Daily Los Angeles herald., 1883-06-12


Vision of Our Southern Neigh
bors Like a Seven Years Plague
For seven years there has been such q
constant flow of words about the build
ing of a railway from Cotton to Mojave,
and to the Needles, that the cry has be-
come sort of melancholy wall, from
San Diego, Riverside and San Bernar-
dino, evidently to bolster up the price Of
real estate. 1t is now over two years
since all plans of building this expensive
road were abandoned by Nickerson and
hisassociates. and the constant repetition
OF the statement that work is to be COM
menced, has now become the stalest
joke on the coast. 1t hath an odor like
the report of the finding of Charley
Ross, or the discovery of Captain
kidd's treasure, or the discovery Of the
North Pole and the Philosophers stone.
1t is about time that this stale joke was
played ont. 1t has done good service.
sold some farms and numerous city lots,
and after long service has become worn
and weary and needs rest.
Poor old joke! 1t has done yeoman
service for San Diego, helped Riverside
moderately, and given San Bernardino a
boom. But the worn-out old joker will
be laid to rest now till the narrow gauge
of D. o. Mills gets within hundred
miles of the Cajon Pass, when second
edition of the joke will be published.
The good people who shout up this
Caion Pass folly will be many years
older before that road is built. The
Pass has been examined by railway en-
gineers for more than twenty years, but
the grade has been SO great, the expense
so heavy, while the amount OF business
it would be able to control is so small
that railway builders have rejected it as
unworthy of their attention. In short,
they one and all say; ut won't payl''
If there could be made to appear
any profit in the enterprise the work
would be begun at once, but all reports
have heretofore shown that tlere was
no profit in the project, and SO capital.
lists have refused to put their money
into it. and will continue this refusal
unless large bonus shall be given of
land or money.
San Diego would have had no railway
to-day had not the people of that enter
prising place given a large land subsidy
to the managers of the California South
ern Railway. But this railway does not
pay expenses, and unless it does pay,
and pay well, it will never 90 through
the Cajon Pass.
Money is "the divinity that shapes
the ends" Of railways, and we can
not trough hew them as we will.
There is no business to warrant such a
road at such vast expense. 1t would
cost as much to go from San Bernardino
through the Pass as to build 200 miles
Of desert road, and great deal to keep
it in repair. Railway men are like
other men. They count the cost before
they go into any project, and if it shows
no profit they let it alone. The cost of
the Cajon railway has been counted "for
10 these many years, and after every
count it has been rejected.
We have now four railways from
ocean to ocean, and three more nearly
done, and these seven roads are all that
business will warrant for several years.
1t would be safe proposition to state
that no railway will be built through
the Caion Pass within the next fifteen
or twenty years. unless it should be the
narrow gauge road of D. o. Mills. All
the other roads have connections with
the sea with roads of the same guage as
their own, and do not care to climb any
more mountain chains or bore any more
expensive tunnels than those finished or
begun. If our neighboring contempora-
ries could be prevailed On to omit this
Jack o -Lants srn of Cajon Pass road for
few days it would be gracefully end
gratefully received. Requiescat in pace.