Locomotive to Aeromotive: Octave Chanute and the Transportation Revolution

4. At the Top

chapter 4 At the Top in the post–civil war years, land grant railways were frequently not as profitable as their promoters had hoped. “We have built a good many more miles of railroad than the country will support for some years and many weak concerns must go to the well. In fact, I look for a magnificent smash at no distant day, when the investing public will awake from its folly, and the years 1869, 1870 & 1871 will be remembered as the English remember 1844–1850, the time of the Railway Mania,”1 Chanute wrote to a director of the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Road in early 1873. Perhaps to insulate himself from a “magnificent smash,” particularly in the West, the thought of moving up into management at an established eastern railroad appealed to Chanute. Four major eastern trunk lines connected the populous East Coast with the West, and the Erie Railway was one of them. In the late 1860s, three financiers struggled for its control; Jay Gould eventually became the Erie’s president and one of the most powerful robber barons in American railroad history. Directors ousted Gould in the spring of 1872 and charged him with stealing more than $10 million from the Erie’s coffers. James Joy, going through difficult times with his allies in Boston, was the rumored choice to become the Erie’s next president. Instead, directors elected Peter H. Watson, a patent attorney and a director of both the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad and the Standard Oil Company, as the Erie’s new president in July 1872. To take the Erie out of its embarrassment, the road had to spend less and earn more money, so Watson initiated radical changes in its upper management, administration, and operation.2 To make the Erie profitable again required an extensive general overhaul: the line needed to be double tracked and possibly narrowed, it needed more efficient depots for passengers, modernized terminal facilities for handling freight, renewal of its antiquated equipment, and it needed extensions into Boston and Chicago. To accomplish all these changes required an estimated $50 million. British stockholders still had a good deal of confidence in the company, so Watson went to England to obtain funding.3 78 Chapter 4 Besides money, the Erie also needed good people, especially a competent chief engineer informed on the latest technological developments and possessing the skills to organize and carry out projects efficiently. Watson wanted a professional problem-solver who could work under political and economic pressure. Through his network of railroading friends, Chanute had heard of Watson’s improvement plans and showed his interest. He felt sure that joining the Erie would pose a challenge but that he would also learn more about the industry. While the daily press discussed the frauds of Jay Gould, Erie management offered the chief engineer position to Chanute in late February 1873,4 and he accepted the challenge. In mid-March he traveled 1,300 miles over three days on three different railroads from Kansas City to New York, traversing “Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey like a flash, rushing through towns with antique names, some of which had streets and car-tracks, but as yet no houses,” as Jules Verne had described in his latest novel Around the World in Eighty Days. Perhaps this quote from Chanute’s favorite author provided a poignant transition , leaving his old job of building a lofty rail system in the West and starting a new job rejuvenating a rail giant in the East. Climbing the Corporate Ladder at the Erie Arriving in New York full of energy and fresh ideas, Chanute was anxious to help make the Erie a profitable trunk line again. His first day on the new job was Monday, March 17, 1873. “My headquarters are at the Grand Opera House, the Erie office building, at the Corner of 23rd Street and 8th Avenue, and I room at 315 23rd Street. My family will still be in the West, where I propose to leave them until I have satisfied myself as to the result of my experiment in coming East,”5 he wrote to his friend Thomas Clarke, now a partner of Clarke, Reeves & Company, a bridge building firm. The Erie System. From Erie Railway Timetable (1887). At the Top 79 Some of Chanute’s close friends wondered why he wanted to work for a railroad loaded with internal and...