The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1922-01-19
RAIL WORKERS
MANAGE ROAD
Station Agent and Conductor Get
Possession of Bath and
Hammondsport.
ON VERGE OF DISSOLUTION
Once Prosperous Branch of the Erie
Railroad is Undergoing an Elk
periment-Did Big Business
in Grapes.

ddmmOnQSpOrt, IN. Ill is not III
good fortune of many station agent
and train conductors to step ovel
night into the jobs of managers an
operators of a railroad that at on
time was asserted to be the mos
profitable stretch Of mileage in tn
United States. That however, wa
the recent experience of w. G. Aber
station agent, and Leon Jaycox, con
ductor, on the Bath & Hammondspor
railroad in the Finger lakes region O.
central New York.
The line is a subsidiary of the Erie
system. 1t is but eight or nine miles
in length and connects Hammondspor1
at the head of Lake Keuka with the
main line roads at Bath. Messrs Abel
and Jaycox have been employed on II
for years and probably never thought
| Of assuming the responsibility for its
operation until some country editor a
year or so ago made the comment that
| If the Erie would turn the road over
to one or both of them they could re-
store its waning prestige and finances.
Before the adoption of the eight
| eenth amendment and the enactment
of the Volstead laws the Bath & Ham
mondsport railroad carried thousands
of tons of grapes from the 10000
acres Of vineyards that grace the hill
sides surrounding Lake Keuka.
Aided by AirpIane Business.
AS the airplane business conducted
by Glenn II. Curtiss at HammOnds
port gained prominence and the num-
Der of its employees ran up into the
thousands, the business of the Bath x
Hammondsport gained further i'm
petus. both of passengers and freight.
Perhaps the management grew a bit
chesty over the very comforting APP
pearance of the profit and loss pages
of the ledgers. If you wanted to enter
or leave Hammondsport in those days
you either rode on the Bath & Ham
mondsport, you walked or you hired
horse and wagon. If you wanted to
ship anything you were in the same
fix. 1t was the Bath & Hammonds-
port or nothing
With the completion Of the State
road automobiles and busses began to
cut into the passenger traffic of the
Bath & Hammondsport at surprising
rate Soon there were busses running
that connected with trains on both the
Erie and the Lackawanna at Bath,
and when the demands of the war for
quick deliveries of airplanes and mo-
tors from the Curtiss factory forced
the company to develop a line of mo-
tortrucks another deep cut was made
into the revenues Of the railroad
With the signing of the armistice
and the coming of prohibition the
business of the B. & II. faded to less |
than the proverbial shadow of its for |
mer dimensions, and with the raising I
Of railroad wages to point where the
brakeman who made two 16-mile trips
4 day drew down checks of ap-
$500 month, the appear
ance Of the profit and loss page pro-
vided no joyful pride for the manage
ment nor for stockholders.
Business Still 10 Available.
Sources of business were not really
lacking in Hammondsport. A popula-
ton Of some three thousand people
still relied on it for their coal supply,
which, at rate of more than $40 for
hauling each carload eight miles down
lill, was not to be sneezed at, for their
food furniture and other necessaries.
Glenn H. Curtiss, L. ]. Seely and some
others soon organized a company to
AXE over the former airplane and mo-
.or factories and this concern pro-
5ided a considerable tonnage, while
he grape crops continued to go out
" rail, though not packed in bottles
IS of yOre.
But the former patrons of the line
ad learned that they could get quick
Mobile, truck and bus than the B. &
/. seemed able or willing to afford +
hem, and business for the railroad
ad dwindled to point where the
of all service was threat
ned when the idea of leasing the road
0 Messrs. Aber and JaycOx was
reached. They appreciate better than
foreign management the demands of
,cal conditions and they believe they 4
an give better service at lower op-
rating cost than the present records X
how III
So now the former agent and con- Il
uctor are running the trains, employ 4
Il train hands, section hands, ETC., II
nd are the real bosses Of the rail i
lad They expect to revise the pres i
It running schedules so that the i
aims can be used to some advantage *
: the travelling public. They have Il
zen in the service long enough to #
i've good idea why the B. & H. I'M E
r the old management was rapidly Il
Hing and they are confident enough IE
final success to take full RESPONSE is
lily for operating the road. Can the e
nployees succeed as managers where II
aimed railroad executives have E
brown up the sponge? ~