Quotes About Railroads

This venture envisioned a new refiners' cartel, headed by a central board that would negotiate advantageous terms with the railroads and maintain prices by assigning refining quotas to members.

With virtuosic brilliance, Rockefeller and Flagler played these three railroads against each other in seemingly endless permutations.

Having outsmarted the largest railroad, Rockefeller had acquired a stranglehold on the three major roads, and his taming of the imperious Tom Scott guaranteed that no railroad president would ever dare to tangle with him again.

Since railroads were natural monopolies and couldn't survive much direct competition, they could be easily threatened by small competitors

From an engineering standpoint, Pierpont knew little about railroads.

He stressed the displeasure of European investors with American railroads

The Chinese Exclusion Act was a law designed to keep more Chinese from coming here once they'd finished building our railroads.' 'Doesn't sound terribly American.' 'On the contrary, it's very American.

Yet Morgan was surprisingly patient. As an investment banker who had backed many railroads, which were continually absorbing new technologies, he seemed quite accepting that problems large and small were inevitable.

The basic weakness with America's railroad system was overbuilding, which forced the roads into endless rounds of rate cuts and wage cuts to service debt. At the same time, the massive power of their largest consumers—notably Rockefeller in oil and Carnegie in steel—forced them to grant preferential rebates to big shippers, enraging small western farmers and businessmen and stimulating calls for government regulation.

Despite his lack of legal training, Henry M. Flagler drew up the act of incorporation.

Even the now-immense authority of Pierpont Morgan couldn't solve the structural problems caused by too many railroads chasing too few passengers and owing too much money.

During the summer months, he could send oil by water, greatly enhancing his bargaining power with the railroads.

In exchange for this extraordinary concession, Rockefeller and Flagler didn't simply try to squeeze the railroads—they were much too shrewd and subtle for that—but offered compelling incentives.

For Lloyd, the essence of Standard Oil power resided in its secret alliances with the railroads, which had fostered the growth of many trusts.

Pierpont feared a replication of the railroad chaos, with overbuilding and price wars.

He knew that the railroads felt threatened by the pipelines, and for a time he thought it worthwhile to help them safeguard their interests by delaying the introduction of this new technology.

Rebates had inevitably accompanied railroad expansion.

First, the railroads had engaged in such fierce, internecine price wars that freight rates had fallen sharply.

This set him up to extract maximum advantage from both the railroads and pipelines so long as these two means of transport coexisted in the oil business.

By giving small stakes in United to William H. Vanderbilt of the New York Central and Amasa Stone of the Lake Shore, Rockefeller tightened his grip over friendly railroads.

Over time, relations grew ever closer and more incestuous between the railroads and large shippers. For decades, Rockefeller and his colleagues enjoyed free passes on all major railroads, which they regarded not as payoffs but as natural perquisites of their business.

The cornerstone of the SIC was a provision that Standard Oil would act as "evener" for the three railroads and ensure that each received a predetermined share of the oil traffic:

Unless the railroads had greater control over the oil business, Rockefeller knew, they "could not make the divisions of business necessary so as to prevent rate-cutting.

One other factor tempted the railroads to come to terms with Rockefeller: In a farsighted tactical maneuver, he had begun to accumulate hundreds of tank cars, which would be in perpetually short supply.