The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-10-24

| whole magnificent scheme for cross-hatch-
| ing the country with canals and railroads
at state expense fell fiat; the Board of In
| ternal improvements had to be abolished,
and all the public works suspended, and
practically, if not literally, the shovel was
left sticking in the dirt, the wheelbarrow
| in the ditch
The cost of this first twenty-eight miles
was the seemingly exorbitant sum of ST.
| GA COB, against $4,000 for the fifty-eight
miles subsequently built by private enter
prise. How much of this excess was due
to reckless handling of public funds can
not be readily ascertained now, but the dis
crepancy is at least partly due to the pro-
digious labor necessary to the making of
the inclined plane which lets the trains
| down the hills into the city Of Madison
| This plane, over seven thousand feet in
! length and with fall of 313 feet to the
mile, is in some places filed in making
vast entertainments, and in others hewn
through the living rock, one of these cuts
| being a great cleft in the hill, where the
| artificial cliffs on either hand lift their
! jagged walls at least hundred feet The
| work was carried on in three sections I'M
| der as many contracts, and from fifteen
| hundred to two thousand men were en-
/ ployed it for about two years. This
grade was too steep for ordinary locomo-
tives, and until 1868 was operated by rack
and pinion device invented by a Scotch
man, Andrew Cathcart consisting Of a
heavy cast-iron rack, or toothed bar, seven
inches wide, laid between the rails. and
| into which worked q great cog driven by a
Complementary engine. Mr. Elvin has in
his collection a small model of the plane
thus equipped and a section of the old
rack
! In 1889 the road was leased to Branhams
& Co., who ran it fourteen months for 40
| per cent of the earnings. Then Sering &
| Burt leased it for year, after which the
State took it again and operated it until
| it passed from the public ownership. In
| February, 1S43, in pursuance of an act of
| the General Assembly providing for the
| continuance of public works by private
| companies, it was transferred to corpo-
ration organized under the name of the
| Madison & Indianapolis Railroad Company,
| who were to complete it to Indianapolis.
| BY way of legislative aid to this end an
| act was passed permitting the new COM
| pany to receive land in payment for shares
of stock and issue script redeemable in this
land Land to the amount of 26,7O5 acres
was subscribed. This was valued at $685.
200. Script to that amount was issued, and
the State had dropped it. BY June of 1S43
it was completed to Scipio, and by Sep
TENDER to Elizabethtown. July 1, 1874, it
reached Columbus, and Sept s, 1S45, found
it at Edinburg. AS it neared Indianapolis
there was a sharp contest between landed
magnates of the young capital for the loca-
ton Of the terminus. Large bonuses of
| land for depot and machine shops, as well
as salable lots, were offered the company,
and four different localities were mapped
out by Mr. T. A. Morris, the roads engin-
eeri and submitted for consideration. The
plat chosen placed the depot on the line
of South street, between Pennsylvania and
Delaware, and part of the original build
ing still stands there.
THE FIRST THROUGH TRAIN.
Oct. !, 1S47, the first train steamed into
Indianapolis where there was a repetition
on a still bigger scale Of the jubilation that
had celebrated the beginning at Madison
nine years before. The liveliness of the
occasion was enhanced by a circus (said to
be the largest on earth) which happened
to be in town on that date, and it was a
grand holiday, the spirit of which may be
best conveyed by the following bit of en-
thusiastic writing from the editorial page
of the State Journal for Oct. 4:
| cat about o'clock in the afternoon the
belching forth of the loud-mouthed cannon
| announced the time for the approach Of
the cars from Madison Suca collection ;o
| cent to the depot has not been witnessed
in these parts since Tippecanoe times
They were there by acres, stretching far
out along the railroad, some upon trees
| StumpS, fences mounds and everything
which tended to raise one squad above an
| other. Soon dark spot in the distance
was. deserted by those picketed upon the
farthest outposts;, then was heard the
through hoary forests and DER verdant
fields, and shout answering to shout the
two iron steeds, putting and snorting ma
jestically,. turned the curve in the road
| a short distance form town, followed by
two long trains of passenger and freight
cars, completely filled with human beings
| the ladies waving their white handker-
| chiefs and the men and boys using their
| lungs in answering back the long loud
huzZas from the people awaiting their APP
proach."
There is more of this animated descrip-
ton, telling of a speech from the Gov
ernor; of pleasure ride to Greenwood and
back for Is cents and the accompanying
Incidents; of fireworks and the illumina-
ton of buildings after dark together with
the remarkable performance Of the circus
troupe. "And thus" concludes the edi-
torial, tended the day at 10 p. M, with the
public appetite for amusement and excite
ment satiated." Indianapolis. after twenty
five years in the woods was at last con-
nected with the rest of the world
Just here may be an appropriate place to
institute a comparison between the railroad
1 conditions of that day and Of this. Indiana
then had eighty-sx miles of road, exclu-
sive of sidings, completed and in operation;
now she has, side tracks and ALL some
thing over $500 miles. The twenty-eght
miles of track laid by the State was the
best then made-an iron T rail of forty
| five pounds to the yard, containing about
| one-half as much metal as the steel rail
now used, and costing about $50 per ton.
That laid by the NJ & 1. Company was a
straight, plain bar of iron, one-half inch
thick. This was spiked to continuous
stringer of 6x6 oak, which was fastened to
cross-ties, three feet apart, with wooden
pins, and these ties in turn, rested on long
timbers known as mud sills These ties
and stringers were of picked timber such as
is not easily found to-day, and there stands
now on the farm OF Mr.. Harley Richard
son, near Southport, corn crib built of
some of them, which, after an exposure
to the weather of fifty years, show hardly
a scurf on the surface. The rolling stock
| that traversed these rails was almost as
primitive. A locomotive, having at first
| neither cow catcher nor cab, weighed per-
haps thirteen tons, and was capable of
hauling twelve or fifteen cars holding three
tons each. Many of them now weigh sew
I