Quotes
It was a simple matter to find fault with the railroad; it has always been its fate to arouse the opposition of the farmers.
It had opened up millions of acres to cultivation, given homesteads to millions of people, many of whom were immigrants from Europe, developed mineral lands of incalculable value, created several new great States, and made the American nation a unified whole.
In this wise the Commodore not only added millions to his already growing fortune but also made himself a power in the financial world.
In the United States three new methods of transportation made their appearance at almost the same time - the steamboat, the canal boat, and the rail car.
In the earlier days of railroading, and especially in the long period which came to an end with the death of Harriman, the typical railroad president was usually a man of great wealth who had secured his position by owning a large financial interest in the property.
In the decade before the Civil War various north and south lines of railway were projected and some of these were assisted by grants of land from the Federal Government.
In fact there were railroads long before there were steam engines or locomotives.
In 1919 the entire property, including controlled lines, embraced more than 13,000 miles of main track, besides about 5000 miles of extra tracks; over 200,000 freight cars are in use on the system, and every year upwards of 200,000,000 tons of freight are transported.
In 1906 the Pennsylvania began to dispose of the bulk of its holdings in competing properties, the most notable transactions being the sale of its entire interest in the Chesapeake and Ohio to independent interests and a substantial part of its Baltimore and Ohio holdings to the Union Pacific Railroad.
In 1871 the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad, which had been opened as early as 1852, came under the Pennsylvania control.
In 1862, when the charter was granted by the United States Government for the construction of a railroad from Omaha to the Pacific coast, the only States west of the Mississippi Valley in which any railroad construction of importance existed were Iowa and Missouri.
In 1831, steam locomotives were tested, and one of them, the York, was found capable of conveying fifteen tons at the rate of fifteen miles an hour on level portions of the road.
If we seek the real predecessor of the modern railroad track, we must go back three hundred years to the wooden rails on which were drawn the little cars used in English collieries to carry the coal from the mines to tidewater.
Horses and mules, and even sail cars, made more rapid progress than did the earliest locomotive.
Having obtained control of the New York Central, the Hudson River, and the Harlem railroads, Commodore Vanderbilt now decided in the summer of 1867 to go after the Erie, of which Drew was nominally in possession, although no one knew when he owned a majority of the stock or when he was temporarily short of it.
Great men are usually the products of their times and one of the men developed by these times takes rank with the greatest railroad leaders in history.
Grades have been eliminated everywhere and the whole route has been modernized and strengthened by the laying of one hundred to one hundred and fifty pound rails.
From that date forward, the history of the Vanderbilt railroads has been closely identified with the House of Morgan. J.P. Morgan and his business associates became the company's financial agents, and thereafter all plans of expansion or consolidation were handled directly by them.
For under the Commodore's magic touch the Harlem Railroad for the first time in its long history began to pay dividends at a high rate, and in four years the earnings of the Hudson River property had nearly doubled.
For many years following 1851, Drew, who owned or controlled nearly one-half the stock of the Erie, appeared to think that his office of treasurer carried with it the right to manipulate the stock of the road at any time it might help his pocketbook to do so.