The Greeley tribune., 1905-11-02

OMAHA anu c4-E
Gentlemen: VIII you kindly per-
nit a humble citizen OF Greeley,
with a keen sense of humor, to COM
pliment your company on the coml-
cal aspects of its business methods;
on the truly antique and medieva!
ends YOU attain in the management
of YOUR passenger service at this and
other points on your line where ac-
tive competition does not compel
you to sit up and pay attention TO
the wants Of your patrons:
l take it that there is no better
paying portion of your road from
Omaha to the Pacific coast, in pro-
portion to its population, than that
centering in the city of Greeley.
But it would make a horse laugh, if
it could. to see the way you misuse
its people. The horse can't laugh,
but | can. Your passenger trains,
for instance, from Cheyenne to Den
yer, having been from two TO five
hours late ever since our Oldest in
habitant can remember, you have
from time to time resorted to stub
service between here and LaSalle in
order to make connections there with
your short line trains from Denver
to Omaha. Your regular trains are
scheduled to do this, but fail great
deal more than nine times in ten at
all seasons. No hacks run between
Greeley and LaSalle because you do
contrive to make connections Just
often enough to kill business of that
character. People use wheels, and
automobiles, and private carriages,
or they walk, if necessary, whether
the roads are good or bad, whenever
your company does the funny act
down there in getting up from Sterl-
ing, or in getting down there from
Cheyenne, when at Intermittent
periods You do not happen to be fill
ing the gap with your stub. | was
myself an interested spectator of
your unique performances in these
repects at your Greeley depot only
last week. When ! am not directly
interested in results your antics
merely afford me languid amusement.
but when l am myself concerned
they tickle me nearly to death. On
this particular occasion | was per-
sonally interested. | was going
down into Morgan county by your
short line. And there were others
perhaps two dozen of them, and of
course the train from Cheyenne was
just late enough 10 miss connection
at LaSalle, that is to say an hour
and thirty minutes. And these
people were compelled to sit, or
stand or walk about from a quarter
of four, to fifteen minutes after five,
while waiting for that stub to take
them over to LaSalle. 1t would go,
so the operator told us, in the alb
sence of the agent, whenever the
engine got through with its yard
work, at any old time from four tC
five: it actually started at fifteen
minutes after five. All of those
people could, and most of them prob
ably would have gone back up town
had they known there was an hour
and half to spare. But you see
they could not know at what minute
that stub would start, and so they
sat and stood and walked while they
waited for an hour and half tC
slip by.
But while you take such infinite
pains to send your delectable old
stub when the regular train is late,
to accommodate people who wish to &C
east by your short line route tc
Omaha or Chicago, you appear Oh
the contrary to have entered into a
conspiracy with Denver to prevent
people who wish to come to Greeley
from ever getting here. If they come
up the river from Julesburg on you1
short line and on your evening train
YOU dump them unceremoniously Oh
the prairie at LaSalle at almost any
hour from nine O'CLOCK unull mld'
night or later. No connection in,
tended, no stub provided, no hack,
in fact your methods have made that
station famous as a dead easy
point for the footpads and amateur
highwaymen of Colorado, Wyoming
and Nebraska, with the very natural
result that they flock there, and be-
sides shooting, stabbing and robbine
their victims found stranded there
have for months of the past year oc
cupied our county Jail in Greeley ir
blocks of from three to five while
waiting trial in our courts for theil
crimes.
A relative of my family recently
Maid us visit over your road. IL