Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-01-03

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"Well, we are working on it steadily,
closed. We will do nearly all of the
vork from the north as it is the handler
for US, both as regards shipping in mate.
rial and communication with head
Quarters. am not certain that the rcute
which will be followed in entering
Elwood has been decided on, as we have
several engineers lines run in that part
of the country"
"Do YOU intend building any more
branches in Southern California at pres
ent?"
"You have too many here now. As re-.
CARDS the Pomona & Elsinore Road and
the statement once handed around that
the Pacific Improvement Company would
build it after the New Year, l can tell
YOU that the matter has been dropped.
Look at it on a business basis and you
will see that it would be foolish for the
Southern Pacific to be continually paying
out money for the construction OF roads
that will not be needed for years to come
Asi is we are far ahead OF the require
ments. It must be remembered that
there is an enormous amount OF land in
California, and that even at the rate
people are hocking in now it will be q
long, long time before all the territory is
settled up. In every instance, though
where we can see that railroad will be
a necessity, we are building. For
example, in the San Joaquin Valley We
have during the past year constructed
two new lines. One takes in all OF the
western part and is built from Fresno as
far south as Poso, and on the eastern side
we have a line from Tracy to Bakers
field"
care these lines in operation ?" asked
the HERALD man.
"Well, on the east side the road rum
ming to Porterville is all graded to Poso.
The western branch is graded right
through from Tracy to Bakers
feld, but the steel is only
laid to Newman's, a point about thirty
eight miles south of Hartford. The work
would have been all finished before this
but for lack of rails. You see, in addi-
ton to building these new roads, we
are continually putting down new steel
on the main track; and then again,
we laid another track from Oak
land to Port Costa. A good many rails
are now on the way here from England,
for the Eastern mills cannot attempt to
supply our demands. We obtained
quite q quantity of metal from the Scran-
ton works during the past twelve
months, but our orders poured in too
fast for them.
"Why is the Southern Pacific dis
charging 80 many men at the present
timer" queried the scribe.
"It is simply because we have no work
for them. The past year was remark
able one in the history of the company,
for in the early months it saw us nearly
blockaded from Ogden to Ell Paso.
Freight, a great proportion of which was
for Los Angeles, came pouring in from
every direction, and, in addition to our
own business, the Santa Fe was turning
over to us at Deming cars that they were
absolutely unable to handle. We went
TO work to avoid any possibility of repe-
tition of such state of things. We OBJ
tanned a number of locomotives and
rolljng-stock of every description and
EMPLOYED whole army of men,
and thus got everything straight again.
Finding at the first of the year that our
road was in good repair, our snowsheds
satisfactory and our rolling stock able to
meet all the demands upon it, we there
fore discharged all of the extra men that
we employed to bring about this desir-
Able state of things and that is all there
is in it. Then freight is falling off and
business consequently getting lighter and
not requiring the services of so many
men, We have done a splendid years
business and even now in spite of the
stacking down we are keeping far ahead
of last years figures. Our gross receipts
for the first twenty days of December,
1888, exceeding by $136 900 those OF the
corresponding period in 1887"
"What is your opinion regarding the
Wilbur road and the Stockton, Fresno
and Southern line-do you think they
will be built?" asked the ne wsgatherer.
''I will tell you what 1 know about
them. The Stockton and Fresno road is
nothing more nor less than q paper line,
put in print for the purposes Of specula-
ticn. A good deal of noise has been
made regarding what its projectors in
tend doing and the speedy manner in
which the road will be rushed through,
but the other day when the question OF
funds came up and an appeal was made
tn Fresno not dollar could be raised.
The Wilbur road is just about the same
sort of affair. When the project was
frat mooted the world was informed
that the line would be rushed
night through and that Mr.. Wilbur had
gore to the East to place the bonds and
when he returned the dirt would fly in
eyerv direction. You doubtless know
what happened as we'll as do. Mr.
Wilbur came home, but he evidently
forgot the big bank account that he was
going to bring back and build the road