"
John Cardigan smiled. "The old dream revived, eh? Well, the old jokes
always bring a hearty laugh. People will laugh at your company,
because folks up this way realize that the construction cost of such
a road is prohibitive, not to mention the cost of maintenance, which
would be tremendous and out of all proportion to the freight area
tapped."
"Well, since we're not going to build more than twelve miles of our
road during the next year, and probably not more than ten miles
additional during the present century, we won't worry over it. It
doesn't cost a cent more to procure a franchise to build a road from
here to the moon. If we fail to build to Grant's Pass, our franchise
to build the uncompleted portion of the road merely lapses and we
hold only that portion which we have constructed. That's all we want
to hold."
"How about rights of way?"
"They will cost us very little, if anything. Most or the landowners
along the proposed route will give us rights of way free gratis and
for nothing, just to encourage the lunatics. Without a railroad the
land is valueless; and as a common carrier they know we can condemn
rights of way capriciously withheld--something we cannot do as a
private road. Moreover, deeds to rights of way can be drawn with a
time-limit, after which they revert to the original owners.
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