Re: ``Goin' Railroading'' and the Narrow Gauge

I can agree to a point.

As to the UP deferring maintenance during their ownership... it was a system-wide problem. Remember Jay Gould was involved here.

Just prior to to Harriman acquiring control of the UP lines in 1898, the railroad was referred to as "Two streaks of rust running west out of Omaha". That was a pretty good reference to anything that Gould had touched. The South Park was no exception, so to single out the South Park as being the exception to maintenance is quite a provincial and short sighted attitude.

I see Trumbull as the reason that the C&S lines lasted as long as they did. He was a receiver of what became the C&S who was independent of Omaha's control (much to Omaha's chagrin) and without him I believe that the 3' gauge would have been abandoned much earlier than it was. Trumbull actually allowed maintenance and upgrading to be done without having to cater to stockholders.

In a Stock Market valuation book that I have, it shows the C&S as being allied with the UP until its purchase by the Q.

Interesting but nothing but hindsight. I would ove to be able to agree, but I think that the most interesting part would have been if the Denver Cut-off would have been built from South Platte to the Midland via what became the Nighthawk branch.

We have the tendancy to look back from what thing are today and see the Harriman era UP as the standard. Back then it wasn't. It was as bad or worse than the Rock Island when it folded. I was told by a colleague that he found the C&NW's plan for the takeover of the UP when he was looking through old CNW files after the UP-CNW merger.

Just as an aside, we had a wagish member of the UP staff who said, after the 1982 UP-MP-WP merger, "The MoP was cheaper when we bought it the first time". Referring, of course, to the Gould era.

I guess that's what a discussion forum is for.

Rick