Hard Times Force Railroads Toward a Monopoly
Financial desperation drives the competing lines of the Pacific Northwest to consider an end to expansion and a new era of joint operation.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
According to local railroad men, who are closely watching the movement for the restoration of rates, any settlement is likely to cover far more ground than a mere agreement on rates. In fact, it is likely to involve an agreement not to build competing lines and for the joint use of existing lines. The first sign of this was the agreement of the Great Northern to admit the Canadian Pacific into Seattle over its coast lines as a condition of the re-establishment of rates. The talk is that the Northern Pacific may give up the building of the Burrard Inlet & Fraser Valley line and let the Canadian run over its track to Tacoma and Portland in consideration of the Canadian letting it run trains to New Westminster and Vancouver. In good times, railroad presidents are swollen with prosperity and dividends to talk grandly about extensions, but in hard times they discuss just such schemes as this.
“In good times railroad presidents are swollen with prosperity and dividends to talk grandly about extensions, but in hard times they discuss just such schemes as this.”
This 1894 report captures the moment the 'growth machine' of the 19th-century railroad barons hit a brick wall of economic depression. Today, the rhetoric of regional transportation and infrastructure consolidation mirrors these historical efforts to maximize efficiency over competition.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.