The San Francisco call., 1895-07-19
RAILS TO SPAN|SHTOWN,
The New West Shore Railroad
Company Will Want Gen.
trail Basin.
Climpses Of the Project for Rail-
road Down the Coast to
Santa Cruz.

The new West Shore Railway Company,
which announces its purpose to promptly
build railroad from San Francisco down
the line of breakers, through Halfmoon
Bav and Pescadero. to Santa Cruz, is
thing of real interest.
The new railroad company, which filed
articles of incorporation last Friday, says
that 1t is going to build that road at once.
The company is yet playing in the dark,
and the directors will afford only glimpses
of their plans and expectations. Those
who signed the articles of incorporation
are: C. NJ. Sanger, Behrend Joost, r. S.
Thornton, J. w. Eisenfurth, Louis F.
Dunand, K. J. Willets and R. Herman. At
an election yesterday the first five named
were elected respectively president, vice
president, treasurer, secretary and at
torney of the company.
At the office of Mr.. Eisenfurth, the capi-
talist in the Crocker building, President
Sanger. Vice President Behrend Joost and
a good-looking business lady were seen
yesterday. The lady seemed to know more
about the road than anybody, and to be
the most discreet in reserving information.
Mr.. Joost and Mr.. Sanger joined in max
ing the statement:
The road will positively be built. We will
begin work in sixty days and part of the ma
terial is already here. We don't want to say
Just what the material is, nor just where the
for we don't want to show our hand, nor the
! route, nor anything OF the kind at this mo-
| ment. We are going ahead and keeping out of
/ the papers.
The company was Incorporated as the
San Francisco and West Shore Railway
Company, but the San Francisco was Off
cially Topped off yesterday.
Mr.. Sanger went home and Mr.. Joost
and the business lady dropped intimatioDs
which showed that the company's plans
are to enter the City limits near Colma,
probably swinging in FROM the ocean by
way Of the San Pedro Valley and a tunnel,
and then circling round the San Bruno
hills and reaching the water front at about
Central Basin, in the neighborhood of the
Potrero. To this terminal ferry-boats are
to be run from the business part of the
| City.
1--WE will probably ask for lease of
| Central Basin similar to the lease given
the Valley road" said Mr.. Joost, "and
there will also be another branch connect
ing with the City by another route. No,
the San Mateo electric road has no con-
nection with it. We will run ferry boats,
am willing to say"
| The capital stock of the company is
| fixed at $2,000000, of which the amount
required by law is subscribed. The South
! Pacific Coast narrow gauge road sold for
sc, 900 900.
NO" said Mr.. Joost, 1.-The road cannot
be built for 81, ,00000 but the amount of
stock is placed at low figure because we
want to pay dividends right away and
none of the stock is for sale. The money
is arranged for, but / am not at liberty to
say where it will come from. Well, it will
| be both San Francisco and Eastern money.
1t is all arranged. We don't want to say
much just now because we don't want
people to gamble on where we will 60"
1t was told that most of those interested
! had been working up the project for three
years and that the company has the rates
! and estimates of three surveys made in the
past. One of them, Mr.. Joost said, was
made by Jay Gouid's direction several
years ago, when he was interested in the
| Santa Fe road.
Stakes are set every foot of the way"
| said Mr.. Joost.
| The line will not be very expensive one
| to build, Mr.. Joost says. After getting
| through and across the range of tangled
| hills that turns into bluffs about Mussel
| Rocks on the shore, most of the way will
be along comparatively level valleys that
slope to the sea. The line will follow the
| shore, and for superb scenic attractions
will offer the ocean on one side and noun
tains, redwood forests and fruitful valleys
| on the other The distance by this route
to Santa Cruz will be only seventy miles,
and the great shortening of time to the
| Long Branch of the Pacific Coasts counted
on as an immense advantage in the COM
| petition for passenger traffic.
| The ideas of the promoters is that such
a railroad would at once popularize and
populate Halfmoon Bay, Pescadero and
| other places as summer resorts. These
| places have been famous in that way for
years, but have been enjoyed only by vis-
| tors who were willing to make very long,
| though charming trip, by stage over the
mountains.
| The business inducements offered to
railroad by this stretch of rich and peculiar
| country are fully reckoned upon by these
railroad people. They have been pre-
sented in newspapers in inviting ways
| many times in many years
| Just over the crest OF the hills south of
| Colma is the San Pedro Valley from which
great four-horse teams nightly draw great
| loads of vegetables to the San Francisco
markets and to the box-cars which daily
/ leave Colma for the East carrying those
cabbages and caulifowers to Chicago and
Kansas City. A railroad would cheaper
this transportation, gain considerable
| revenue and stimulate gardening industry
all through that region where the foggy
moisture of the sea and the richness of the
soil are peculiarly kind to the green things
sold in the market places.
| For fifty miles the dairy industry is ex-
| tensive and waiting the stimulation rail-
| road would give. There are great redwood
| forests close along the route, and deposits
of bitumen, limestone and other minerals.
Mr.. Joost says that the company will run
spur tracks back into the valleys among
| the farms, diaries and forests and operate
them with electricity ground out by
mountain streams.
l
The company will ask for bonuses and
! other aids as well as franchises and water
front privileges as soon as it gets ready for
| practical operations.
! An unusual number of silver weddings
will be celebrated in July in Germany. In