The Falls City tribune., 1909-09-24
A RAILROAD MANS VIEWS
WHAT THE MISSOURI PACIFIC
CONTEMPLATES DOING
The Meaning of the Great Amount
of Trackage Here Falls City
An Important Point

Here is the way prominent rail
way official put 1t to Falls City
man on the train last week:
you Falls City folks don't know
what is coming to YOU" he said
You evidently don't realize the
magnitude of the improvements the
Pacific has in contemplation.
Whats the answer" asked the
Falls City man. II don't know" was
the reply 81 wish | did But" he
continued, do you think the COM
pany needs thirty acres of trackage
in addition to It's already large switch
ing facilities to accommodate divis-
ion point? That is four times sa
much as it needed at Hiawatha when
the division was there. The rail-
road isn't spending the money to
ltvel this ground for fun; there is an
object, motive far greater than the
division.
"A twenty stall round house too,"
he said. why Atchison, the pres
ent division point, the terminus of the
Central Bran h as WELL does nice
Why do yor knew that thes, ex-
tensiive improvements for division
Is absurd to a railroad man, it may
seem necessary to you, but the truth
of the matter is, il the Pacific had
in contemplation only the division 1t
could prepare for it with half the
expense" "Well what's doing?"
asked the Falls City man. "Give me
your guess"
"This is my guess, stated brief
ly," was the reply. Gould has learn
ed something about the railroad bus
mess lately, and he learned it from
Hartman. This man Hartman is a
wizard because he's full OF common
sense. He took the Union Pacific
when its stock was very. low and
drug on the market. He fought Wall
street, even his own associates, when
he insisted on putting every dollar
of earnings back into improvements.
He borrowed millions of dollars In
the midst of a panic to straighten
curves, put in steel bridges, lay heav
ier rails and build feeder lines.
Today, because of its splendid equip
ment the Union Pacific is hauling
the heaviest freight trains at the min
imum expense. It's time TO the Pa
cific coast is nearly a day shorter
than its competitors. It's feeder
lines tap the great wheat countries
ore mines of the mountains, and IL
is paying dividends every three mon
tbs because the manager would be
satisfied with nothing but the best.
For years." he continued, 'the
Missouri Pacific has been neglected
It's track is poor and it's equipment
worse. When Hartman was paying
big dividends in the panic of 1907,
Gould was sitting up nights trying to
keep his road out of the bankruptcy
courts. Now what do you see? The
directors of the Missouri Pacific
system are following Harriman's lead
and have made provision to spend
one hundred and forty million dol
lars in improvements in the next
ten years, or fourteen million
year. | saw this in the railway
news a few weeks ago and | also
saw that a feeder line (another
Hartman idea) was to be built
from Falls City south When | saw
that | began to understand where
the 80 acres Of additional trackage
and twenty-stall round house came
In"
"You mean"-began the Falls City
man. 81 mean that with Falls City
the terminus of the stub trains, the
division between Kansas City and
Omaha and the terminus of q new
line to the south, that you will need
your big round house and your thirty
acres of tracks, and / mean that you
don't need them for a division any
more than Hiawatha or Atchison
needed them"
And there you are for railroad
mans guess.