Nothing gives better evidence of the growing importance of Buffalo than
recent action of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Company. This great
company has at Philadelphia and along the Delaware River greater
terminal facilities than any other railroad company operating on the
Atlantic seaboard. In February, 1892, it obtained control of the Lehigh
Valley system, thereby securing a direct route from Buffalo to
Philadelphia. The new and more active management saw the tremendous
importance of obtaining a foothold in Buffalo, which already holds the
key to the traffic of the great lakes, and now stands upon the verge of
extraordinary manufacturing development by reason of Niagara’s cheap and
unlimited power. Within a comparatively few years Buffalo will be the
chief manufacturing center of the country; the possibilities of traffic
radiating from this point are boundless. It was a master stroke of
President McLeod of the Philadelphia & Reading to establish his railroad
securely in Buffalo. It is a well-known fact that the Lehigh Valley has
the best terminal facilities of all the railroads centering here. Within
the past few years millions have been spent in perfecting them.
Following this stroke with the Lehigh Valley, the Philadelphia & Reading
made a traffic contract with the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburg for
fifty years, giving still further evidence of belief in Buffalo.
The export business of the Philadelphia & Reading is vast, operating as
it does in connection with a line of transatlantic steamers, and this
opens up a new line of thought. The impetus given by cheap and plentiful
power to manufacturing in old and many new directions in Buffalo will of
course be very great, and it is certain that thousands of industries
depending upon export trade will flourish here, close to the storehouses
of the raw material and of the world’s cheapest power. Numerous avenues
to the seaboard are therefore an essential part of the grand plan of our
industrial prosperity, and the addition of the Philadelphia & Reading is
one of very great importance.
Yet this should always be held in mind--would the Philadelphia & Reading
have reached out after Buffalo business if it had not been worth while
reaching for? The fact is that we attract great transportation
enterprises as the magnet does the needle.