The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-01-01
Aged Magnate Fights to Build
Long Dreamed-Of Rail PROJECT
Transportation Executives
Oppose Plan to Erect a
Short Connecting Link
Through Pennsylvania.
BY DON SUTTON
NEA Service Writer

NEW YORK, Jan. 1.-The shay
gy gray beard and towering might
Of Leonor FreSnel Loree have in
truded themselves again, probably
npleasantly, upon the dreams of
Americas other railroad moguls.
For the Hartman Short Line"
the railroad that never was, threat
ems once more to disturb the east
ern transportation picture.
In Washington today, members Of
the interstate commerce commission
are furrowing their brows over hun
dreds, Of pages of closely typewrit-
ten copy which give reasons why
two ribbons of shiny steel should or
should not be stretched across the
gently rolling hills and level pla-
teaus of the 283 miles between Eas-
ton, Pa, and Pittsburgh.
Those pages contain the testi-
mony upon which twenty-year-
old vision of Loree, aged veteran Of
inter-railroad warfare, will live or
die.
Began in 1911
They are the arguments pro and
con on the practicability of the
plan of the New York, Pittsburgh
and Chicago railroad to pierce the
formidable Appalachian range at
its lowest point, opening up a new
short route between the Great
Lakes and the Atlantic Seaboard.
Loree, 70 years old, is fighting
his greatest fight, and his oppo-
nentS are all the mighty railroads
in the east.
Since about 1911 Loree, who is
president of the Delaware and
Hudson railroad, has kept alive the
vision OF putting locomotives and
rumbling trains roaring through
this stretch of quiet hill country,
forming a new short link between
other eastern and western lines that
will bring the Pittsburgh district
seventy-f1ve miles closer 10 New
York and cut Off 10 per cent of the
distance from New York to Chicago.
Harriman's Legacy
1t was a plan that he conceived
with the late E. H. Hartman,
great railroad builder. A last mes
sage to "see the project through"
was HarTimans legacy to Loree.
For twenty years the plan has
failed of realization, either because
of economic factors, the World war
or the opposition of other rail-
roads.
But Loree has chung to his dream
of constructing "the most economi-
cal railroad in America" through
the shortest cut between east and
west.
Lined up against the lone Loree
in this newest railroad battle are
the executives of the Pennsylvania,
New York Central, Baltimore &
Ohio, Reading and other roads.
They have argued before the I.
G. G. that there is no guarantee
that the projected short line would
secure a supporting business, that
there is no financial plan for put
ting it over, that there are not Suf-
ficient terminal facilities, and that
the difficulty of constructing the
line would be tremendous because
it would have to pass over numer-
GUS valleys, necesSitating the cree
tioD IF manu- uiodIIctS
Economical Road
Loree and his associates coun-
ter by contending that the territory
through which the road would pass
is a coal district of great poten-
tial wealth, and that the time and
money saving effected by trans
portation over this short cut would
alone make the line pay.
The estimated cost of building and
operating the line for five years Is
SLIT 100000 The Hartman estate
bought charters on the 5000 acres
of land through which the short line
would run. Easy grades and curves,
it is pointed out, would permit OPP
Grafton at the lowest cost. And,
important in time of business de-
preston, the railroad would give
employment to 10000 men.
The role of fighter isn't new
one to L. F. Loree. His career has
been punctuated with struggles and
victory, duels of money and power,
ever since he rose from $35-a-
month job as a surveyors assistant
to become president of three rail-
roads.