Transportation—Salvador Railway Company—Early construction—Gauge—Bridges—Locomotives—Rolling-stock—Personnel of railway—Steamship service—Extensions—Increasing popularity—Exchange, and influence on railway success—Importers versus planters—Financial conditions—Projected extensions—Geological survey—Mr. Minor C. Keith's Salvador concession.

The means of internal communication are perhaps more apparent and more systematically undertaken than in any of the smaller States, Salvador possessing at present over 100 miles of railway track and a number of excellent roads and bridges, which are being added to and improved continually. The only organized railway system at present is in the hands of a British company, the Salvador Railway Company, Ltd, and its relations with both the Government and the public are of the best.

The concession granted to the company was dated 1885, but it was four years later when a public issue was made—namely, in October, 1889. The concession is for a period of eighty years, dating from April, 1894; at the expiration of the period the railway and all its accessories become the property of the Salvadorean Government. In the meantime, however, it is open to the Government to buy up the existing railway in 1940 if it so desires, at a price to be agreed upon or fixed by valuation. The railway company enjoys protection from competition, and has also preferential privileges (except as against the State) for constructing future extensions.

The road actually dates from the year 1882, when the first section, from the port of Acajutla to the town of Sonsonate, one of the most important in the Republic, and situated at about fifty miles' distance from the capital, was opened for traffic. The distance was 20 kilometres, or, say, 12¹/₂ miles, the next section to be finished being that from Sonsonate to Armenia, a further distance of 26¹/₄ kilometres, or 16¹/₂ miles, thus bringing up the constructed line to 46¹/₄ kilometres by the end of September, 1884.

From then onwards the rate of construction was as follows: From Armenia to Amate Marin, 6¹/₂ kilometres, or 4 miles, opened for traffic September, 1886; from Amate Marin to Ateos, 3¹/₄ kilometres, or 2 miles, January, 1887; from Ateos to La Ceiba, and which forms a branch ending at this town, a distance of 10 kilometres, or 6¹/₄ miles, March, 1890; from Ateos to La Joya, a distance of 22 kilometres, or 13¹/₂ miles, opened to traffic on September 15, 1895; and from La Joya to Santa Ana—a very important town of some 33,000 inhabitants—a distance of 29 kilometres, or 18 miles, opened in November, 1896.

From Santa Ana, which is another terminal point, the railway receives a valuable freight in the form of agricultural produce, such as coffee, sugar, tobacco, and various kinds of grain.

A continuation of the line was then made to the capital, San Salvador, the extension from Sitio-del-NiÑo to Nejapa, one of 18 kilometres, or, say, 11 miles, being opened for traffic in February, 1898; while the last section, between Nejapa and San Salvador, a distance of 20 kilometres, or 12¹/₂ miles, was completed by the month of March, 1900. The total distance of the track is, therefore, 155 kilometres, or 96¹/₄ miles, exclusive of sidings. There are some eighteen stations, including the terminals at Acajutla, Santa Ana, and San Salvador; while the buildings, both here and at Sonsonate, Sitio-del-NiÑo, and Quezaltepeque, are well built and efficient structures in every way.

The gauge of the track is 3 feet, and the maximum gradient one of 3·75 per cent. The minimum curve radius is 359 feet 3 inches. The interesting engineering features of the line are many, and these are found for the most part upon the Santa Ana section, between that town and Sitio-del-NiÑo. There are forty-one bridges, consisting of through-truss, plate-girder, and rolled "I" beams. These run from 20 to 14 feet span, the makers who have supplied them including German, Belgian, British, and American contractors. The principal bridges are as follows:

There are a number of culverts, over sixty-six being of some importance, besides several of minor interest, of 3 feet and under. The road is exceedingly well ballasted from beginning to end, and is maintained in an altogether efficient manner of repair and orderliness.

In regard to the rolling-stock, this is equally well equipped and maintained, the greatest care being taken by the management to see that every car that is sent out is in a thoroughly sound state of repair and cleanliness. There are in all eleven locomotives, of which the following details will be of interest:

In addition to the above, two other engines of precisely similar make have lately been delivered to the Company by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, Philadelphia, U.S.A. It is explained that the native engine-drivers are now accustomed to these engines, which are to be found in use upon almost the whole of the South and Central American railways.

The rolling-stock on the Salvador Railway is maintained in the same efficient order as are the stations and permanent way. It consists of some twenty-three passenger coaches as follows: Eight of first class, light but strong carriages, suitable for a tropical country and fitted with wide seats upholstered in rattan; one second class, only a trifle less expensively upholstered, but in no wise less airy or comfortable; and four brake and luggage vans. Of goods-waggons there are 161—namely, 1 workmen's car, 5 cattle cars, 95 covered-goods and 60 platform cars. These cars are mostly the manufacture of the Lancaster Carriage and Waggon Company, Ltd., of Lancaster, and the Allison Manufacturing Company, of Philadelphia, U.S.A. The company have recently erected some ten box waggons at the well-fitted railway shops at Sonsonate, where every appliance and the newest equipment of machinery are to be found. The passenger coaches are also partly of British and partly of American construction, the Lancaster Carriage and Waggon Company, Ltd., and the Harlan, Hollingsworth Company, of Philadelphia, being responsible for this part of the equipment.

In the month of April last a change took place in the general management of the Salvador Railway, when Mr. C. T. S. Spencer, the newly-appointed chief, proceeding to his post via Mexico City and Salina Cruz. Mr. Spencer served his pupilage with the London and South-Western Railway, mainly on the North Devon and Cornish branches. When out of his articles, he accepted an appointment as District Engineer on the Abbotsbury Railway, near Dorset, which line is now a part of the Great Western Railway system. In 1886 Mr. Spencer went out to Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), as District Engineer on the Brazil Great Southern Railway, and subsequently rose to the position of Chief Constructing Engineer. On this line he built the IbicÚy Bridge, which still ranks as the largest bridge in Brazil, being over a mile long, with some 70-metre spans resting on cylinders sunk by the pneumatic process, which at that time was in its infancy. When the line was completed, Mr. Spencer surveyed an extension running into some hundreds of kilometres, and passing through the beautiful district of Missiones.

Mr. Spencer, still a young man, then went to Salvador, and in 1889 he surveyed the La UniÓn-San Miguel line. This railway was partly constructed by the Government, and its completion to San Miguel is now being pushed forward. In 1892 Mr. Spencer went to Colombia as General Manager of the Antioquia Railway, which commission he held until the Government attempted to cancel the concession without paying any indemnity to the company. He afterwards went to Angola, and drew up the plans for a large railway scheme from the coast inwards; a part of this line has since been built.

Upon returning to London, Mr. Spencer accepted the post of Consulting Engineer to a railway-constructing syndicate in the City, and a few years ago he was elected to a seat on the Board of the Salvador Railway. Mr. Spencer visited the Republic in 1908, and on his return pointed out to the Chairman that, owing to the opening of the Tehuantepec Railway, a special steamer service connecting up Acajutla with Salina Cruz would probably prove a paying concern. Mr. Mark J. Kelly, the able and experienced Chairman of this railway, with his customary quickness of perception, combined with his own not inconsiderable experience of the Republic of Salvador, of which for fifteen years he had acted as Consul-General in England, at once fell in with the idea, and the steamship Salvador was the result.

Mr. Spencer is an Associate Member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. While it is a subject of regret that Mr. Charles Stewart, late Manager of the Salvador Railway, was compelled to abandon his post owing to ill-health, the shareholders of the railway may be unreservedly congratulated upon obtaining the services of so able and experienced an engineer as Mr. Spencer.

Mr. John White Hinds, Chief Engineer of the Salvador Railway Company, started in his profession at the age of fifteen, and was for over a year in the shops of the Great Western Railway at Swindon. He then remained for four years as a pupil with Mr. W. H. Lancashire, C.E., of Sheffield. Three years were passed in London studying, when Mr. Hinds went to America, and entered the shops of the Chicago and North-Western Railroad. He has also seen service in Chile, Peru, Guatemala and Salvador. In this latter Republic, Mr. Hinds has acted as chief of the party of engineers on final surveys of the Santa Ana branch of the Salvador Railway, while he also went to La UniÓn, the largest of the Salvadorean ports, to construct the railway from La UniÓn to San Miguel for the Salvador Government. The line was only constructed to the extent of ten miles or so, when a revolution broke out and the work was abandoned. Since then—namely, in 1894—Mr. Hinds has been engaged upon the Guatemala Northern Railway as Surveyor, and helped in the construction of that portion of the line to the City. Mr. Hinds likewise completed surveys to the town of Zacapa, on the same railway, and assisted in the construction work between Puerto Barrios and Zacapa. Latterly Mr. Hinds has been exclusively engaged upon the Salvador Railway, of which he has been the Resident Engineer since 1903, and Permanent Way Engineer since 1906.

One of the contractors who were connected with the railway in the early days was Mr. Albert J. Scherzer, and it is interesting to note that his nephew, Mr. George Scherzer Walsh, a young and clever railway engineer, was also connected with the company. Mr. Walsh accompanied Mr. M. J. Kelly and Mr. George Todd Symons (the senior partner of G. T. Symons and Co., of 4, Lloyd's Avenue, E.C.) to Salvador in the spring of 1910, upon matters relating to the extension of the company's track and the appointment of agents for the steamship service. Mr. Walsh did some good and useful work as technical adviser on the ground, but, unfortunately, in the end his services proved unfruitful, owing to the selfish and senseless opposition offered to the company's contemplated extensions upon the part of the American Syndicate, who hold a railway concession from the Salvadorean Government to build new lines within this zone. At the time that the American group protested—and protested, as it seems, successfully—against any further construction work being undertaken by the Salvador Railway Company, they had done absolutely nothing themselves, and had not even presented the preliminary plans to the Government. As will be seen, however, they have at last made an attempt to commence work of some kind; but my latest advices point to the fact that successful completion is still far from being even within sight.

The property owned by the Salvador Railway Company, as has been shown above, is an extensive and increasingly valuable one. It embraces something like 100 miles of track, with its own telegraph and telephone services; a long and well-built iron pier, located at the Port of Acajutla, and which cost no less than $1,000,000 to erect; as well as warehouses and a fleet of tugs and barges for the prompt and efficient handling of the cargo.

Upon all sides one hears the services rendered by this company spoken of in a manner altogether flattering to the management; and it may be said in truth that in no other Republic of South or Central America can one come across a wider consensus of opinion favourable to a foreign-managed railway undertaking than in the case of the Salvador Railway.

To the not inconsiderable assets above mentioned, the railway has added a fleet of steamships to carry cargo between Acajutla, its own port terminal, and Salina Cruz (Mexico), the Pacific terminus of the Tehuantepec Interoceanic Railway. It is worthy of note that both of these railways are managed by British corporations, a matter of no small importance in view of the strenuous efforts of North American interests to secure complete control over the transport arrangements in this part of the world.

The Salvador Railway's first steamer, the Salvador, is a neat, trim, and well-built vessel of some 1,200 tons, out of the yards of Messrs. Swan and Hunter, of Newcastle-on-Tyne. It is fully equipped with all the latest appliances for the quick and efficient handling of cargo, while its passenger accommodation is of a commodious and comfortable character. This handsome vessel has for some time been firmly established as a favourite with the importers and exporters of the Republic of Salvador, who now, for the first time in their experience, are enjoying the advantages of rapid and reliable communication with Europe and the United States of America, with punctuality in regard to dates of arrival and departure each week. As a matter of fact, this service now effects in about two weeks, what could not be previously done in less than one month. The appreciation by the public of these advantages is sufficiently displayed in the circumstance that the S.S. Salvador carries something like three-fourths of the imports and exports of the country, to the great disappointment, and even dismay, of the older lines. Other similar vessels are being built for the Company by Messrs. Swan and Hunter.

The company has in view the rendering the same services to the other Salvadorean ports as that now offered to Acajutla and the Mexican port of Salina Cruz. An important local trade between Mexico and Salvador, to the mutual advantages of both, is now being built up, thanks to the initiative of the Salvador Railway Company in establishing this steamship service.

How successful the company's fleet has proved is best seen from some observations which were made by the Chairman at the last annual meeting of the proprietors, December 13, 1910, and in which he stated, inter alia:

"It is a matter of great satisfaction to me and to my co-directors to be able to assure you that we have not only emerged, in respect to this service, out of the experimental stage, but we have actually become a fairly settled institution as a steamship line on that coast. Instead of one boat, with which last year we gave such a service to Salvador by the port of Acajutla as they had never had before, carried out with a regularity and strict adherence to schedule to which they were utterly unaccustomed, your company is represented to-day by three steamers, and is making the service from Salina Cruz clear down to Nicaragua, embracing all the ports of Guatemala, Salvador, Amapala, the only Honduranean port on the Pacific, and Corinto. In barely a year we have found ample reason for increasing our service to three vessels, two of which are chartered boats, while we may be able to put in hand the building of a second boat of the same type as our first. This satisfactory result has only been attained by untiring effort; but we have reason to believe that your steamship service has arrived to stay, and that it will be represented by a substantial figure in the earnings in the future. The service has won deserved popularity by reason of its being carried out, as I have told you, with adherence to a schedule, and we now frequently receive in London applications from Central Americans travelling about Europe with their families to reserve cabins for them on our steamer Salvador. Mails are now sent by this service of ours in connection with the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and reach Europe in about sixteen days instead of a month; while the planters get their produce to European markets in little over thirty days, against forty to fifty by way of PanamÁ, and over one hundred by way of the Straits of Magellan. The passenger traffic on the Salvador, which we were all disposed to regard as something that might take a considerable time to develop, has already given results which you will understand better when I tell you that generally the accommodation provided for passengers on the Salvador is fully taken up. During my stay in Salvador I took advantage of the appreciation thus shown by the public of our steamship venture to arrange with the Government a contract for a subsidy, and we are now receiving £100 per month in gold on this head. I had the honour of being received by His Excellency President Diaz on several occasions during my stay in Mexico, both going out and returning home, and he promised favourable consideration by his Government of an application, which we have since formally put in, for a subsidy from that Republic, which is benefiting as much as Salvador from the development of your steamship service."

With such prospects the Salvador Railway seems destined to enjoy a time of great prosperity; and, indeed, the outlook would be practically undimmed but for the ever-threatening question of the exchange. The high rate of sterling exchange constitutes a very real and visible "fly in the ointment." Salvador, it may be pointed out, has the advantages of a metallic currency, with no fiscal paper money of any sort; but, unfortunately, it is a silver currency, which is aggravated by the circumstance that the export of silver, if not actually prohibited by legislation, is at all events very difficult to bring about, inasmuch as official permission is required, and is as often refused.

On the other hand, the banks are overstocked with silver, and are willing to lend sums at what may, for these parts of the world, be considered very low rates of interest—namely, 5 per cent. per annum—which enables people, who would otherwise be compelled to sell drafts against their exported produce, to hold them back, and, by a simple understanding among themselves, keep the rates as near to 200 per cent. premium as may suit their own interests.

The Salvador Railway Company, which has a silver tariff pure and simple, has to buy sterling drafts, whatever the rate may be, in order to meet debenture interest payments, the cost and freight upon all imported materials for its various services, insurance upon its properties, its London expenses—including directors' remuneration—and towards this large expenditure the only sterling contribution of the country is the Governmental subsidy of £24,000 per annum, which payment will terminate automatically in 1916.

In sending out their Chairman, Mr. Mark J. Kelly, therefore, in 1910, to endeavour to reduce the company's burden in this respect, the Board of Directors undoubtedly made a wise move, inasmuch as no one could possibly be better placed, by reason of his great popularity and exceptional experience, than Mr. Kelly to conduct such delicate and intricate negotiations. In spite of such influence and personal weight, however, I am much afraid that the time is hardly yet when any serious modification of the terms of the company's concession—such as the granting of a tariff payable in gold—may be looked for.

At a time when gold is in the neighbourhood of 200 per cent. premium (i.e., 1 silver dollar equals 33 cents gold) this would mean an increase in the tariff rates, and the Government can hardly be expected to authorize that increase in the present circumstances. As a matter of fact, the company's tariff is much below that of any railway undertaking in the whole of Latin-America, of which I, at least, have any cognizance. But the public are hardly likely on that account to be any more disposed to fall in with an increase in the railway's rates.

The outlook for the Salvador Railway generally is, as observed, a hopeful one. It is admitted by all who are acquainted with its operations that its advent and completion have materially aided the development of the Republic's resources, and day by day the expansion of its industries is becoming more apparent. The local traffics, showing as they do gradual but consistent development, are the outcome of the safe but conservative policy of the management, whose relations, as I have already observed, with the railway's clientÈle are of the most friendly character. If the agricultural development of the portions of the country served by the railway have been somewhat slow, the movements have, at least, been consistent; and there can be little doubt that an intelligent expansion of the Republic's magnificent possibilities is merely a question of time. No permanent improvement must be expected, however, to assert itself until the difficulties of exchange have been overcome. While poor trade may have somewhat affected the returns of the last two years, the rate of exchange has been responsible for the greater part of the financial disappointment. Possibly the poor trade is the cause of the exchange being so high, as much as the exchange being the cause of the poverty of trade. So far as the railway is concerned, the effect is certainly twofold—directly, by reason of the loss upon remittances to the head-office in London; and indirectly, on account of the prejudicial influence upon trade.

There is a very general and perfectly comprehensible complaint that, in spite of the better crops which have been garnered this and last year, and the abundance of silver currency, actual sales of merchantable goods have been less, on account of the high rate of exchange compelling the sellers to continually mark-up their wares. One result of this is that the merchants have ordered fewer goods, and the railway has carried less freight.

Unfortunately, in Salvador—as in other parts of the world, our own not excepted—there are several divergent opinions upon this question of economics, and here one comes across as many individuals who are in favour of a high exchange as those who decry it. The planters, for instance, hold that the high exchanges constitute a clear and legitimate bonus upon the value of the coffee, the indigo, the balsam, and the other articles of export; while the importers clamour loudly, and perhaps with some more reason on their side, that the high exchanges, if, indeed, they are really of any benefit at all to the planters, form no less a tax, and a very heavy one at that, upon the goods consumed by the general public. Still worse, however, they act as a deterrent to active trade and commerce, since all goods sold must be marked-up at higher prices than are customary, with the very natural result of a smaller consumption. Thus, the public are disappointed, the merchants are grumbling, the revenue of the country in its Customs-houses suffers, and the railway and its shareholders are left lamenting—all because the planters must be humoured.

This contention might also contain a little more force were wages to advance in the same ratio as the rate of exchange. But this is far from being the case, for no advance in wages has followed upon the increased premium upon drafts on London; while bankers of Salvador, on the other hand, declare that they derive no profits on balance from their exchange account. More often than not, so they say, they suffer a loss, since the fluctuations in the rates are so eccentric and so difficult to control that they are particularly favoured when they succeed in covering the cheques or short-dated drafts, which they issue on Europe by purchases of ninety days' drafts from the planters, without actually incurring a loss.

The rate of exchange in Salvador to-day is a very high one—nothing like that of Colombia, it is true, but at time of writing gold is at 160 per cent. premium. Here, however, it must be remembered there is no official currency of paper whatever, the banks which issue notes being subject to rigorous inspection and compelled to maintain silver coin to an extent which reduces their issues of notes to a mere matter of public convenience, rather than a source of profit to the banks themselves. All this is of great moment to the welfare and the future of the Salvador Railway, and has more than once been explained at length by the capable and experienced Chairman, Mr. Mark J. Kelly, at the meetings of the shareholders held in London.

The financial condition of the Salvador Railway is to-day a steadily improving one. We see that for the last year (1909-10) the gross receipts were better by £6,921; while the ratio of expenses was also satisfactory, namely, 51·81 as against 54·68, a decrease of 2·87 per cent. Improved good-traffics were also met with, and worked out at 1s. 1d. a ton in excess of previous figures. After providing interest and redemption upon both classes of Debentures, and interest at 5 per cent. per annum upon the Terminable Notes, the amount available for distribution amounted to £8,565 13s. 9d., out of which was made a payment of 3 per cent. upon the Preference shares for the year, leaving a balance of £1,065 13s. 9d., carried forward to the credit of Net Revenue Account. Prior Lien Debentures amounting to £3,600, and Mortgage Debentures to another £9,000, have also been redeemed this year, making the total redemption £62,200 to date of the accounts.

In June of next year (1912) the Terminable Notes, amounting to £45,000, will be either paid off or converted into Debentures probably bearing 5 per cent. interest. The exact financial position of the company stands as follows:

Few of the States in Central America offer greater opportunities or inducements for railway extensions than Salvador, and this in spite of the fact that the country is generally mountainous, and is more than well supplied with rivers, most of which for railway purposes have to be bridged. It must be remembered, however, that Salvador is the most densely populated of all the Central American Republics; the country has therefore been very carefully surveyed, with the idea of railway extension upon a considerable scale.

In the year 1891 the United States Government despatched an Intercontinental Railway Commission to make surveys and explorations, not only in Salvador, but in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. The result of such enterprise has been the publication of a voluminous Report, which was issued in 1898, five years after the Commission's return to the United States. The Report is altogether favourable for railway extension in Salvador, and it speaks very highly of the enterprise of the Salvador Railway Company, of which a description will be found in the preceding pages. Previous to the despatch of the American Commission, the Salvador Government had had a survey of the eastern portion of the country made by Mr. Charles T. Spencer, an English engineer of great experience, and who is now General Manager of the Salvador Railway. There can be very little question that at some time in the near future further railway construction will be proceeded with, since the country is so rich in agricultural produce that a means of transportation in addition to and other than that in vogue must be introduced. In many parts of the country the ground is quite favourable to railroad work, the soil being largely decomposed volcanic ash, which stands well in cuttings, although there are numerous spurs to be cut through in many of the districts surveyed; these are in general all lava rock or conglomerate, offering good material for ballast. In but few localities are any grades found steeper than 2 or 3 per cent., or any curves sharper than 12°.

A Government concession for the construction of a railway from La UniÓn to the Guatemalan frontier was granted on June 15, 1908, to Mr. RenÉ Keilhauer, who was authorized to construct a line to extend from the port of La UniÓn, on the Gulf of Fonseca, to a point on the Guatemalan frontier. The line as projected leaves the port of La UniÓn, and passes or connects with the cities of UsulutÁn, San Vicente and Cojutepeque, unites with the line already built between the capital and Santa Ana, and proceeds to the Guatemalan frontier to make connection with the Atlantic Railway of that country, and which was inaugurated towards the middle of 1908. A branch line will eventually, it is supposed, also run from La UniÓn to San Miguel, the most important town of the eastern section of the Republic of Salvador, and connection will be made with AhuachapÁn to the west, thus furnishing railroad links with all the principal Departments.

The total length of this line will be 360 kilometres, and the contract carries with it the construction of a wharf at La UniÓn of steel and iron, to be erected in connection with the railroad, and capable of accommodating the freight handling of steamers. The stipulation is made that the survey of the line shall begin "within sixty days of the signing of the contract," and that the La UniÓn-San Miguel section be completed "within eighteen months"—that is to say, by the end of 1910; but this stipulation obviously has not been carried out. Of the remaining sections of the railroad, 20 kilometres annually are to be put into commission. Government assistance is guaranteed, and free entry for all material at the Customs-house is assured.

Previously Mr. Keilhauer had been granted a concession for the construction of a line of railroad from Santa Ana to the Guatemalan frontier, the duration of such concession being ninety-nine years, and carrying with it a Government subsidy of 3 per cent. per annum of the cost of each kilometre, which was fixed at $20,000 (=£4,000).

The most important feature in this contract lies in the circumstance that it covers the section of the Pan-American line belonging to Salvador, as defined in the Convention which was signed in Washington on December 20, 1907, on the occasion of the Central American Peace Conference. As a matter of fact, work upon this construction was only commenced on April 15, 1910, on the Eastern Division of the Pan-American Railroad, and the occasion was celebrated by official banquets, as is the hospitable custom in Latin-America. It is significant that at the time that the concession was obtained, and before any actual work commenced, the name of Mr. RenÉ Keilhauer was used; but from then onwards it disappears, and those of Mr. Minor C. Keith and Mr. Bradley M. Palmer, both of the United Fruit Company, the former being the President, are substituted. Mr. Keith has a firm grip upon several of the Central American Republics, particularly Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala; while he has also extended his tentacles to Nicaragua, with somewhat doubtful beneficial effects to that Republic. Mr. Minor C. Keith is likewise the moving spirit in the railroad from Santa Ana (in Salvador) to Zacapa (in Guatemala). This line has a length of seventy-nine miles, and is of a standard gauge. Although surveys had been undertaken and materials had been ordered at the time of my visit last year to the Republic, nothing whatever had been done towards active construction.

There are some critics of this contemplated line of railway who consider it not alone one extremely costly to construct, but as likely to prove a financial loss to the proprietors when finished and open to traffic. It may be, of course, that this view is unnecessarily pessimistic, but, inasmuch as hereafter the investing public may be invited to take a hand in the enterprise, it is desirable to present the other view for their careful consideration.