132 Frank Carney 



Here are two cities, already busy places, but on separate 

 "through" roads. Naturally business is carried on between the 

 two centers. This could be done with greater facility if there 

 were a connecting road. The road is built with profit. Again, 

 one of these cities uses much coal for manufacturing. In another 

 part of the state are mines in operation, which could produce far 

 more coal if there were a greater market. That city is now getting 

 its coal by a circuitous route from another coal-producing region. 

 Capital sees profit in connecting the former mines with that city, 

 and a road is built. Railroads have also been constructed largely 

 for supplying an outlet to a large farm region; some secondary 

 reason may have been present, but, operating with this immediate 

 secondary reason, there is always the hope that the roads built 

 will inspire development along their routes, which will insure 

 still greater profit. Furthermore, some roads are built solely 

 for hauling coal, others for hauling ore. The former, more often, 

 are spurs or branch lines from railroads already in operation. As 

 illustrative of the latter, reference should be made to the Lake 

 Erie and Pittsburgh route, connecting the city of Cleveland 

 with Pittsburgh. Iron ore is brought down the lakes cheaply, 

 and unloaded at one of several ports in northern Ohio. The 

 reduction plants of Pittsburgh and elsewhere along the upper 

 Ohio River are dependent now on Lake Superior ore. These 

 plants have coal near at hand. Some of them were constructed 

 when ore in that immediate part of the country was being mined 

 plentifully; then they had both the ore and the coal; now they 

 have to get the ore from a distance. The cost of landing the ore 

 at a lake port is not great, but it is expensive to haul this ore 

 across Ohio, and the expense of transportation is dependent to 

 a great extent on the grade of the road bed. Therefore, this 

 road, recently constructed, has been located with but one end 

 in view, that is, to obtain the lowest possible percent of grade. 

 The expense involved in making cuts or in building bridges 

 appears not to have been considered. A low grade, regardless 

 of other factors of location, apparently determined the route. 



When we consider the increasing number of blast furnaces 

 appearing along Lake Erie, we naturally wonder what will 

 eventually be the outcome of the competition between the old 

 centers of ore-reduction and the lake front. 



A railroad map of Ohio to-day is indeed a network. This 



