Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-06-18
GOSSIP OF THE RAIL.

\ dOSSlE Or AhE hail.
a Trip Along the Line of the Siomc city
aud Kansas City Divtston of the St.
Paul and Omaha Road.
Especial Correspondence of the Globe
am fully persuaded that this is to be one
OF the most enjoyable trips of my lifetime
(for the distance traversed), this ride from
St. Paul to Kansas City. You may talk about
your river-bank route, with it's romantic
scenery, but even that after hundred miles
or two grows mOnotonous, like boarding
house hash or Goldfish, too much sameness in
| it. But on this route, via Sioux City and Coun-
| Ill Bluffs, you haye every variety of scenery
one could wish for. Entering the splendid
Pullman palace car "Hermes" attached to the
Omaha train (Which by the way runs clear
through to Kansas City,, at $3.50 p. ~, the
4th, we went bowling up the valley Of the
Minnesota in great shape. Give me this por-
| ton of Minnesota in June for the most de-
| lightful part of the state. Nature never
| seems to have known when to stop in her
work of identifying this region. The varied,
shifting, changing landscape from the broad
expanse OF valley, smooth farming lands or
meadow without tree or shrub, and with here
and there q lake, to the rough, rugged hillside,
and the tall, heavy timber of the river bottom,
while here and there the silver sheen and giim-
mer of the Minnesota comes to us through
break in the timber, or is seen in full eXpanse
across the valley. In the full leaf of the early
| foliage, wheL the scent of flowers and tree
blossoms ladies' the air from st. Paul to Mar
kato on this line of road, is just as fire as
nature could possibly have made, am sure.
How smooth and easy the modern railway
coach rides. This parlor palace of ours
seems to float along as if upon the bosom of
some lake or river almost One can read or
write with perfect ease, and but for the easy
motion oscillating back and forth with the
change of curve, and the ever changing, shift
ing scenery, surrounded by every comfort
of delightful, luxuriant apart
ment, one might fancy oneself
in parlor or drawing room:
conductor and porter on the look out for your
comfort, pillow for your head, if you care to
lounge through the day, fine wire
screen if you want your window up, courte-
GUS answers to the one thousand and one
questions with which they are constantly as
| sailed, and anything in short you wish for at
tended to. 1t is beginning to be fact that the
word Pullman is sure synonym for ease
and comfort on our railways.
This old Sioux City road has been very
much improved of late years. From st. Paul
| to st. James no better track can be found any
where, leyel, well ballasted and all steel. From
St. James to Sioux City some of the soil is
| softer and solid road bed harder to get, but
| the steel rail is down and each season finds
| the road more solid and smooth. believe
| there are more nice, thrifty towns
along this route in Minnesota than any other.
| Take for instance, such towns as
shakopee, Belle PLANE, Henderson, LIE sueur,
| st. Peter, Mankato, Madelia, St. James, Win
dem and Worthington, and where can you find
| the towns their equal on any one line of road?
But to take up my trip IN detail. took in the
| beautiful scenery from the car window and
the rear platform and was just admiring the
mammoth pile of stone where our poor I'M
| fortunate ''cranks" are kept, when some one
called out "Kasota; 20 minutes for SUPPER
which being interpreted means, "Go in and
eat your fill, for the conductor is human and
won't choke you off, Well, perhaps did
and perhaps l did not, but I felt an inward
| feeling of.guilt when handed ever a dollar
| and got half back, and was told that this
sum was all that even newspaper man had to
pay. Poor Hallock! If he never makes more
out of party than he did from me pity him,
that's all. Still it is his own fault. l stop at
some places where fifteen cents would be a
bonanza for the landlord, about 100 per cent
profit on the investment eaten. One thing
| always surprises me here, and that is the
stewed chicken. No matter about the season
you always find it here. Where does it grow
! that the crop never fails-and such chicken.
But won't go through the bill of fare on
| paper, can't do it justice.
| On to Mankato and away beyond we 60
| southwest through the vast prairie region, SO
| grand for agriculture among groves and lakes
and pretty towns, which the falling shades of
| night are fast hiding from our view. We re-
tire and sleep the sleep OF all just Democrats.
| Morning finds us in the valley of the Mis-
l no MI houa
the Chicago, Milwaukee s. st. Paul at She
don and the Chicago 81 Northweste =.
at LIE Mars; have entered and left Sioux City
and still in the same solid train in which we
left st. Paul, we go bowling along the valley
on the Sioux City & Pacific. At a. m. we
| breakfast, and at a. m. steam into the fine
union depot at Council Bluffs, Iowa. Here
We leave our train, except the sleeper, which
| is attached to Kansas City, st. 10 & Council
| Bluffs train for the next stage of our journey.
The valley from Sioux City south, or as much
as saw of it after woke, was very pretty,
| indeed. Prairie and timber alternating helped
| to relieve the mOnotOny, while the indications
of an entire change in the system of agricul
ture lent a novelty to the view for Minneso-
| tian at least. There were no wheat fields
hardly to be seen, while the incres sed herds OF
cattle, sheep and horses, and the corn fields
everywhere, told of stock country. The
valley in some places is quite
wide, so wide in fact as to
almost lose its right to the title of valley and
become rather plain, but again it narrows
and the long line of hills sometimes rough,
rugged and bare and anon smooth, well ver-
dured or timbered, and Of gradual ascent, be-
come distinctly visible on either ssde of the
way. Again I notice here and there the old
fashioned Virginia or worm rail fence, so rare
in Minnesota, while the vast
pastures with their herds of stock
grazing at their ease, and I must con-
TESS itlooking even from the cars so much bet
ter than ours up in the great wheat belt, that
it seems like another part of the world. The
fine orchards along the line also take my eye.
Fruit may not be necessary to the support of
| animal life or the complete happiness of the
human race, but it has a tendency that way,
at least. Council Bluffs must be
fine town, pres lme. The union depot is
some two miles from the city, which
like "soft-linked sweetness seems to be
''long drawn out" Across the river is
| Omaha, and the smoke of its chimneys is as
cending high as We cast our eyes that way
The great transfer for the West is made here,
and it is one of the most quiet, we'll regulated
transfer points 1 ever saw, but our palatial
'Hermes" is moving and we turn our backs
upon the future greatness of the two cities.
On we go down the valley. Over the river we