Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1918 — RAILROADS SOLD BOD LY FOR WAR [ARTICLE]

RAILROADS SOLD BOD LY FOR WAR

Equipment of Once Promising Lines on Way to France. JUNK BRINGS FANCY PRICES England and France, Building Thousands of Miles of Lines Behind Trenches, Make Far and Wide Search for Material.

' * If the war has done nothing else for certain Wall street men who have been playing the railroad game—and the chances are that it has performed many miracles for them —it has created a bullish market for any old railroads they may have had on hand for some time, observes a writer in New York Sun. The long and hungry arm of war has reached out into America and Canada in search of surplus and unused railroads. and the plains and junkyards of the two countries have been ransacked of the materials required in France. As a result the itann who was wise enough to hold onto his old railroad or who was compelled to retain possession of the property because there was nothing else for him to do, is thanking his lucky stars for being able tb unload, at fancy war prices, the veriest railroad junk. Old Roads in Demand. One of the thousand and one industrial romances brought about by the war has been this keen demand for old railroads. England and France have been working overtime building hundreds and thousands of miles of railroad lines behind their trenches along the western front.. Naturally they have been compelled to go far and wide \in search of the material for these supply lines, inasmuch as the steel mills of the two countries have been working 24 hours a day making shells ap'd supplying munitions. The tremendous demand for steel rails and rolling stock for the allied armies in France caught the steel trade unprepared, and rather than wait for months for the rail equipment factories to catch up England has gone into the world market in search of old railroads which could be dismantled and transplanted to France. Hundreds of miles of railroad have disappeared completely from, the face of the North American continent, only to appear a few months later in eastern France. Engines, cars, rails, bridges, ties—everything real and tapgible in the Way of railroad property has been running the submarine blockade for months, and the end is not in sight. Successful “War Bride.” Junk dealers, or waste material men, as they call themselves now that war prosperity has made their business one of the most successful “war brides,” havt? been-scampering about the country buying up all the decrepit railroads they could get their hands on. And as “junk” the road properties have been sold at prices 300 and 400 per cent above the “Junk” market of four years ago. Within recent months approximately ' 1,000 miles of Canadian and American railroads, including all rolling stock worth salvaging, have been snapped up and prepared for shipment abroad. Even hungry junk dealers from Japan have appeared in the market. Scattered about the middle west are numerous relics' the days when railroad promoters scourged the country 0 like a plague of locusts. Little railroad ..lines were built, the public mulcted of its hard-earned dollars, and soon the railroad system ceased to exist. Railroads Were Failures. One of these purchased was the Chicago, Anamosa & Northern, a 36-mile line which had been operating in northeastern lowa. Another short line in southern lowa, about 25 miles long, soon passed into’ the hands of “Junk” dealers and was then resold to agents for the English government. Several lines of this character, some of which only gave up the struggle within the last few months, were added to the

string of railroad properties purchased by England. The junk yards were ransacked for old car rails still fit for service. Canadian railroads sacrificed many miles of track and much rolling stock for the mother country. Side and switch" tracks at small stations were shortened or eliminated, in some cases portions of double track equipment being taken up in order that the English armies might not suffer from lack of shells and food. Whenever economy in use of roadbed could be brought about trackage was sacrificed. In a number of cities, where street railway and interurban lines were being relaid with heavier steel the old rails passed into the hands of agents who had been collecting such property for sale to foreign buyers.