a visit from
the contractor Of the st. Louis
and Cairo Railroad, a three
foot road, which will soon be in
operation between the above
named towns, 80 miles. A
number of locomotives are be-
ing built by M. Baird & Co. for
this road, and one of the oh
jects of the contractor in COM
ing to Philadelphia was to OBJ
tain rolling stock for his new
route; another object was to
make financial arrangements
for the construction of a mar
row-gauge road from the Ohio
river up the Valley of the Big
Sandy to the Peach Orchard
coal fields. He is also connec-
ted with a network Of na1 ow-
gauge lines running southwark
from Cairo through Kentucky,
Tennessee, Mississippi and Al
ALBANIA.
AT CHICAGO,
the day l passed through that
city, the morning papers con-
tanned a number Of articles OH
narTow-gauge lines. The Or
ganization of the Chicago, Well
ington and Western Company,
with the object Of building a
narrow-gauge road from Chica-
go to the Mississippi river at
Muscatine, excited an interest
which was general among the
farmers of Illinois, and the
country journals were all on
the alert to chronicle what the
various local organizations were
doing. But in Iowa l found
the most violent feeling in IA
vor of the narrow-gauge. At
Clinton the president and sec
Tetary of a local organization
entered the cars, and occupied
an adjoining seat. Ateach sta
tiosa their friends = stalwart
farmers, for the most part-en-
tered, held brief conversations,
documents and instruc-
tions, and retired In one of
their manifestoes giving the
plan of "The Peoples Narrow
Gauge Railroad of Iowa."
President King and Secretary
Richman say 1.-THE people along
the line of the proposed road
have the right, power and abil-
ity to build their own road;;"
that the Western farmers are
the slaves of the great railroad
kings" which yoke the farm
ers propose to throw off by
constructing narrow-g aug e
roads. The line they have or
ganized to build runs from Da-
venport northwestardly to Iowa
Falls, and thence to Dakota,
with a branch to Sioux City
Near Oscaloosa it is intersected
by line which is in progress
southwestward from McGregor,
on the Mississippi liver, and of
which twelve miles are finished
and running.
In Nebraska every active cit
izen seems also to have his mar
row-gauge hobby. At Grand
Island, one hundred and fifty
four miles west of Omaha, where
we stopped for supper, a gentle
man on the platform described