Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-08-18 | Page 36 | Says Alta Railroad Service is Poor

m JSLTA RAILROAD SERVO POOR General Manager N. W. Haire of Michigan-Utah Makes Complaint Norman W. FT aire, genera! maoagftr of th Michigan-Utah Consolidated Minns company, with extensive holding in the Alta district, whose mine id today the largest Alta shipper, yesterday yester-day gave out a lengthy statement concerning con-cerning railroad service to Alta from the shippers' viewpoint. In part he uaid : "The most serious drawback to the Alta district for the past eighteen months has been the very poor service rendered by tbe Salt Lake & Alta railroad rail-road from Wasatch to the main line of the JJ. & K. 0. at Midvalo. At the prenent time everv available receptacle at Wasatch is filled with ore. All the bins of the Michigan-Utah at Tanner's flat are filled. I am informed that all the- cars of the Little Cottonwood Transportation company are filled with ore. The D. & K. G., now operating the .Salt Lake & Alta railroad, either neglects neg-lects or refuses to furnish cars to take care of this product. As an example, recently there was need of ton cars at Wasatch and the D. & K. G. came along with one. "We wero ordered by the railroad authorities a short time ago to fiil our cars with at least forty tons of ore. it turns out that if wo do fill a car with forty tons of ore it is almost sure to leave the track before arriving at Midvale, ho we have been obliged to be exceedingly careful in loading what, few cars we receive so as not to got more than thirty tons on a car. The attention of the management of the railroad has been 'repeatedly called to this shortage of cars. The management manage-ment ha promised over and over again during tho past eighteen months to remedy rem-edy the deficiency, but has paid little attention to it. In fact, it has become quite apparent to the several mine managers man-agers of Alta that the railroad does not care for the business. The roadbed is in very bad condition in certain places, making it almost impossible to keep a car on the track. We are told that a fow thousand feet of new rails -would put the track in condition to stand the strain and wear and tear of operation, but the matter has been treated by the D. & R. G. officials as a joke. They raised the rate of hauling on low-grade ore from 60 cents a ton to SO cents a ton, a 33 1-3 per cent advance for low-grade low-grade ore, other grades in proportion. ''Nevertheless, the railroad does not sflera to care whether business is given to it or not. It practically ignores all the rights of shippers from the Little Cottonwood, and something must be done to compel this management to give us bettor service and Dot treat us as jokes. The Michigan-Utah alone in 1917 shipped over the Salt Lake & Alta railroad more than 12,000 tons of ore. At the present rates of freight that would be well over $10,000 paid for freight alone. This is only one company; com-pany; there are others with a good ton-ago ton-ago of ore. All this is well known to the officials of the D. & R G., but they treat our representatives with contempt. "Ore will pile up at Wasatch, and when petitioned to do something, the management will say: 'Tomorrow or nest week everything wall be all right," or words to that effect. ' i At present the Little Cottonwood Transportation company seems to be performing its duties in a first-class manner, but, of course, if it cannot dispose dis-pose of the ore hauled down to "Wasatch "Wa-satch it is seriously handicapped. "The Salt Lake & Alta railroad was built and placed in commission in 1913, five years ago. Five years should certainly cer-tainly be enough time to put twelve miles of railroad in shape tor hauling ore over it. The road runs through comparatively level country. Weather conditions during almost the entire year along the whole line are ideal. If the railroad did not exist, the mine managers man-agers could take some other way for transporting their ore from Wasatch to the smelters. It requires no expert knowledge of railroad matters to operate this road. It could be put into condition condi-tion by a few carloads of steel rails properly placed on the track, and then a few "of the cars that are standing around Murray and Midvale doing nothing noth-ing shonld be hauled to Wasatch and loaded with ore and hauled down to the smelters. It is possible that the public utilities commission of Utah has jurisdiction in this case. If it has, something should be done before winter comes.' J