John Moody Quotes on Property (6 Quotes)

In the earlier days of railroading, and especially in the long period which came to an end with the death of Harriman, the typical railroad president was usually a man of great wealth who had secured his position by owning a large financial interest in the property.

The outstanding dramatic event in the story of the modern Northern Pacific was the famous corner which occurred in the spring of 1901 as a result of a contest between the Hill and the Harriman interests for the control of the property.

In 1906 the Pennsylvania began to dispose of the bulk of its holdings in competing properties, the most notable transactions being the sale of its entire interest in the Chesapeake and Ohio to independent interests and a substantial part of its Baltimore and Ohio holdings to the Union Pacific Railroad.

The financial history of the Baltimore and Ohio since the close of the nineteenth century is interesting chiefly in connection with changes in the control of the property.

The Pennsylvania still continued to forge ahead... to about 1889, when the trunk lines were aggressively carrying on that policy of cutthroat competition between Chicago and the Atlantic seaboard which resulted in so severely weakening the credit and position of properties like the Baltimore and Ohio and the Erie.

The Vanderbilt family no longer possesses a majority interest in the stock, or anything which approaches it, and the New York Central system and its subsidiaries have come to be known more and more as Morgan properties.