Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1878 — THE IRON HORSE. [ARTICLE]

THE IRON HORSE.

New Railway Projects at Home ami Abroad [From the Railway ’World.] It is evident that very little improvement in the financial affairs of the world, or rather in the willingness of capitalists to advance money for railway construction, is needed to establish another era of great activity in railway building. The proposed fields of exertion have to some extent changed, and a good many of the enterprises seriously contemplated at this time have not yet quite reached the stage in which large expenditures are made, but nevertheless the work of conceiving projects, and advancing them so far that final success is only a question of time, still goes on. Temporarily the most rapid progress will, from present appearances, be in the New Dominion, India and other British colonies, France, Italy, Switzerland, South American countries, Bussia and portions of Asia, bill indications of a desire to resume construction, on a somewhat extensive scale, are by no means wanting in some sections of our vast republic, and these aspirations are not all unaccompanied with the ability to provide the necessaiy financial ing,.The Canadian Government seems to be thoroughly in earnest in its indorsement of the project for completing an all-Tail connection between the British North American possessions on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and, as work is progressing at several important points, the final success of this gigantic undertaking can scarcely be considered doubtful. Meanwhile great activity is being displayed in connection with schemes that to some extent hinge upon this movement by our northern neighbors, and it would not be surprising if construction in the region south of Manitoba, and identified with the Bed river valley and various portions of Dakota and Minnesota, should soon be commenced on an extensive scale. In the central Bocky Mountain districts the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe is busy with extensions, which are alleged to have as their objective point a connection with the lines of the Southern Pacific; the Denver and Bio Grande is pushing its lines south toward Mexico with considerable vigor, and there have been many evidences or premonitions of activity in various portions of Central Colorado, Utah and districts contiguous to the Black Hills. A number of projects for the construction of local roads, or Hie completion of extensions deemed desirable by some of the long-existing railway lines, are now showing an increasing amount of vitality; but, in view of the large number of completed miles of railway in operation in this country to each 1,000 inhabitants, as compared with the corresponding relation in many other countries, it is scarcely to be desired or expected that the outlays for new railways here will soon again, if ever, greatly surpass those of all other nations, especially since a number of foreign Governments are at this moment so liberally supporting new railway projects, while there is a strong disposition here’ to antagonize our entire railway system with Government hostility.

At the close of 1876 there was in the United States one mile of railway to every 576 6-10 inhabitants, while in the world at large the number of inhabitants to each mile of railway was 7,253 7-10. With an estimated population of less than 45,000,000, this country has 77,470 miles of railway in operation, out of a total of 194,836, or about twofifths of the entire mileage of the world, which has an aggregated estimated population of 1,412,933,693, or more than thirty times the population of the United States. After all due allowance is made for the progressive character of the American people, and the special needs for transportation facilities, it is evident that either we have built too many railways, or other nations too few, or that, perhaps, there is considerable truth in both these propositions. To supply the entire globe as liberally with railways in proportion to population as the United States is now supplied would require the construction of about 2,400,000 miles, or more than twelve times the present mileage ; and a number of nations heretofore inshrouded in the trammels of conservatism, or lacking the means, intelligence and enterprise necessary to put forward great works of construction, are now beginning to realize more fully than at any former period the desirability of such efforts.

It is a significant sign of the times that the Governments of France, Russia, Italy and Germany are either making at this moment very large expenditures for railway purposes, or that they are committed to such action at a comparatively early period. Even Switzerland decided recently to make another considerable advance to the great St. Gothard tunnel project, which is considered vitally essential to her future prosperity; and, as compared with the United States, either one of the nations named would be obliged to construct many railways before they would approximate the present relations between mileage and population in this country. Thus, in France, there is only one mile of railway to every 2,860 5-10 inhabitants; in Switzerland, one mile for every 2,286 8-10; in Germany, one mile for every 2,346 9-10; and in Russia, one mile to every 5,265 6-10 inhabitants.