Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-02-28
A RAILROAD TIED UP BY LITIGATION

We print this morning a letter from
the President of the Sacramento and
Placerville Railroad Company to the
Superintendent of that company, in
structing that official to withdraw all
She rolling stock and equipments from
Che part of the road between Folsom
and Single Springs, and to deliver posses
sion of the road-bed and right of way to a
receiver who has been appointed by the
Courts. This letter contains a suf-
Efficiently full explanation of the
events which have eliminated in this un-
fortunate tying up of the railroad from
Folsom to Single Springs. The corpora
ton which built the road issued bonds,
and secured them by a mortgage. Subse-
quently another mortgage was made to Sc
cure its note. A default was made on the
interest, foreclosure followed, and at iu-
dicial sale William Alvord bought the road
bed and right Of way, and continued
TO hold the property as the trustee of the
creditors until, in 1871, he sold it to
Messrs. Stanford, Huntington and Hop
kins They purchased the road upon the
assurance that it was thenceforth to be free
from all liabilities or membranes aris-
ing out of the acts of the original posses
sors, but subsequently action was CON-
menced by parties claiming to hold bonds
of the old road, and after several years of
litigation the Court made an order ap-
pointing a receiver, and offering the alter
native to the purchasers of the road of
paying INTO Court a sum sufficient to meet
all the claims which had been made under
the old bond plea, and the payment of
which would have necessitated the surren-
der of nearly $500, 600 in quittance of what
the present owners of the road regard as
invalid claims, they holding that the old
bonds were all paid up and cancelled so far
as any liability attaching to them is con-
cerned. The case is still in litigation,
but for the time being it has seemed i'm
practicable to do anything else than al
low the road from Folsom to Single
Springs to pass into the hands
of the receiver. The action of the suitors
on the old bonds appears, from the
statement published, to have been distin-
guished by an equal disregard for the con-
venience and needs of the public, and for
their own interests. For while on the
one hand they have seriously disconnected
considerable population accustomed to
depend upon this road for their supplies
and means of communication, on the other
hand they have secured nothing more
shan a road. bed and right of way, which
can be made to earn nothing, and which
are in the present situation utterly with
out value. There does not appear to have
been any necessity for putting the road in
the hands of a receiver, and as the sole
effect of this judicial course is to
render it absolutely useless to all con.
cerned, it is difficult to justify the
measure The Sacramento Valley Rail-
road Company, however, is powerless IN
the matter. It must obey the order of the
Court, alike to its own injury and to the
injury OF the region through which the
paralyzed road runs. We understand that
efforts are being made to procure substi.
tutes for the line between Folsom and
:Shingle Springs, and that stages will be put
on that line at once, while it is expected
that much if not most of the traffic will
henceforth pass by way of lone and ANA
dor. 1t is an annoying state of affairs, but
it is the result of one of those tangles of
litigation to which all considerable prop
critics appear liable in these days.