Word: nickel
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Tarnished Plate. Just half a century ago the first train ran over the rails of the Nickel Plate (New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad). The Nickel Plate is now a system of some 1,600 mi. The main part of the road consists of two great arcs, one curving between Buffalo and Chicago, the other between Detroit and St. Louis. An important branch runs to Peoria. Last year it carried 36,551.000 tons of freight, collected $36,551.000 in gross revenue...
...line was bought by New York Central in 1885. Legend is that when Commodore Vanderbilt first heard the asking price, he bellowed, "I would not pay that if the tracks were nickel plated." In 1916 control of the road was bought by Cleveland's hustling Van Sweringen Brothers. It was their first road and is today a key link in their railroad empire. Serving a rich territory, it prospered. In 1929 it borrowed $20,000,000 in three-year notes, using the proceeds to buy 53% of Wheeling
...acquisition was made after a desperate.struggle with the Taplin brothers of Cleveland during which Wheeling shares, virtually cornered, ran up from $27½ to $130. In 1930 the road's credit was still good and it sold $36,000,000 worth of bonds bearing only 4.5%. Last week came the Nickel Plate's crisis. It was unable to meet the interest and maturity of its $20,000.000 notes issued...
...Nickel Plate goes into receivership and is reorganized, a new angle to current railroad problems will arise. Its control of the Wheeling has been pledged to R. F. C. as security on a loan. Calling of this loan would apparently bring about the first Federal ownership of an important railroad...
Oris Paxton Van Sweringen, 53, and his two-year-younger brother Mantis James were at home in Cleveland last week, silent as to what they thought of the Nickel Plate's situation. Quiet, busy bachelors who live together in the fashionable Shaker Heights district which they built up, the "Vans" have always been shy of publicity. But many a success writer has written of their rise from newspaper selling with pooled assets of $16.32 to a position where they control 29,704 miles of track with Cleveland's new Union Terminal as their monument. The Depression has brought a severe...