Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-24

important factors. The latter covers the
Duluth and Manitoba regions, connecting
at Duluth at the Standards million-dollar
docks, erected IN 1887, as announced in The
DISPATCH, and which were somewhat of
mystery, for the lake trade. The Erie may
be used for through freight, but mainly for
certain local business and as feeder.
PIttsburg is in the scheme. The through
passenger service of the transcontinental
route will leave the old Baltimore and Ohio
main line at Cumberland, running over the
Pittsburg division, thence bv Pittsburg and
Western to Akron and Orrville, O., thence
by road now building to Chicago Junction,
on the main line, and then into Chicago.
Preparations for this change are being
made all along the line Ground has been
bought at Cumberland for shops. Additional
trackage is being provided in tnis city, and
the 23-acre purchase at Hazelwood is for
tracks and Shops The work of double
tracking the Pittsburg and Western has
been begun and the Baltimore and Ohio is
to be double from Chicago Junction to Chi
cago. Northward by the Pittsburg and
Western, Pittsburg. Shenango and Lake
Erie, the seven-miIe link recently chartered
by Hon. S. b. Dick and others and the Erie
system, Pittsburg will be given another
new outlet to the lakes and the Baltimore
and Ohio an entrance into Buffalo.
THE vANDERBILTS AT WORK.
That the Vanderbilts have been aware of
these movements for some time is evidenced
bv their plunge into Reading and the sur
veys made to connect Reading and Beech
Creek with the Lake Shore at Oil City and
the Pittsburg and Lake Erie, as recently
exclusively announced in THE DISPATCH.
This move was especially significant because
of the position of the Reading and the
friendly arrangements between the old Bal
timore and Ohio management and the Read
ing under Austin Corbin. With the COM
pletion of the proposed road the Vanderbilts
will have a slight advantage, in distance,
over the Baltimore and Ohio between New
York and Pttsburg and New York and
Chicago. The Pennsylvania has not fig
ured at all, except to help the Vanderbilts
get Reading and allow them to enter what
they have always guarded as their own
special territory.
This carries the whole scheme back to the
beginning for explanation. The Gould
surveys were made across Pennsylvania,
not far from the present Vanderbilt surveys,
in 1SS0-S1, connecting with the Reading at
the east and the Pittsburg and Western at
the west. Just after these surveys were
made, the Baltimore and Ohio turned up
in Pittsburg and Western. Next the
South Penn was organized to connect the
Reading with the west, with H. Nick.
Twombly, of the Vanderbilts, and John D.
Rockafeller, William Rockefeller, John D.
Archbold, William C. Whitney and
Oliver H. Payne, of the Stand
ard Oil party, prominent among
the stockholders Gould had his surveys,
but others had his connections at either end
of the line. 1t is not necessary to 60 over
the history of the ill-fated South Penn, the
building of the West Shore and Nickel
Plate and the subsequent deal which
strangled the South Penh, leaving it, as de-
scribed by a Pennsylvania railroad man,
not competing line but "a lot of holes in
the ground" The Vanderbilts, in any
event, wanted no more war with the Penn
sylvanIa, but the sequel indicates the Stand
ard Oil party was only made more deter
mined by defeat.
HOW THE STANDARD IS INTERESTED.
How much Of the Standard party's deter
mination was created by the settlement of
numerous suits for discrimination against
the Pennsylvania road and the payments
of large sums to 20 or more firms, which had
suffered that the Standard might be favored,
can only be told by the principals them
longing for railroad property was born
Railroad management, and was developed
into an ailpowerful mania with the passage
and operation of the interstate commerce
law. 1t is notable that the roads affected
have a special relation to the petroleum
business. The Baltimore and Ohio cuts
through the length of the Washington
county fields; is the only road that touches
the new West Virginia developments and
cuts the big Northwestern Ohio field in two
The new connection from Orrville to Chicago
Junction will cut that field again. The
Pittsburg- & Western practically follows
the oil belt from this city to Bradford. The
Erie reaches Bradford, Allegany, New
York and Venango. The other roads cover
line by which distribution of the manufact-
ured product is made.
AMOUNT OF MILEAGE CONTROLLED.
Among the systems of railroad controlled
by the aggregation are the Baltimore and
Ohio, operating 1,760 miles of road, exclu-
sive of Pittsburg and Western; the Northern
Pacific, operating $40 miles; Missouri
Pacific, over 5000 miles; Atchison, Topeka
and Santa Fe, with the Gulf, Colorado and
Santa Fe, 1900 miles; st. Paul, Minnesota
and Manitoba, 5000 miles; Richmond and
Danvllle East Tennessee, Virginia and
Georgia, Cincinnati, New Orleans and
Texas Pacific and others in the Richmond
Terminal plan, 5000 miles. New York and
New England and other New England
roads, 1900 miles. New York, Lake Erie
and Western system, Pittsburg and West
ern and others in New York, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, $500 miles.
These figures are based on the official statis-
tics of the Interstate Commerce Commits
sion, and comprise over one-fi:th of all the
railway mileage in the United States.
A. r. CRUM.