Show THE RAILWAY AGE The railway building for the past year complete shows that 5231 miles of main track were built on 310 separate lines This is a good deal less than either of the two preceding years by 1800 miles for last year and 7800 miles in 1SS7 this last being the greatest year for that line of industry ever experienced here or perhaps anywhere else During the past twenty years the amount of track laid has averaged about 5000 > miles half of which time it went above and the other half fell below that amount The new state of Washington lendb in the matter of new track laid 395 miles having been put down there Three of the southern south-ern states come next Georgia being second on the list with 350 Texas third with 341 Virginia fourth with 245 and Michigan lift with 243 miles all the other states and territories ter-ritories falling below 200 miles The state and territories in which no new track was laid were Vermont Rhod Island Delaware Dela-ware Nevada Arizona and New Mexico Two miles constituted the addition to the mileage of Massachusetts and seven miles that of Connecticut The railway builders concluded to raise the boycott on Iowa ninety miles of new track being reported from that state From this it appears that Utah is ahead of many of the states and most if not all ot the territories in this important industry all of which like every other good breeze that blows our way is very gratifying Here a new track was laid from Ogden on the D R G Western nearly to the Colorado line and some twenty miles on the Utah Eastern The former however might be classed as broadening an old rather than laying a new track but it is practically new and if so counted would place us at least next to Michigan if not I beyond it in point of mileage i It is stated that although the aggregate of new railway for the year appears small yet at the low rate of 20000 per mile it Involved In-volved the expenditure of SlOo000000 saying say-ing nothing of the money required to equip the new lines with rolling stock It is i hardly possible that the railway mileage for the present year will fall below that of ISbO and if business has been fairly prosperous pros-perous oniar5000mile increase in railway mileage it may confidently be expected to be quite as prosperous for the year to come In fact in this part of the world we expect it to be more so Enormous enterprises of the nature spoken of are radiating from and to this point and most if not all ot them are substantial and their projectors possessed of the necessary determination to carry them through There is room for a good many railroads yet and so long as this is the case the good work will undoubtedly un-doubtedly go ahead |