(erielack) Erie, Lackawanna, and NKP 1881-83

["ronald" <rdukarm_@_adelphia.net>]

Bill and List,

The DL&W wasn't even built and speculation and maneuvering were
taking place to extend it west and to block it from going west. Here's
a Nov 22, 1882 quote from the Buffalo's papers which was typical of
the times.
"A New York special to the Cincinnati Enquirer says: A Wall Street rumor was to

 the effect that a new line of railroad from Buffalo to Toledo is likely to be built

 in the interests of Delaware, Lackawanna & Western. The Erie and the New York

 Central have western connections, but now that the Nickel Plate has been bought 

in the interest of Vanderbilt properties Lackawanna would have no independent 

western outlet as had been expected. If the new line was built it would be in the 

Gould interests. Members of the Central Construction Company, which built the 

Lackawanna extension, were prominently connected with the Lackawanna and the 

Gould Southwestern system. Gould lines have no independent eastern connection,

 but the building of the road from Toledo to Buffalo would supply such deficiency."


Sam Sloan didn't want to stop at Buffalo in 1883. He immediately began 
a fleet of boats to reach points west. He was president, I believe, of almost
2 dozen railroads, many of them in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan.
Not only him but most of the DL&W Board of Managers had controlling
stock interest in many Midwest roads.

Sloan operated Lackawanna boats across Lake Michigan in winter in
the early 1890's to show it was feasible to cut thru the ice.It was Sloan in
the early 1890's who conceived the car ferries across Lake Michigan and
he got the Ann Arbor to build and operate them. He was putting together
an alliance of various roads to reach Omaha, Neb. Sloan wanted to reach
beyond Chicago by going across Lake Michigan, not go thru Chicago and 
get entangled in its web. Sloan was a visionary.

If a railroad had not built a new route by 1900, the odds were against it. The
public was crying about RR barons. TR was crusading against monopolies.
Congress finally got the RRs to divest of their lake fleets by 1912. After 1900
the mood was against bigness.

Sloan retired in 1899. About the first act Truesdale took was to sell off its 
Great Lakes fleet.Truesdale was a technician, an engineer type who saw
the need to upgrade the RR. He wasn't the grand schemer and dreamer
that Sloan was. The times had changed by 1900, and Truesdale was the 
right man for times. A status quo had set in for the RRs and fed regulation
and sufficient capacity curtained the great building of the 1800s.

This is a long and interesting story which can't be addressed here. I have
a two part article for the Diamond which will tell this untold story.


Ronald R. Dukarm ELHS #532  ELHTS #66
rdukarm_@_adelphia.net

	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
	Sponsored by the ELH&TS
	http://www.elhts.org
	To Unsubscribe: http://lists.elhts.org/erielackunsub.html

------------------------------