Semmering Railway - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
on December 23, 1873. The Santa Fe's tracks reached Pueblo, Colorado on March 1, 1876. Serving Pueblo
opened a number of new freight opportunities for the railroad as it now could haul coal from Colorado
eastward.(Early history)[1]
Building across Kansas and eastern Colorado may have been technologically simple as there weren't many
large natural obstacles in the way (certainly not as many as the railroad was about to encounter further west),
but the Santa Fe found it almost economically impossible because of the sparse population in the area. To
The Santa Fe trademark in combat this problem, the Santa Fe set up real estate offices in the area and vigorously promoted settlement
the late 1800s incorporated across Kansas on the land that was granted to the railroad by Congress in 1863. The Santa Fe offered
the British lion out of
respect for the country's discounted passenger fares to anyone who travelled west on the railroad to inspect the land; if the land was
subsequently financial assistance purchased in by the traveller, the railroad applied the passenger's ticket price toward the sale of the land. Now that the railroad
building the railroad to
had built California. across the plains and had a customer base providing income for the firm, it was time to turn its attention toward the difficult
terrain of the Rocky Mountains.
Crossing the Rockies
Leadville was the most productive of all of the Colorado mining regions. Mining in the area
began in 1859, first for gold and then two decades later for silver. Several of the Santa Fe's
board of directors (along with President Strong) sought to capitalize on the need to supply the
mining towns of Colorado and northern New Mexico with food, equipment, and other
supplies. To that end, Santa Fe sought to extend its route westward from Pueblo along the
Arkansas River, and through the Royal Gorge in 1877. Royal Gorge was a bottleneck along
the Arkansas too narrow for both the Santa Fe and the Denver and Rio Grande Western
Railroad to pass through, and there was no other reasonable access to the South Park area;
thus, a race ensued to build rail access through the Gorge. Physical confrontations led to two
years of armed conflict, essentially low-level guerrilla warfare between the two companies
that came to be known as the Royal Gorge Railroad War. Federal intervention prompted an
out-of-court settlement on February 2, 1880 in the form of the so-called "Treaty of Boston"
wherein the D&RG was allowed to complete its line and lease it for use by the Santa Fe. The
D&RG paid an estimated $1.4 million to Santa Fe for its work within the Gorge and agreed
not to extend its line to Santa Fe, while the AT&SF agreed to forgo its planned routes to
Denver and Leadville.
The D&RG mainline through the Royal Gorge
in 1881.
Also looking to the south, an initial outlay of $20,000 was authorized on February 26, 1878 for the construction of a rail line south from
Trinidad in order to "..seize and hold Raton Pass." The location of the route was nearly as crucial to the venture's success as was the actual
track construction. W. R. "Ray" Morley, a former civil engineer for the (D&RG) hired by the AT&SF in 1877, was given his first
assignment to secretly plot a route through the pass (it was feared that any activity in the area would lead the D&RG to construct a narrow
gauge line over the Pass). Additionally, Strong learned that the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) had introduced legislation to block the Santa
Fe's entry into New Mexico. Undaunted, Strong obtained a charter for the New Mexico and Southern Pacific Railroad Company and
immediately sent A. A. Robinson to Raton Pass. From February to December of 1878 work crews struggled to build the line between La
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