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Show i 1 .; Manager Harris of Manufactur ers and Merchants Association Associa-tion Returns From Trip. '! MILLIONS OP TONS OF " I FUEL AT THE MINES Need Is More Power to Move I . Cars to Cities That. Are 1 i Suffering. Mr. C. O. Harris, manager of tho ' Manufacturers and Merchants nssocia- I tion, returned to Salt. Lake Saiurdny I evening, after spending two days in the coal fields of southern Utah, looking over the coal situation, and trying if possible to find some way to relieve the I coal shortage here. When seen last nieht Mr. ifnrris said: ;' "That there is a shortage of coal in Utah no one will donv, bur. it docs j not exist at the mines. There are miP- - lions of tons almost in sight, and one onl- ha3 to take a trip to the nunc in order to have his mind sot at ease on that, score. 1 "For the past few months the air ! has been thick with flying rumors re garding unlimited quantities of coal i standing on sidetracks and in yards, while the people of the various com-i com-i munities were suffering for want of coal. So thick had these rumors becomo that after reading Thursday's and Fri-' Fri-' day's newspapers I decided to make a personal examination of the- situation I for the benefit of all concerned, feeling 1 the seriousness of the situation demand ed a fair and impartial study of the conditions which were operating to cause the shortage. Leaving Salt. Lake on train No. 6" on f the Denver fc Rio Grande, the rear platform of the pullman offered a most , excellent vantage point for close, obser vation of the entire road. ' "No coal was seen until Provo was reached, with tho exception of a few cars at Lehi, placed there for the use of the sugar company. The entire absence ab-sence of trains of coal which somehow or other had taken possession of my ntind as being hurried toward Snlt Lake to the exclusion of other traffic was noticeable. Somehow or other f had formed the impression that in view of the conditions prevailing at this 1 time traffic, of all sorts other than the transportation of coal were a mere sec- ondarv consideration and J fny ex pected to see endless trains made'un of cars of coal waiting at every switch. On the contrary, none trere encountered until Provo was reached, i. "Here I met one- train of about twen ty cars, twelve of which contained coal, .the train headed north, presumably for Salt. Lake City. A few isolated" cars of coal were standing in the yard, intended, in-tended, no doubl, for uso in that, com- , munity. "Springville was uie next, station; no coal at. that point, and it began to jook as though there was some truth m the rumor. Thistle Junction, where the Marysvale brancn joins the main Hue. promised better results, and my eyes were greeted by full-fledged freight, trains standing on the track, ready to pull out, and which contained ; a number of cars of coal and coke. Tho southbound train on the Marysvale branch was just, in the act of leaving, and while it -was impossible to count the number of cars at. that distance, a 1 j large number of them contained coal 1 and coke. The main line freight train 'A which pulled out for Salt Lake as vre passed, consisted of thirty cars, twenty of which were loaded with coke an'd ten with coal. ' "Tucker, the next stop, is quite a ; coal-storage point for the railroad and its yards are quite extensive. Now 1 1 commence to see coal nearly every foot j of track was occupied by loaded cars of coal and coke, in storage, as Tucker is evidently a storage point and is largely : "sod 't the purpose, No more coa'l trains were, passed until Soldier Summit. , w's reached, when the third freight waa passed, which consisted of twentv cars, I ' six 'f which contained coal, headed 1 north. As the train approached Colt on, the next station. I recalled the fact, that persistent rumors in the press of j Salt Lake and the equally persistent dc- nials regarding hundreds' of cars of coal iu the yards at Colton made that point -iu object of careful investigation. The rumors are not always facts and J was prepared for almost an vthing, but hard-h' hard-h' prepared for the sig"ht that met my eyes. Colton is the junction point for the line from winter quarters, and, nat-urally nat-urally there i'h bound io be accumula-lions accumula-lions of coal at. times, but what I ob-j ob-j . served and paid most attention to was f the hundreds of cars of coal and coke standing on tho tracks in the yards and . which gave every appearance of having ' stood there for several days. It was a sight that I" little expected, as T had i been led to believe bv reading the de-1 de-1 nials in Thursday 'sand Friday's papers ( that such was not the caso. Mv own eyes confirmed the repeated statements HT made that hundreds or cars of coal wero j standing in the yards at Colton, and I these same cars of coal wore standing i there yesterday afternoon on my return. . Several trains were pulling in on the I Winter Quarters branch, which served ! to further congest mutters. B, ,'i "Leaving Colton, Kyune was the next station passed, but no coal was ccn and after a short run down the j .1 mountain Castle Gate was reached. Hr j j Here all was activity, enr after car . from the mines -was being run out and i dumped into the tipple, while pulling ; locomotives shifted loaded and empty , jl coal cars through the yards, which cover ' Jj about a mile in length and contain six it tracks. Here at least is seen plentv of I coal, and one could not help thinking I ." of the immenfio amount of suffering 1 j?- that this coal could relieve, if it could f ! be sent on. Trains wero boing made f ! : p as fnst as the empty cars could be tilled, and Inter in the afternoon and -1 evening some of them were started out, ' one of them met disaster at; Kyune which resulted in a wreck, tying up tho line for sevoral hours, and the others 'm Vet urn cd to Castle Gate. ; "One train which left later in the . afternoon contained fifteen carH of coke, H i !.; two of coal and five of horses. Passing H'; py 'a through tho yard J noticed several cars ' ' f coal consigned to well-known tndus- J tries in Salt Lako and vicinitv. with l i.j the date of their loading thereon in t .A mime cases of over a week ago, When ! tjiey will reach Salt Lake is a matter n lov the railroad to determine. ' j; "Castle Gatu produces in the eight i . houre that the ininers work each day . J - '1 lcs than one thoitsaud toiia of coal. Lt conies from the mines in strings of dump cars holding about one ton each, sixteen cars in a string, about six strings, or ninety-six tons being sent out each hour, an 'average of about S00 Ions per day, or about seventy-five cars, counting boxcars, which arc at tho present time being used for tho purpose; although at times, under favorable fa-vorable conditions, forty-five enrs per day have been gotten out- There wero sixty-five loaded cars awaiting shipment ship-ment Friday afternoon, part ot which was forwarded that day. Cnstlo Gate's entire output is devoted to commercial and domestic purposes, this amount, together to-gether with that produced by Sunny-side, Sunny-side, Clear Creek and Winter" Quarters mines, approximating six thousand tons per day. "The entire output of the Sunnyside mine is sent to Castle Gate, and there mado into coke. As Sunnyside produces pro-duces 75 per cent of tho cntiro output of the coal company's mines, it is plainly plain-ly to be seen that. 75 per cent of tho entire coal supply of Utah goes into coke, which has a much larger earning power, as it. sells at a higher price than the coal itself. The remaining 25 per cent is divided, 15 per cent "between the Denver & Rio Grande, tho San Pedro Pe-dro and the Western Pacific, the latter road having, as J learned from good authority, au-thority, hundreds of cars stored on its tracks west of Salt Lake. The remaining remain-ing 10 per cent is expected to supply the entire State of Utah for commercial and domestic purposes, whnt wonder is it. that Utah has a coal shortage. "It is very plain to be seen by anyone any-one who care to investigate the-subject I for himself thnt there is an immediate I demand for eomothing to be done. Tho fuel company is under contract to tho railroads to furnish large amounts of cpal daily, which contracts, of course, have to be carried out. but it would seem at thistime, when the demands of the suffering consumer can hardly be overlooked, that there bo some cooperation co-operation on tho part of the .railroads. Tho San Pedro road, being a part to all intents, and purposes of the Harri-man Harri-man system, should get its coal from the mines of that system, and. leave to the people of Utah the ten to twenty carH per day that they have every right to expect. The Western Pacific' is not in operation and will not be for some time to come. And if it is true, as it will bo found out in' the next few days, that hundreds of cars of coal are lying uuconsnmed. it seems reasonabfu that it should be returned to Salt Lake and. sold to the people, who will gladly pay tho price for the same. "To the careful observer the conclusion con-clusion forces itself very strongly that one of the keynotes of the wIimIo situation situ-ation is the almost total lack of the necessary motive power to move even a very meager amount of coal that is being brought to Salt Lake by the Denver & Rio Grande railroad. "Aside from the few more recent types of locomotives lo-comotives and a few Western Pacific locomotives that have been borrowed from that companj, the luck of sufficient suffi-cient motive power is extremely noticeable, notice-able, Tt would seem as though the balance bal-ance of the Western Pacific locomotives locomo-tives which are now standing in tho yards could be borrowed from tho company com-pany under the conditions, to bring in the hundreds of cars of coal that are standing on the tracks awaiting shipment, ship-ment, nnd relievo the overworked and i.Mitircly inadequate so-called niotivo power that is now straining itself to accomplish an-almost impossible task.". |
