1908 - S. & W. Railroad Sold to C. C. & O.

[NW Mailing List]

Roanoke Times - March 24, 1908

S. & W. RAILROAD SOLD TO C. C. & O.

$15,000,000 Property Changes Hands at Stockholders Meeting Yesterday

BUT THOMAS F. RYAN OWNS BOTH CONCERNS

Much Interest Here in Report, Now Confirmed, That South & Western Will be
Rapidly Pushed to Completion - Transfer of Properties Yesterday Was the
Merest Formality

   News was received last night that at the first annual meeting of the
stockholders of the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio railroad, held in
Bristol yesterday, and presided over by President George L. Carter, the
purchase of the South and Western railroad, a $50,000,000 project, backed
by Thomas F. Ryan, of New York, was approved. The transfer was formal, both
companies being owned by the Thomas F. Ryan and George L. Carter interests.
   J. Norment [best guess on spelling, hard to read] Powell held the
proxies of the Ryan interests, and votes in the meeting, approving all that
had been done in the matter of purchasing the South and Western.
   It is understood that something like $27,000,000 has already been spent
on construction and that the road when completed and equipped will cost
upwards of $50,000,000. The road will be completed and put into operation
next year, when the Clinchfield Coal Corporation, a $30,000,000
corporation, of which Carter is at the head, will begin the development of
the coal property in Southwest Virginia. The meeting adjourned one week.
   An engineering corps is in the field surveying a direct north and south
route from Bostic to Spartanburg, S. C. Additional forces will also be put
on the work from Marion to Bostic, its formerly contemplated connection
with the Seaboard Air Line. It is now believed, however that the Carolina,
Clinchfield and Ohio will construct its own road in a directly southerly
course from Bostic via Spartanburg, on down and parallel with Broad river,
through Columbia to Charleston, S. C. Its northeastern terminus is to be
Elkhorn, Ky., where connection will be made with the Chesapeake and Ohio
and other connections for Cincinnati and Chicago.
   In other works, the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio is to be the
southwestern and of the old Three C's (Chicago, Cincinnati and Charleston),
and, as its name indicates, is to extend through the two Carolinas and the
vast coalfields of the Clinch mountain range of Southwest Virginia and
southeastern Kentucky. In this latter territory "The Clinchfield
Corporation" (composed of virtually the same capitalists) own over one-half
millions acres of rich bituminous coal lands.

To "Get Busy"

   The Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio railroad, will, it is 
authoritatively stated, get very busy in the immediate future with 
the work of completion of its construction from Marion to Altapass, 
its present terminal point on top of the Blue Ridge for its Tennessee 
sectional part, extending from Johnson City south-westward.
   The distance from Altapass to Marion is thirty-six miles. The 
Marion half of eighteen miles has been graded, and the steel rails 
laid thereon. The splendid steel bridge over the Catawba river, two 
miles out of Marion, has been sufficiently completed to admit of the 
crossing thereon of construction trains. On the Altapass half of 
eighteen miles are sixteen tunnels, varying in length from one-tenth 
to one-half mile, all very heavy work, and it is upon this work that 
largely augmented forces will be placed.
   Railway men of Roanoke are much interested in the transfer of the 
properties, and the news printed in The Times some days ago to the 
effect that work on the South and Western would be pushed to 
completion with all possible speed, is verified.

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- Ron Davis, Roger Link