The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-21
CARS FOR THE NEW ROAD.
Valley Road Directors Award
Contracts for a Steel
Bridge.
TO BE BUILT BY HOME LABOR
The Work VIII Put a LARGE Sum of
Money Into Circulation in
This City.

The directors OF the San Francisco and
San Joaquin Valley Railway met yesterday
and awarded contracts for $50 cars and ma
terials for steel drawb bridge at Stockton
Besides this important action in the line of
construction and equipment of the Valley
Railway, they discussed different PROPOSE
lions for building line of telegraph along
the road, and referred the whole matter
back to the committee on construction.
In awarding the contracts, the board
gave the preference to Californian manu-
facturers and material, with the result
| that, as far as possible, the work will be
done in California. 1t was not possible to
get wheels, brakes or couplings in this
State, so they must be made and purchased
in the East, but the lumber in the cars will
be Oregon pine and California redwood,
and all other material employed will be
products of California. The amount of
money to be thus expended at home and
circulated among manufacturers, mechan-
les and business men will be about $4,000
to $4,000. The bridge, which is to be
substantial one of two steel trusses,
each one covering a clearway of
70 feet, ana joined over the central pier or
draw" will be built in San Francisco and
moved to Stockton piecemeal. 1t repre-
sents quite large outlay at home and will
give employment to mechanics who live
here.
Though both contracts taken together
are not OF such magnitude as to create an
appreciate stir in home manufactures,
they serve as medium for the men build
ing the competing railway to show their
intentions in the matter of supporting
home enterprises. This spirit is all the
more pleasing in view of the fact that the
Southern Pacific Company is now having
500 fruit cars built in Eastern workshops.
Though the bid of John Hammond & Co.
was $1,000 higher than the lowest estimate
submitted, the contract for 100 fiat cars
and fifty box cars was awarded that firm.
The contract provides that the first de-
livery of ten cars must be made at Stock
ton in thirty-five days after the acceptance
of the bid. Hammond & Co. agreed to de-
liver ten cars week after that date, SO that
In two months from now there will be
enough cars ready to make up construc-
ton trains. Flat cars are to be made
first, as there is no Immediate neces-
sity for the box cars, which will not
be used in construction. There were three
bids from California houses and one from
the East. With freight added on Eastern
cars the price would be greater than on the
local ones, and for that reason conditions
favor local manufacturers. The lowest bid
was MADE py carter brOtnerS OF Newark,
Alameda County.
To insure against use of Eastern mate
rial, except in the case of wheels and pa
tent couplings and airbrakes, the directors
inserted a clause in the contracts that cars
should be made OF Oregon pine and Cali
fornia redwood.
After the board adjourned yesterday Mr..
Carter OF Newark protested to Vice-Presi-
dent Watt that, as he was the lowest bid
der, he should have been given the con-
tract. He went further and claimed that
he had been Disseminated against. Mr..
| Watt denied that there had been any dis
elimination, adding that when Carter's bid
was not regular he was given permission to
change it to comply with the desire of the
board to have home material. 1t was Car
ter's intention, SO Mr.. Watt said, to have
fifty boXcars made in the East and then
load them with materials for hatcars,
which would be simply put together at
Newark. The board wanted to have it's
work done here, and intends to stand by
this resolution in buying all supplies for
the Valley road.
The contract for the steel drawbridge
across Mormon Channel was awarded to
This bridge will be $50 feet long, on a pivot
to swing around when vessels have to pass.
Its truss framework of steel is twenty feet
high and fifteen feet wide in the clear, in
side measurements.
The engineering party below Hanford
will move back to Kings River after sur
veying the line to Waukena. 1t will run
a second line in the same vicinity. Ora