The Parker post., 1911-08-19
ARIZONA MAY HAVE
BIG RAILROAD WAR
Los Angeles Tribune Says Southern
Pacific Is to Be "Bottled Up.'-
Piece of Road.

great deal of space to railroad build
ing in Arizona; especially to the
proposed extension of the K. P. S.
w. to Phoenix and the effect it will
have on the Southern Pacific. The
Tribune dwells upon the fact that the
Southern Pacific is to be bottled up
when the plans now under way are
carried out Says the Tribune:
railroad war, the ultimate end
of which will be to bottle up the
Southern Pacific in the southwest,
shut off it's direct eastern connect
ions with the Rock ISalnd, and force
it to build a new connection and out
let over the old Durango cutoff, took
definite shape recently when it was
announced that the Ell PaSo AM
Southwestern, a Phelps-Dodge hold
ing. has appropriated $2,700.000 for
the immediate construction of an eX
tension from Fairbanks, Ariz., to Tue
son.
Aligned against each other in thic
war, which promises to be the fiercest
since the days when Hartman
waged battle against the Salt Lake
in the Meadow Valley wash. or since
the Santa Fe invaded the southwest,
are the millions of the Santa Fe, the
Rock Island and the PhelpS-DOdge in
terests, and those of the Hartman
interests.
For the past few years the rail
road situation in Arizona, the hOtbed
of the present difficulty, has been
strained to momentary interruption.
The Rock Island, in which the Phelps
Dodge people are heavily concerned
and the Ell Paso and Southern, a lire
people, running from Benson, Ariz..
through Ell PaSO to Tucumcari n. M,
have been writhing under the hold O.
the Southern Pacific for many years.
The plans of the Ell PaSo and
Southwestern are to build from Fair
banks to Tucson, a piece of cOnstruc-
tion that will be completed in a com
paratively short time, and from there
to rush construction to Phoenix, there
Fe via Parker and obtaining an entry
to tidewater over other lines than
those of the Southern Pacific.
An attorney now in Los Angeles
who is close to Phelps Dodge, stated
recently that the Phoenix extension
will probably be completed in a short
time and that actual construction will
be begun before the present project
that of building from Fairbanks to
Tucson, is completed
Once the connection with the Sanla
Fe has been made at Phoenix, the
Rock Island and Ell Paso and South
western trains will find a ready out-
let to Los Angeles; the arrangements
by which the Southern Pacific now
runs its trains to Chicago over the
ern from Ell Paso to Tucumcari, and
from Tucumcari over the Rock Island
will be several, and the Southern Pa
cific. the interest that since the birth
of the southwest as a commercial and
agricultural center has practically
controlled transportation, will be bot
tied up in its own stronghold without
an outlet by which it can compete
for eastern business
But the plans of the PhelpS-DOdge
interests and the Santa Fe, which
from present Indications have com
bined to battle against the Southern
Pacific, are even more extensive than
heretofore told
From Tucson it is planned to build,
as the crow flies, to Port Lobos on
the Gulf of California, and thus give
Rock Island. Phelps-Dodge and the
Santa Fe lines, with a short cut from
the Pacific and far east that will bet
ter by a considerable reduction OF
distance the line now building by the
Orient railroad from Topolobampo on
the gulf to Kansas City and Chicago.
News has reached Los Angeles that
a great quantity of rails and ties havs
recently been unloaded at Port Lobos;
that surveyors have been over the
entire course, and that actual con-
StructiOn work for this line will be
begun in a few weeks.
Once the Rock lsalnd and Ell PasO
and Southwestern have severed con-
nectiOns with the Southern Pacific
and obtained entry to tidewater over
the freaks of the Santa Fe, the South
arn Pacific will have but its New
Orleans route left from and to the
southwest, and the course of this
route is of such length that it can
not possibly be used for traffic bound
to the east through the Chicago gate