The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-07-02
NEW HAVEN ROAD
 WORKS B0STONWARD The Railroads of New Eng land Built Up Through Consolidation, BOSTON AND ALBANY. Public Has Been Steady
 Gainer in Point of Service.
BOSTON AND ALBANY

 ton Transcript Sylvester Baxter re- views the present railroad situation and shows that the present lines in New England are all the result of con- solidation. After showing that the Old Colony system was composed of many previously independent lines he says
 Meanwhile the New York, New Ha- ven and Hartford has been working its | way Bosonward. It had gradually gained the ascendency in Connecticut, had obtained strong position in western Massachusetts and at last had secured the New York, Providence & Stonington. Desiring to bring the Shore Line route under one manage meut all the way between New York and Boston, it made an offer to the Old Colony for it's Boston and Prov idence line. The offer was a tempting one. But the Old Colony objected to dsmemberment-the answer was
 all or nothing" So the Consoiidat- cd had to take over the whole system, finding the bargain not at all @ bad one.
 Little Rhode Island up to that date, had clung to the day of small things in railroading. Every little
 branch was still operated as well as loWned by a separate company. There was, to be sure, not room for many of them But now everything in that State, as well as nearly everything in Connecticut, passed under the sway of the Consolidated, So far that com lpany's appetite for territory had not become inordinate, But it waxed with what 1t fed on the advantages of unitication as q definite policy became more evident and with the acquisition Eof the New England, so long ripe for assimilation, it's career may be said to have become royal. Only very lately with its titanic operations for the improvement of it's lines and of its equipment to degree comparable
 with the Pennsylvania standard, has it's scope assumed magnitude wor
 thy of the term imperial"
 Boston & Maine vs. The Eastern. |, On the other side of Boston the
 unification process has correspond ingly advanced into it's completing lstages. When the merging of the competing lines into Maine was first agitated it was commonly assumed that the Eastern would take the lead The more conservative policy of the Boston and Maine, however appears
 to have brought it to the front The
 traditions of the Boston and Maine, in it's primary stages, were essentially rustic. Men yet by no means aged remember how, when they were small
 boys, all the trains were hauled by horses out of the old Haymarket square station until they crossed Causeway street And men stil young remember seeing in commission some
 of those old passenger coaches with the ringbolts for the hooks of the towlines still in place. How the Ijlggery arks were hated! Doubtless some of those weird coaches are still in use for construction train pur- Iposes On the other railroads run ming out of Boston it was the custom l coaches by selling them off Ito go south But the Boston and Maine chung tenaciously to It's ancient roll- ling stock; It's ramshsckle trains haS become byword and reproach long after the southern railroads had ceas- ed to furnish a market for second hand material.
 The Boston & Maine gave it's first indications of aggresslveness when 1t lextended its line through to Portland. In the old days both the Eastern and the Boston & Maine terminated at Tor near the Maine and New Hamp- shire line, the Portland, Saco & Ports mouth hauling the trains of each the rest of the way to and from Portland When the Boston & Maine express trains reached Berwick Junction on the way from Boston they were taken on behind the Eastern express which had been delivered over to the Port Hand, Saco & Portsmouth at Ports mouth. The two companies were bitter rivals, but their trains had to lendure forced companionshp through that stage of the Journey. The Eastern, however, secured a lease of the Portland, Saco & Portsmouth and through it's ownership of a majority interest in the Maine Central 1t dom- mated the situation In Maine.
 The Boston & Maine as a great modern railroad hardly began to real ize its possibilities, until it absorbed the Eastern and with it gained prac- tically the mastery of Maine. Then came successively the acquisition of the Boston & Lowell system of various important lines and connecting links in New Hampshire and Vermont, and finally of the Fitchburg, It thus be- came almost the absolute railway power for Northern New England controlling the most of the traffic of three states and large part of that | of Massachusetts in addition, while sharing with the Boston 6 Albany the through traffic between Boston and the west.
 The name of the New York, New Haven & Hartford is often objected to as a misnomer. That of the Boston & Maine is equally so. Numerous are the instances where the name of a railway system is transcended by | its scope, The name of the Atchi- son, Topeka & Santa Fe, for instance, refers only to three comparatively un- important cities. Designations like Pennsylvania" New York Central" Baltimore & Ohio," illinois Central" Louisville & Nashville, among many others. have all become misnomers. As MT. MeIlen lately said, they are