Feasibility of the Cajon Pass Railroad
Los Angeles Herald Los Angeles, California12 Jun 1883
It seems that in 1883 all were not in favor of or believed that a railroad through the Pass was anything more than a scheme to drive up real estate values. A railroad just did not seem necessary or profitable. -Ed.
1883 - A Venerable Ignis Fatuus
It Appears and Re-appears -It Rivals Banquo's Ghost, and Vexes the Vision of Our Southern Neighbors Like a Seven-Years' Plague. For seven years there has been such a constant flow of words about tho building of a railway from Colton to Mojave, and to the Needles, that the cry has become a sort of melancholy wail, from San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino, evidently to bolster up tho price of real estate. It is now over two years since all plans of building this expensive road were abandoned by Niekerson and associates, and the constant repetition of the statement that work is to be commenced, has now become tho stalest joke at the coast. It hath an odor like the report of the finding of Charley Ross, or the discovery of Captain Kidd's treasure, or the discovery of the North Pole and the Philosopher's stone. It is about time that this stale joke was played out. It has done good service, sold some farms and numerous city lots, and after long service has become worn and weary and needs rest.Poor old joke! It has done yeoman service for San Diego, helped Riverside moderately, and given San Bernardino a boom. But the worn-out old joker will be laid to cost now till the narrow gauge of T. O. Mills gets within a hundred miles of the Cajon Pass, when a second edition of the joke will be published. Tbe good people who shout up this Cajon Past folly will be many years older before that road is built. The line has been examined by railway engineers for more than twenty years, but the grade has been so great, the expense so heavy, while tho amount of business it would he able to control is so small that railway builders have rejected it as unworthy of their attention. In short, they one and all say: "It won't pay!'
If there could be made to appear any profit of the enterprise the work would he begun at once, but all reports have heretofore shown that there was no profit in the project, and so capitalists have refused to put their money into it, and will continue this refusal unless a large bonus shall be given of land or money. San Diego would have had no railway to-day had not the people of that enterprising place giveu a large land subsidy to the managers of the California Southern Railway. But this railway does not pay expenses, and unless it does pay, and pay well, it will never go through the Cajon Pass.
Money is "the divinity that shapes the ends" of railways, and we cannot "rough hew them as we will." There is no business to warrant such a road at such vast expense. It would cost as much to go from San Bernardino through the Pass as to build 200 miles of desert road, and a great deal to keep it in repair. Railway men are like other men. They count the cost before they go into any project, and if it shows no profit they let it alone. The cost of the Cajon railway has been counted "for lo these many years," and after every count it has been rejected. We have now four railways from ocean to ocean, and three more nearly done, and these seven roads are all that business will warrant for several years.
It would be a safe proposition to state that no railway will be built through ,the Cajon Pass within the next fifteen or twenty years, unless it should be the narrow gauge road of D. O. Mills. All the other roads have connections with the sea with roads of the same guage as their own, and do not care to climb any more mountain chains or bore any more expensive tunnels than those finished or begun. If our neighboring contemporaries could be prevailed on to omit this Jack-0-Lantern of a Cajon Pass road for a few days it would be gracefully and gratefully received.
