Tks for further info Leo (personal aside - I'm the fellow who may have given
you a ride from one end of the train to another in WeGo with a knuckle - was
a C&NW Safety Mgr living in Wego at the time).
OO&FRV - per the "CB&Q RR Documentary History" by W.W. Baldwin (Q V-P)
the line was blt (eventually after initial 1852 charter & a lot of revisions
& false starts) from Montgomery to Streator (67.53 miles) and from Geneva
Switch ("a point near Aurora" - still shown as a stop by that name in
mid-1890's Q TTs) to Geneva (9.46 miles). Batavia to Geneva (2.16 mi) aband
June of 1907. (one of the very 1st Q abandon- ments).
I'd be interested to read that article on how the Q allegedely gained
control of the line from the stockholders. Per Baldwin, a line was also blt
from Streator to Wenona (Oct 1867) but the Q never had any interest in that
portion (assume it was a VERY early abandonment as never was part of the Q
or if it lasted for any length of time it was part of another RR til
abandonment). This was a time though when Q & IC were jockeying for position
and some of the charter revisions were
to insure a tie-in with the IC - there was also one to allow const. from
Oswego to Chicago via Naperville!
The OO&FR began tracklaying in 1869 and completed line from Streator to
Geneva by spring of 1871 with Q intervention midway in the process.
Apparently the initial stockholders were supposed to raise $650,000 & did
raise nearly that much. But costs went up & the original con- tractor
(Oliver Young) assigned the cons't (& the fundraising) to C.H. Force & Co.
which in turn assigned it to James F. Joy (the Q's primary money man along
with Forbes and other Bostonians). New bonds were to be issued but "the
laws providing for bond issues were declared invalid & MANY COMPLICATIONS
(emphasis mine)arose, all of which are fully recited in memoranda in the
office of the Scty of the CB&Q". ("Many complications" i.e. the focus of
the recent newspaper article you referred to?!). By Oct. of 1870 though the
Q had control.
Ultimately the Q absorbed the road in 1899 by agreeing to equip &
operate the line, pay all debt & exchange 1 Q share for every 15 OO&FR
shares. Assuming the old stockholders held that Q stock they did very well
in the long run. My Uncle held his Q stock until some years AFTER BN merger
& ultimately was very well compensated but that's another chapter in the Q's
long term financial success.
An aside here: many people assume that ALL Q stock was acquired by Jim
Hill via GN & NP but in fact there was a % or 2 still held by others. Not
enough to make waves on Wall Street but for those who held some (mostly Q
emps) it was a lucrative stock. The Q was not only 1 of the VERY few RR's
never to take bankruptcy either in the hard times in the 1880's & 1890's
much less the 1930's BUT the Q also NEVER missed a dividend from 1864 to
1970 - a record unmatched by any other RR and only matched by a handful of
corportations in ANY indus- try! Indeed the Q kept GN, and especially NP,
afloat during the 1930's. I have an old business text (have to dig it out)
that lists those companies that did not miss a dividend for a century or
more. The list is extremely short not only because of intervening 'panics'
& depressions but the companies merging, etc. As Q fans we take great pride
in the Zephyrs, the Domes, being the cradle of so many RR execs, the 126 mph
speed record by the TCZ, etc etc but the real mark of the Q was its finances
- not only the indisputable leader of the RR industry but in the top 1/2
dozen of ALL corporations! A further aside: many RR mergers (and other
Corp's) in the 1960s-70's fizzled
or underperformed but BN (& Menk) we held up as shining examples of a
successful merger. More recent thought though is that the components
were so good (especially Q as a RR and NP's land grant holdings) that Menk
could not foul it up if he tried but was successful by not really doing too
much.
Of course Q fans will always have trouble looking at Menk objectively
(how many of you still have a "Menk is a fink!" button?). Hopefully there
will be a good objective business bio of the yrs immediately prior to the BN
merger thru the Frisco yrs to evaluate Menk and the Q that Murphy had left
him & Quinn (that's a good story too - bringing on board as Q's CEO/pre-BN
caretaker a pres of a RR that did so many wrong things that adversely
affected employees, shippers & stock- holders of "America's Resourceful(?)
RR".
WEST CHICAGO - West Chicago was indeed a good job. C&NW spoiled the
Gen. Mills business as they had part of the route to Twin Cities facilities
& got greedy. Within C&NW at the time there was disessnion as to how rates
were being divided with BN for the haul as truckers lowered rates; the
intelligent faction said "better a smaller piece than no piece" but the
winning faction said "don't do anything to help BN!" (which goes back to the
many editorials in Trains that too many RR's thought their competition was
other RRs (i.e. we are in the RR business), not recognizing that the
comepetion was truckers (we are in the transportation business). Dereg has
helped but old rivalries (Harriman vs. Hill) will always keep some business
with trucks (i.e. Gen Mills @ WeGo) rather than bury the hatchet.
As for use of each other's locos during switching - saw this twice & the
C&NW engineer was a fellow City Councilman at the time & related they did so
every once in awhile but I can't say now how often. (it's been nearly 20
yrs) Glad to see the old Q semaphore (with WOOD paddle) that was the South
approach to the "J" crossing has been preserved.
Gerald Edgar
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