The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-02-15
CAR FERRY AT MANITOWOC Is
PROVING TO BE A BIG Sue
CESS.
TWO ROADS INTERESTED IN IT.
WISCONSIN CENTRAL AND NORTH
WESTERN HAVE TERMINAL
FACILITIES.
FACTOR IN FUTURE POOLING
Old Ideas and Differentfals Doomed
to Get u Severe Shaking
Up.
Special to- the Globe.

MANITOWOC, Wis, Feb 14-When
the management OF the Wisconsin Gen.
trail railway, baffled in their efforts to
get access to the lake at Milwaukee,
and feeling the force of economic con-
ditions that demanded a shorter and
cheaper route for Northwestern prod
ucts than the circuitous one around the
head of Lake Michigan, decided to uti-
lie the exceptional harbor facilities Of
this place and the demonstrated utility
Of the car ferry. They made their op-
erations here commensurate with the
| magnitude of the enterprise and it's
ANTICIPATED consequences. The work Of
which l have previously written is now
nearly completed. The car ferry slip
was finished some time ago, and the
boats now take the trains of loaded
cars and carry them across the lake
where the Flint & Pere Marquette road
receives them and delivers them at
Port Huron, Detroit or Toledo to lines
Tor the seaboard. A S00-fOOt warehouse,
with the river on one side and the
rails on the other, gives evidence Of
the company'S expectations of the
frelghts it will have to provide storage
for in the future. A SOC, GO0-bushel eIe-
Vator is receiving its finishing touches,
While the river front is being locked
and its bed deepened by dredges that
are at work amid the floating ice.
The Northwestern railway, which, for
twenty years, has afforded the city all
the railway facility it had, and given
them grudgingly, has awakened to the
new conditions and met them with
| promptness and amplitude. Down on
the lake shore, just inside the harbor
line. where the government ends its
| work and that of the city begins, it
| has dredged out a slip 400 feet in
| length, with provision for loading two
car ferries at once, and is sending it's
| loaded trains across the lake Both
! these companies have selected this port
| for their new routes because of its su-
perior harbOr, it's sheltered bay, it's
exemption from ice embargo, it's East
ern connections, and the fact that it
makes, with them an almost perfect
| airline to the East with their lines
| from the Northwest. The fact that this
cutoff shortens the route from the
| Twin Cities to the sea coast by 1913
miles over any other route, was also
decisive factor in times when trifles
can no longer be neglected. The fact
that but for one day in twenty-seven
years has this harbor been blocked
with ice was not overlooked in the cal
| culations.
At present but one ferry is running,
making two trips a day over the forty
eight miles Of water and carrying the
| trains of either road. Another boat is
| being built and will raise the carriage
| capacity to 24O cars day, and leav-
| ing the limit Of transfer dependent
only on the railways to provide cars.
| 1 stood on the dock today and watched
| the ferry take on q load of cars from
| the Northwestern slip and steam away
| into the lake, where a southwest wind
was piling up the waves and a snow
storm was darkening the sky, and she
plowed her way through the floating
| cakes Of ice, brushing them aside as
her powerful engines drove her through
them, with all the fine disdain Of mind
in it's triumph over matter
To the Northwest this new route, dis
turbing old conditions, upsetting old
balances, disarranging differentials,
means lower freight rates in and out
| 1t will be inevitable, in the conflict for
freightage, that the shorter haul OF
this route will be temptation to both
these roads to get business that they
will not resist, even if some gentle
| mans agreement" offers it's spider-weh
| threads in restraint.
Meanwhile, beyond a little stiffening
Of prices Of real estate, and now
and then some one talking with
all the vim of an o1d-time boomer, there
are no indications here of any boom
| in,
years ago it had its dream Of a great
future when it should have it's railway
to the Mississippi, but it is more dis
posed now to accept it's honors as the
fruition Of that patiently awaited
event, although the wisdom that the
years have brought has chastened the
conception of the greatness that was tc
come.