Charlie Vlk wrote on the Q list:
...This may be heresy, but..
...When James J. Hill was trying to get the GN and NP into Chicago the CB&Q was
not his first choice. He would have preferred getting the Milwaukee Road or
the Wisconsin Central/Soo Line. He was of the opinion that The Q was a poorly
built railroad and stated that it had more curves and grades on the prairies
than the GN had crossing the Rockies.
...While the CB&Q was a progressive railroad in many ways, in the early days I
am beginning to believe that The Empire Builder was correct. The CB&Q had a
continuous program of line relocations, curve easing, grade reductions and
other general improvements after the turn of the century that suggest that
there was plenty to do.
I think you may have gotten a hold of some bad info on that one. I can think of
a guy in Montana who would make this sort of argument, generally based on what
he likes to say is "reading between the lines" of corporate correspondence, but
what always appeared to me to be reading "into" the lines to me. As a matter of
fact, the NP had the WC in its pocket for a while from Villard's return to the
Board ca. 1886-7, until the second reorganization in the wake of the Panic of
1893. In typical Villard fashion, he leased it from his cronies without
bothering to figure out if the rate he was going to pay was worth it. (Wasn't.)
All three of the big Hill components suffered from the rough-and-ready era of
railroading, all three dumped money back into the plant for years to come to
sort out some of the more interesting engineering feats of the construction
era. GN's Bob Downing made a point which stuck in my head, noting that
something like 40 percent of the much-vaunted GN wound up on a line relocation
_after_ its golden spike. I presume the NP put up similar numbers. As for
poorly built, Hill and the NP didn't put the Q in their pocket until about the
turn-of-the-century, by which time all three roads were already well on their
upgrading their plants phase (as was EHH on the UP). Why on earth Hill would
agree to the _massive_ two-hundred-per-share asked for by Charles Elliott
Perkins if he thought the Q was a second-rate property is... unbelievable.
Harriman wouldn't meet it, and as far as I know, Hill never courted any road
but the Q as St. Paul's access to Chicago and the Middle West. As it was, the Q
was the big earner of Hill's big three anyway, and whenever mergers were
trotted out prior to 1955, St. Paul would never agree to let go of the Q in
order to consummate the deal. (I note the 1925-33 merger work under Elliott and
Budd almost got the Federal green light ca. 1930-3, but only if it came with
divestiture of the Q. No deal.)
FWIW
John Phillips
Seattle
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