I hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving, I spent much of mine in a self-induced, tryptophan slumber, dreaming about our future pike!
The following is the second installment of my history for our two fictional railroads, the White Water Western, and the Arizona Pacific. Last time, we looked at the origin of the Triple W through the last decade of the nineteenth century. What follows is the establishment and early history of the Arizona Pacific, and a brief look at both lines as the United States entered The Great War:
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The Arizona Pacific Railroad was established in 1887, but existed for the first five years on paper only. Stocks were sold, promises made, and routes surveyed; yet very little work was accomplished. Facing increased accusations of fraud from both outside the organization, and within its own board of directors, the AP finally began laying rail from the new city of Phoenix, AZ to the town of Strawberry in the White Mountains. By 1893, with construction stalled, whispers of bankruptcy filled the air.
Construction was difficult. Following riverbeds wherever possible, the AP track gangs had to contend with a chronic lack of water, supplies, and manpower. Much of the construction spanned the nearby Apache reservation, and while they had been subdued a decade before, mistrust between Anglos and natives was still strong. The pike might never have been completed, were it not for the hiring of a new, chief railroad engineer, Alexander Strong.
He was an army officer during the Civil War, and like all West Point graduates, he was trained as an engineer. After the war, Strong was stationed in west Texas and New Mexico as an Indian fighter before deciding to marry, settle down, and become a farmer in the fertile La Mesilla Valley of southern New Mexico.
Farming is never easy, even under optimal conditions, but for Strong, it was pure disaster. He was unfamiliar with the arduous process, and seasonal drought more often then not, left his plans in ruins. After four of the most difficult years of his life, Strong and his family were ruined. Newspaper stories about the rail scandal in nearby Arizona acted as a catalyst for the engineer, and soon he sold what was left of his farm, and moved his family to Phoenix, Arizona Territory in hopes of turning the AP around.
Soon after arriving, leaving his family to unpack their belongings, Strong rode out to inspect the progress of the AP. On his ride back, the engineer hatched a plan to reinvigorate the stalled railroad. Within days, he managed a meeting with the AP’s board of directors, and presented a plan to complete the railroad. They were so impressed by his quickly organized research, that they hired him on the spot. For his end, he was promised a fair salary and stocks, while the railroad itself was promised a completed line to Strawberry in two years.
Hiring Apache and Yavapai laborers, Strong went to work. His existing workforce wasn’t very happy about the change, and some bolted. Strong, however, stood by his decision. He knew that native labor could handle the climate easily, would work hard, and would be happy with whatever pay they were given. Then came the next internal hurdle. Strong envisioned a line with grades no more steep than 2.25%, but his surveyors told him this was impossible on the existing route. Strong understood this problem, but locked horns with the lead surveyor who refused to re-route the pike.
Never one to pick a fight, unless the fight was a certain victory, Strong decided to take the lead surveyor on a little hunting trip. They were gone for a week, and upon their return, they presented the laborers with a wagonload of fine deer and elk, and a new map for the Arizona Pacific. The result of this battle was an easier grade up the mighty Mogollon Rim, a deadline met, and a budget broken.
The only problem with Strong’s route was the complete bypass of Strawberry. To his way of thinking, the AP’s original route was an ill-conceived idea from the outset. The town of Strawberry, though surrounded by small mines, cattle ranches, and timber stands, could never expect to sustain a railroad, let alone the growing burg of Phoenix. It needed raw materials from the Rim Country, but Strawberry was poorly situated to fill these needs. The line was planned in speculative hopes that a mining boom would develop around Strawberry, but such a boom had yet to materialize.
With the newly planned route already under construction, fur and feathers began to fly. Some investors balked at the idea of bypassing Strawberry. These were largely land speculators who had also invested heavily in and around the high-country town. Others objected to the idea of a railroad that was planned to be three times longer than originally expected. Through it all, Strong continued to push on until the in fighting on the board once again stalled construction. By late 1895, the Arizona Pacific was on its last legs.
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William Crenshaw Drake was the only child of a rich shipping magnate. Sent to the nation’s finest schools, the exceptionally bright young man was placed at the head of the family’s shipping corporation soon after graduating with a doctorate in civil engineering. He always had a passion for rail transportation, and saw the family’s business capitol as a means to venture out into that field. Hiring the finest surveyors, he quickly plotted a route from the California Coast through Albuquerque and on to St. Louis.
At the advice of his lead surveyor, Drake looked closely at the Arizona Pacific. If offered a clear line of descent down the mighty Mogollon Rim, and while it was a little off his planned route, it offered him an operating railroad to start from, if one could consider a half-completed line to nowhere an operating railroad.
He made his way to Phoenix to see it for himself. The route, he discovered, was well planned; the section that was completed was well constructed, and trains running on that portion saw no difficulty tackling the easy grades. On the eve of AP’s certain bankruptcy, the second such event in the young pike’s history, a quick purchase was affected, and the once questionable rail line became an overnight success.
Since the Triple W’s interchange contract, purchased along with the old SJ&S, would expire in less than twenty years, the AP saw an instant opportunity to become profitable. It quickly re-routed its yet-to-be completed mainline through St. Johns to effect an interchange with the Triple W. Since the latter pike had but one mainline customer north of that point, it signed over the Holbrook to St. Johns route to the AP, but maintained a joint operation agreement over that section.
The third time’s the charm, as they say. By 1906, with Drake at the helm and the elder Strong heading up the engineering department, the Arizona Pacific completed its line from the coast of Southern California to Albuquerque where it interchanged with the AT&SF. Plans to continue on to St. Louis were scrapped in favor of a liberal interchange agreement with the AT&SF. Instead, the AP invested in a marine port at Oceanside California, and landed a lucrative contract to establish a port connection for the U. S. Navy at San Diego.
As work on these two ventures proceeded, the AP was informed that it needed to re-locate a portion of its mainline in Arizona. In 1905, a decision was made to construct a huge dam on the Salt River east of Phoenix. By ’06, the final location of Theodore Roosevelt Dam was selected at a narrow portion of the Salt River Canyon near the confluence of the Salt River and Tonto Creek. This portion of the AP mainline was one of the most difficult to construct, and the work needed to relocate it would be no less daunting. Fortunately, the old route could be maintained so long as construction on the dam necessitated its use, generating more capital for the new pike.
Preliminary work on the re-routed mainline was already underway as the finishing touches on the AP’s port facilities in Oceanside and San Diego were being applied. The new route would include three tunnels, a cross-over loop, and several bridges, and would allow a good deal of the original roadbed situated on either side of the soon-to-be formed lake to remain in use. Seven miles of old roadbed would be replaced with 15.2 miles of new construction, and the dream that is the Arizona Pacific would endure.
On the eve of the Great War, the Arizona Pacific was a thriving, Class I railroad. Its major feeder line, the White Water Western was equally successful. A third mine, owned by Phelps Dodge, was providing increased mine traffic, the timber business was booming, and White Mountain cattle was king. With the AP in place, the Triple W scrapped plans to extend its mainline to the coast in favor of a route to El Paso, Texas.
Phelps Dodge, seeing how successful Vanguard’s Triple W was, decided to purchase an existing rail line in Southeastern Arizona and extend it to El Paso as the El Paso and Southwestern. So as not anger one of its most productive customers, the Triple W decided to re-think its expansion plans, and opted to aim for West Texas via Hobbs, New Mexico. This prompted the Texas and Pacific to improve its branchline into the sleepy New Mexico town, and by 1918, the Triple W saw its first bridge traffic from the coasts of Texas and Louisiana destined for the coast of California.
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With the most difficult part of our history completed, its on to a twentieth century narrative. I've decided to take our histories through the time period we plan to model, and on to the present day. To my way of thinking, it only makes sense. Prototype modelers may choose to model a specific time period in the past, but they have a more contemporary history to reflect upon. I wish for the same on our pikes, just in case we decide to change modeling periods down the road.
'Til Next Time, Happy Model Railroading!
