Toledo's Bicycle Railroad: A Small Town Bets on a Two-Wheeled Future
Toledo incorporates a railroad company with $80,000 capital and considers a patented bicycle-powered engine to link the town to the Northern Pacific.
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.
TOLEDO, March 5.—[Special.]—The Toledo Railroad and Improvement Company was incorporated here last Saturday with a capital stock of $80,000, to build and equip a railroad from Toledo to some point on the Northern Pacific railroad. The officers of the new company are: F. H. Thorne, president and general manager; Grant Arnold, first vice president; G. W. Denny, second vice president and secretary; and K. P. Badger, treasurer. E. Badger, Grant Arnold and G. W. Denny will act as the board of trustees for the first term. The people of Toledo are determined to have a railroad, and if no company sees fit to take a hand, will build it themselves. The town on the Northern Pacific that puts up the most bonus, other things being equal, will probably secure the other end of the road. It is probable that the bicycle system of locomotion will be the motive power used on the road, provided satisfactory arrangements can be made with the company controlling the patent on that system. The bicycle engine runs on a center rail and is so constructed as to be able to make much steeper grades than the ordinary locomotive at a smaller cost of operating, owing to the device of grip wheels that treble the traction or drawing power and at the same time decrease the danger of the engine leaving the track. Standard-gauge cars will be used.
“It is probable that the bicycle system of locomotion will be the motive power used on the road, provided satisfactory arrangements can be made with the company controlling the patent on that system.”
The scheme sounds like a steampunk fantasy, but it captures the boosterism of 1890s Washington towns racing to connect to the national rail network. Then, as now, infrastructure promises could be speculative, and small towns competed fiercely for the attention of big railroads—sometimes with inventions that never left the patent office.
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