Deleted by the author, to keep the peace.
Wasn’t that more or less what they aimed at later, when hooking up with line to Salt Lake City, and later yet, with WP?
From the limited amount of reading I have done on the D&RG, it would seem a major turning point took place in 1878, when the AT&SF won control of Raton Pass. I believe this turned the D&RG westward into the Rockies, while the ATSF continued on to the coast.
Would anyone care to speculate what would have happened if the D&RG had been the victor at Raton? I’d guess the D&RG would not have aimed for California, while the ATSF would have found a differnt route.
Awesome . . . there is still hope for me.
Gabe
Actually, it’s the ideas that I find offensive, perpetrated everywhere, that misrepresents history in the guise of personal agendas. I agree, the original comment about regulation was completely off topic on this thread, but there it was, and of course, you had no problem with it until I commented on it because it was a grevious mistatement of historical fact. Where I “find fault”, is your predictable need to make it personal when you, as you often are, found welded to pre-determined conclusions based poorly on fact, or research.
Your comment is no different than many you have made in the past, and hopefully your efforts to personalize yet another discussion of history has gratified you once again, ironically, as you took the considerable time to interrupt a discussion on railroading to complain about interrupting a discussion on railroading
Your uncensored comment on another thread about me being your “arch-nemesis” certainly likewise had nothing to do with that thread, was purely a personal assault that had no place on these forums, but suggests the highly personalized nature of your attitude, and your enthusastic willingness to express it.
Unlike you, I don’t call people names and use forums, as you have here, for purely personal purposes and to make a highly exaggerated point. I might call an opinion “dumb”, or even “baloney” but unlike you, I’m not here to call people names. You apparently are. I did not initiate the comment about regulation
[quote user=“Railway Man”]
It’s very hard to discriminate between what Palmer said and what he believed. Were his schemes visionary? Or merely clever marketing schemes to separate British investors from their money? There’s an interesting (and very rare) set of volumes entitled “Early Financing of the Denver & Rio Grande” that argues that the organization was about 98% a real-estate development plan and 2% a railroad. There is much evidence that Palmer was a front man for the real players who remained out of the limelight. The visionary schemes of Mexico evaporated from the promotional efforts once the railroad reached the land grants of southern Colorado and the San Luis Valley that the promoters controlled, and the Pacific Coast schemes never seemed more than token and half-hearted, designed merely to attract the small and naiive investor who expected ANY railroad west of the Mississippi to have Pacific plans in its portfolio.
From a logical point of view the Palmer projection to Mexico City was just two points on a map with a thick line drawn between them. There was no traffic moving that way nor any solid expectation there ever would be. One suspects Palmer selected Mexico City simply because it was a place investors might have heard of – it
deleted by the author, to keep the peace.
I’ve always found it fascinating, how seems like there was always someone willing to invest with people promoting big schemes. When you think about how many fortunes were made and lost, just in the railroading business, you wonder how new investors were found.
Wow, name calling, moving threads around, not understanding relevant content, disrupting yet another thread for your own reasons, ordering people what to post and where to post … you’re getting quite an attitude these days. This is the third thread in a row that you’ve brought your personal agendas to. How about this: mind your own business, and let people who wish to discuss railroading do so without your personal problems getting in the way.
[quote user=“Murphy Siding”]
[quote user=“MichaelSol”]
Actually, it’s the ideas that I find offensive, perpetrated everywhere, that misrepresents history in the guise of personal agendas. I agree, the original comment about regulation was completely off topic on this thread, but there it was, and of course, you had no problem with it until I commented on it because it was a grevious mistatement of historical fact. Where I “find fault”, is your predictable need to make it personal when you, as you often are, found welded to pre-determined conclusions based poorly on fact, or research.
Your comment is no different than many you have made in the past, and hopefully your efforts to personalize yet another discussion of history has gratified you once again, ironically, as you took the considerable time to interrupt a discussion on railroading to complain about interrupting a discussion on railroading
Your uncensored comment on another thread about me being your “arch-nemesis” certainly likewise had nothing to do with that thread, was purely a personal assault that had no place on these forums, but suggests the highly personalized nature of your attitude, and your enthusastic willingness to express it.
Unlike you, I don’t call people names and use forums, as you have here, for purely personal purposes and to make a highly exaggerated point. I might call an opinion “dumb”, or even “baloney” but unlike you, I’m not here to call people names. You apparentl
Well, they did name a lake after him…
(Palmer Lake–the high point between Denver and Colorado Springs on the Joint Line)
One of the great things about the Rio Grande was their ability to turn lemons into lemonades over several decades. The operated “succesfully” in the expansion times, the progressive era of the Trust Busters, the Public Utility period (1920-1929), the Great Depression, WW II, the Rise of Trucks (1945-1970, and Collapse of the National Rail System. They finally ran out of gas with Phil’s arrival. It was a long and great run but dust to dust…
The secret to that success was coal. And even though the name might be gone and the railroad not much of a through transcon route these days, the coal moves in greater volume than ever before. The transcon business lasted for 70 years whereas the railroad’s last spike was driven 127 years ago.
So today the Rio Grande has come full circle to its original rationale, a railroad that moves minerals from the mountains to the cities, but it’s not dust yet nor is it likely to be as far as I can see into the future.
RWM
“Found”? They were born. [D)][:P][xx(] Their descendents were last seen clutching fistfuls of worthless shares of pets.com while watching the repo man hauling off the big-screen plasma TV after flipping one too many houses in Las Vegas.
RWM
I think the race to Raton Pass is mythology informed by the knowledge of what played out much later rather than what people actually were thinking when it happened – an answer in search of a question. While the event did occur I do not think it greatly mattered at the time to the parties. Either railroad could have gone around Black Mesa to the east, which the C&S did much later on its way to Texas, or used a couple of other passes, if it wanted so badly to reach the coalfields of Raton Mesa or the rude adobe village that was Santa Fe. Neither the Santa Fe or the D&RG was sure at that time where its destiny lay. The Santa Fe was not en route to Los Angeles at that time – Los Angeles being a dusty hamlet adjacent to an intermittent stream in a hot desert basin. Raton Pass was a convenient path to … something. But they didn’t know what yet.
RWM
Not really. The connection across the desert was a convenience to enable profitable commerce between western Colorado and Utah, a connection which occurred when it became obvious that the eastern extent of the Utah lines in the Book Cliffs Coal Field, and the western extent of the Colorado lines at the junction of the Grand and Gunnison Rivers, would be only separated by about 150 miles of open desert.
The WP venture came two decades later under the aegis of George Gould. Almost nothing has been documented about the business methods or life of the junior Gould, unfortunately. It’s not known if he genuinely thought it was valuable to build a coast-to-coast system, and if so, what possessed him to think it could be economically muscular with such a peculiar skeleton. Perhaps he was engaging in a bear run on Harriman with the WP, thinking to connect with the CB&Q or C&NW in central Utah, and the D&RGW was a stepping stone that would soon revert to its logical role as a feeder line. Or, perhaps he was merely a guileless inheritor of great wealth who was driven to demonstrate his importance and boldness, and thus step out from the shadow of his feared and brilliant father. I most think it was the latter, as the railroad expansion era was already obviously drawing to a close and if one was to make a mark in the early 1900s as a railroad builder one had to do it quickly and with whatever kit was handy. There wasn&#
Hello! I’m back online, after having been unexplicably locked out from logging in for 3 days.[B)] I’ve been told by the moderator, that I had not been intentionally locked out, and I will take that as the truth. I don’t, however, expect to change who I am, or how I interact with other members on the forum. I have a lot of people on here that I consider to be friends…and a few detractors. Such is life, and I guess we’ll work our way through it. If I’m out of line, by all means tellme, on here or in a PM, and we can discuss it.[:)]
Without regulation to make DRG a player in the transcon business, wouldn’t DRG’s coal traffic have made it a target for some connecting railroad, such as a western extention for one of the railroads in Denver?
Several reasons why it didn’t:
-
Coal moving in very large volumes greater than 500 miles distances from mine to market entirely by rail is a post-1970 phenomenon. Prior to 1900 coal moving more than 200 miles from mine to market was quite exceptional. The D&RGW coal market basin in the domestic heating era was bounded tightly to its own lines with the addition of the MoPac east to western Kansas, the LA&SL south to Milford, the WP west into central Nevada, and the OSL north and west throughout southern Idaho. Coal mines in the Denver Field on UP and CB&Q barred D&RGW coal from markets north and east of Denver. Coal mines on C&S and Santa Fe in the Raton Mesa field competed in markets east of Pueblo and Trinidad.
-
The UP via its lease of the LA&SL and OSL interchanged with Utah Railway at Provo and preferentially interchanged with URY, which had good penetration in the Book Cliffs and Wasatch Plateau Coal Fields. LA&SL participated 50-50 with URY in the “Utah Coal Route” coal car fleet and the Provo yard and engine terminal was a 50-50 URY/LA&SL facility. URY thus shared with D&RGW the coal market on the LA&SL south, the WP west, and the OSL north and west – along with Wyoming coal competing on UP in the Idaho and Mont
Your personal problems are fascinating. Once again, what on earth does this have to do with this thread?