A GUIDE TO MEXICO. 



NEW YORK AND ST. LOUIS, TO CITY OF MEXICO, 



In selecting an Eastern road over which to travel westward, and eventually to 

 connect with the vast system now opened into Mexico, one cannot do better than 



to take one, which from its length, its per- 

 fect road-bed, its double track, its steel 

 rails, its fine rolling-stock, and its com- 

 pleteness of organization, should 

 be a most desirable highway for 

 the oncoming Mexican travel. 



THE PENNSYLVANIA 

 RAILROAD 



ad its actual beginning in the 

 jar (1S46) that first heard the 

 muttered thunders of the Mexican 

 war; and from its humble incep- 

 tion, as a tributary to the canal 

 v'stem of Pennsylvania, it has grown 

 to a magnitude almost beyond belief. 

 The tracks of its main and leased lines 

 would, it is said, if extended, reach from Phila- 

 delphia across the Atlantic, and through Europe 

 to China. The steel and iron used in its rails and rolling- 

 stock would make, if wrought into a single mass, a shaft 

 eight inches in circumference, and 25,000 miles in length. 

 Over its 7,000 miles of owned and leased lines roll 1,100 

 engines, and 1,100 passenger-cars, while 25,000 wellrdrilled employees work in the 

 interests of this gieat corporation, the earnings of which are said to amount to 

 $i,ooo an hour. 



Leaving New York at eight A.M., the special St. Louis train speeds through a 

 country famous in continental history, — Newark, Trenton, Philadelphia, — and takes 

 one over the richest agricultural region of Pennsylvania. Beyond Harrisburg, 

 crossing the Susquehanna, it enters the spurs of the Alleghanies; later, winds 

 through the valley of the Blue Juniata, passing such picturesque spots as Lew- 

 iston, Tyrone, Sinking Springs, and Altoona; and at Kittanning Point, 242 miles 

 from New York, the great road winds around that wonder of engineering skill, the 

 Horseshoe Curve. At Allegrippus "the majesty of the mountains seems to 

 culminate," and beyond, the great tunnel is entered, over 2,000 feet above the sea, 

 by which the crest of the Alleghanies is pierced, and, emerging from it, the descent 

 is commenced toward the plains of the Great West. At the western base of the 

 Alleghanies are numberless attractive resorts, as Conemaugh, Johnston, and the 

 Pack-saddle Narrows, where the road threads the mountain-gorges amidst peerless 

 scenery; and at Pittsburgh, the city of coal and iron, the Pennsylvania trunk-line 

 terminates. But its influence is felt a thousand miles beyond, and the wise policy 

 of its founders in early leasing and assisting new lines into the then unknown 

 West is seen in the light of to-day, which shows that its projectors builded even 



^VV>W/'-. 



