New Track

The epic of U. S. railroad building ended with a mild clink in 1931. In that year Arthur Curtiss James tamped a golden spike into a convenient tie near Bieber, Calif., formally completing 200 miles of new track connecting Great Northern R. R. with his Western Pacific. After that, paralysis descended on what had once bean the lustiest field of U. S. business pioneering. Total mileage of new track laid by all U. S. railroads plummeted from 748 in 1931 to 163 in 1932, collapsed to 24 miles in 1933. In 1934, 76 miles of new track were laid, last year 45. During these four years U. S. railroads abandoned 7,166 miles of track.

Fact was, the railroads were not only incapable of much new building but in many cases found it impossible to finish what they had started before Depression. Last week, when Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe's hefty President Samuel Thomas Bledsoe announced the biggest single track-laying job planned by any U. S. railroad in years, his announcement promised no new episode in the railroad epic but a return to polish off one of those left unfinished.

The Santa Fe's new track will run in miles between Boise City, Okla. and Las Animas, Colo. At an estimated cost of $3,750,000, it will complete a 232-mile line between Las Animas and Amarillo, Tex. which was originally approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1930 and completed as far as Boise City-- 121 miles--in 1931. Thus after five years the Santa Fe will soon succeed in connecting Denver with western Texas by a direct route saving as much as 226 miles on traffic north & south.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.