Imperial press and farmer., 1902-06-07
F. Il. Hartman Talks.

E. II. Ildl IlHldl, pIeSlueHI Ol Ine Southern Pacific System, is a railroad man. He believes in taking the peo- pie of the state of California into his confidence concerning the future policy of his road, as was shown at the ban quet recently tendered him at San Francisco. He realizes that methods of transportation are forging ahead each year and that to keep up with the band wagon the Southern Pacific must take for it's motto: Improve ment, the order of the hour" He also realizes that telling the people his plans is the best method of securing their good will and assistance Among other things, he said
 "I think, for the first time in your lives, you've got the entire Southern Pacific railroad before you, and we are not unwilling to be under inspection. But in talking to you, I am not like the preacher who had congregation at his mercy. I want you to talk back.
 1ouly WS 6lNO yOu luduSQudJc transportation facilities, but I assure you that it is your fault, and not ours. You have simply grown too fast for us, and I am here now to pledge the word of the Southern Pa cifc that you will not lead us for a very long time. We are going to catch up. We have added eight-four per cent to it's freight equipment, and the same proportion to our carrying capac- ity. We reduced grades, eliminated curves, and spared no expense to make a perfect road. We built one hundred and fifty-eight miles of new track to shorten our road thirty miles-an en- gineering problem that is difficult of comprehension, but perfectly true and we think now that the Union Pa cific is all that a railroad ought to be. It takes some nerve, gentlemen, to spend five or six millions of dollars on work of that sort these days, but we did it; did it cheerfully.
 And we are going to spend twenty millions of dollars on the Southern Pacific. That means improvements in the coast line from San Francisco to Los Angeles; the finishing of the tun- l reduction of grades, the elimination of curves, the building of new bridges, the improvement of the rOad-bed, and the laying of new rails from Los An geles to Fl Paso. We have fifty-pound rails now; we are going to have eighty-pound rails. And while I am on the subject of road improvement, I want to tell you that from Reno to Ogden, a distance of five hundred and eighty miles, we have reduced the l percentage of grades from ninety i seven feet to the mile to twenty-one | feet. We have so cut out curves that |. a train, which used to describe sixty circles in making the trip now de- scribes but twenty. We have added | eight thousand freight cars to the | equipment of the Southern Pacific We | have increased it's oil-carrying capac- ity four hundred per cent, and in ad- dition We can store 4,500000 barrels of fuel oil along our line for our own use. say all these things to you, gentle men, because I think It is time you knew what We are doing, and are try ing to do. It has not been said before.
 "Of the future of my own system, I have. perhaps, not told all that I can tell. Some day we are going to burrow through the Nevada Noun tains, and that promise you now we will do. But we will have to get ter