On the West Shore and Buffalo road its limit of grade is 30 feet to
the mile going west and north, and 20 feet to the mile going east and
south. Next for easy grades comes the New York Central and Hudson
River road. From New York to Albany, then up the valley of the Mohawk,
till it gradually reaches the elevation of Lake Erie, it is all the
time within the 500 foot level, and this is maintained by its
connections on the lake borders to Chicago, by the "Nickel Plate," the
Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, and the Canada Southern and Michigan
Central.
The Erie, the Pennsylvania, and the Baltimore and Ohio roads pass
through a country so mountainous that, much as they have expended to
improve their grades, it is practically impossible for them to attain
the easy grades so much more readily obtained by the trunk lines
following the great natural waterways originally extending almost from
Chicago to New York.
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