The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1895-02-07
WILL THE RAILROAD PAY ?

1t is IN TACT the lOglcaI result OF PROCESS
of reasoning which for the past several
years has been evolving in the minds of
the business men of San Francisco, and it
is their response to the inquiry not whether
the competing railroad should be built,
but whether such a road, if built, would
pay.
There are two ways in which this ques-
ton may be answered to the satisfaction of
those who have extended or who may ex-
tend to the new railroad project their SYM
pathy and aid. The first, and the one
which has been most clearly perceived by
the merchants of this city, is that COM
peting railroad will so increase the amount
of business and the values of property in
San Francisco and so augment its interior
trade that its promoters will reap their
profit by indirection in this increase.
There can be no questioning the correct
ness of this position, and no doubt that in
the upbuilding of a greater San Francisco
the subscribers to the valley railroad
project will find ample returns for their
subscriptions.
The other view is one which has been as
yet but little explored or expounded on
account of the difficulty in obtaining exact
data for its solution. The question is
whether a competing railroad along the
San Joaquin and Santa Clara valleys,
uniting at or about Fresno and thence
proceeding to Bakersfield, would pay for
its construction and operation out of its
earnings. This question must be answered
afirmatively if the valley railroad project
is to be an ultimate success.
The bottom facts from which this affir-
nation might be most easily deduced, while
existent and known to some, are not acces-
sible to general inspection. They lie
snugly hidden between the leaves and lines
OF the ledgers of the Southern Pacific Com
pany and from that safe retreat they have
never come forth to be spread upon the
reports of State or Interstate Railroad
Commissions, or to be submitted to the
inspection of the vulgar eye. 1t is impos-
sible to learn how much the net earnings
of the Southern Pacific Company are
annually from the travel and traffic of the
San Joaquin and Santa Clara valleys. This
information having been kept carefully con-
cealed, the only means left for determining
whether a railroad through these valleys
would be a paying venture is, by an esti
mate, first as to what ought to be the
profits to a railroad operating in and
through such productive and populous
sections, and, second, what the earnings of
the Southern Pacific Company therefrom
must be in order to pay the interest on
their bonds, and also in order to maintain
and operate their railroad over those long
miles of desert which are part of the terri
tory through which their system extends.
The most superficial examination of
maps and statistics will discover that the
San Joaquin and Santa Clara valleys are
the most populous and productive sections,
according to their area, upon the Pacific
Coast. The census of 1890 gave to the
counties which are contained within these
great valleys a population of 275,000 peo-
pie. The growth of the past five years
has brought these figures easily up
to 100000 souls. These people are
of the most industrious, most intel
ligent and most productive class of
our citizens. Within these valleys they
have built great factories and great col
leges; have turned thousands of broad
acres into orchards and gardens; have
established homes and founded cities as
wealth and widening desires. A railroad
which would undertake to transport the
products of such people to market upon
fair and equal terms, and to carry back to
them the diversity of things demanded
for their daily consumption ought surely
to pay if railroads ever pay anywhere, and
there is definite rumor abroad that they
do.
There is something more than suspi-
cion current that the existing railroad
reaps very large returns from the bust
ness of the San Joaquin and Santa Clara
valleys. The truth is that they must reap
such returns in order to pay the inter
est on their bonds and maintain
the unproductiEe portions OF their
road. There is in the San Joaquin
Valley between Stockton and Bakersfield,
more than 900 miles of the track of the
Southern Pacific Company upon which
there is a bonded indebtedness averaging
SIS, 300 per mile, or a total indebtness of
over $17,0O0,000, upon the San Joaquin
Valley Railroad north of Bakersfield. The
interest upon this enormous debt is more
than million dollars year, which must
be paid with unfailing regularity out of
the annual earnings of the corporation
from the people of the San Joaquin Valley.
In the Santa Clara Valley between
San Francisco and Hollister there are
about 200 miles of railroad, with bonded
Indebtedness of more than 100000 and
an annual interest requisition of $3.50, 900,
which must also be paid by the people OF
that productive valley. 1t is idle to pre-
sumo that the deserts of Arizona,
New Mexico or Nevada pay any portion of
this interest account. 1t is more than prob
able that the annual interest to be paid
upon the debt which incumbers these
proftless portions of the Southern Pacific
system is a charge upon the traffic of the
fertile and populous valleys of San joaquin
and Santa Clara.
From a consideration of these facts,
which, though few, are eloquent, it must
be concluded that competing railroad
into these great valleys would surely pay.
That railroad without the losses of an I'M
productive mileage to make good, without
a bloated bonded debt to feed with vast
annual interest payments, without the
thousand and one incidents which go to
make the existing railroad expensive, but
with the friendship and favor of the people.
by uhoce farms and tbrnr1oh uyhoca citiac