Star Of The Kanawha Valley

The Covington and Ohio Railroad—Branch to the Mouth of the Kanawha.

If it should be determined upon by the present Legislature to complete the great railroad system of Virginia already commenced, and an appropriation is made to the Covington and Ohio Railroad, the great work of the State, by the present Legislature, we think it is due to the best interest of improvement to pass a bill to construct a branch from the mouth of Scary to terminate at the mouth of the Kanawha.

The people of Gallipolis, and at intermediate points between that place and Chillicothe, have been impatiently waiting to learn whether Virginia intends to make a connection with the Chillicothe and Gallia Railroad at the mouth of Kanawha. They have their company organized, and only wait the action on the part of the Virginia Legislature, to go to work and complete their road.

This short branch from Scary to the mouth of the Kanawha, down a level plain less than 40 miles, will comparatively cost nothing, in comparison with the immense advantages it will give the main stem. It will alone increase the revenues of the Covington and Ohio Railroad in one year to an amount sufficient to pay the cost of its construction.

Since the success of the B. and O. Railroad, in the way of reimbursing the Company, and relieving it from embarrassment by the revenue accruing in another year, it is evident that the C. and O. Railroad, with the Kanawha valley branch as a feeder, great as it would be, would in much less time than it has taken the B. and O. Railroad, to discharge the entire cost of the road, and place millions annually into the public treasury; without taking into consideration the disbursement of all lands throughout all Central-western Virginia, and the development of her mineral, agricultural and commercial resources and interests. We quote the following from a speech recently delivered in the House of Delegates by the eloquent Seoar, on a bill to construct a short track road from Charlottesville to Richmond:

'Sir, I have read, since the adjournment of the House on Saturday, the last report of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad company, and find in it results for which I was little prepared. It is well known that I have never thought that the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad would be, to the stock holders, a paying road. I thought, as I said in the White Sulphur Springs Convention, that its high grades of 116 feet to the mile, would so diminish its capacity for transportation, and so increase its working expenses, that it would never pay six per cent. on the cost. Imagine, then, my surprise and delight, when I found from the late report that, without any increase of revenue, the floating debt will all be paid off by the first of April, 1857, the company relieved of all embarrassment, and 6 per cent. distributed to the stockholders! And yet more: This very morning I have read the proceedings of a meeting of the Board of Directors held the past week, from which it appears that the income of the road for the last quarter of the past year was $1,264,000, a gain of $264,000 over the corresponding quarter of the preceding year. Nor is this all: The earnings for the month of December alone amounted to $440,000 which is at the rate of five millions and a quarter per year, $15,193 per day, $591 per hour, and nearly $10 per minute!

No, sir, look at this extraordinary and triumphant fact. Contemplate it, ye friends of Internal Improvement, and rejoice that ever ye stood up for the glorious policy, and look at it, ye enemies of railroads, and then "hang your diminished heads in shame," or resolve hereafter to do better for your country!

And now, sir, for the conclusion, and it is this: If the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, with its up-hill grades—so steep that it requires one enormous engine ahead to drag, and another behind to push the train along, and so heavy as ever and anon to crush the superstructure beneath—if with these heavy grades, and a frost-binding climate that often arrests the operations of the road, and curvatures so bad that, like the coiled snake, the head and the tail of the moving train almost touch;—I say, if the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, under these combined unfavorable circumstances, and costing some millions more than our Central line, earn $1,264,000 in a single quarter, $440,000 in a single month, $591 in a day, and ten dollars in a minute, what ought to be done, or rather what ought not to be done by our road, if this short branch is constructed from Scary to the mouth of the Kanawha? We hope that the gifted Seoar will look to this branch road, and thereby assist in promoting the best interest not only of this part of the valley of the Kanawha, but the whole State.'