Tidewater in 1904 -- Office in Staunton

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NEW RAILROAD WILL BE ABOUT 335 MILES LONG
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One Terminus Near Giles County Line and the Other at Norfolk
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    Staunton, Va., Feb. 26 -- Something of a sensation was sprung in financial circles here when it became known that "The Tide Water Railway Company," with local men in control, had been organized and chartered and the laying off of the road commenced without even so much as a rumor of the projected enterprise being printed in the state papers.  The charter was granted last Saturday by the state corporation commission, and on the following Monday engineering corps aggregating 136 [blurred, best estimate] men were started to work at nine different points along the proposed route of the railroad with a view to rushing to completion the work of surveying.
    Everything in connection with the new company has been conducted with the utmost secrecy in order to avoid the opposition and competition which the enterprise would of a surety have met from other roads.  All Business connected with the undertaking has been transacted by the law firm of Ranson & Ranson, who are attorneys for the company.  Both Captain Ranson and Mr. J. Baldwin Ranson have been busily engaged in perfecting their plans for some time past, and the secrecy and dispatch with which they have pushed matters to a crisis is ample evidence of their energy and enterprise.  They have made frequent trips to points in Virginia, West Virginia, and many other places during the past few months, but their main object was always well concealed.
    As laid forth in the charter, the organization is for all time, and the new railway  will have an estimated length of about 335 miles, with one terminus in Giles county, Virginia, near the state line of Virginia and West Virginia, and the other will be at Norfolk or vicinity.  It will pass through the counties of Giles, Montgomery, Roanoke, Franklin, Bedford, Campbell, Pittsylvania, Halifax, Charlotte, Prince Edward, Lunenburg, Brunswick, Dinwiddie, Greenville, Sussex, Southampton, Isle of Wight, Nansemond and Norfolk.  The above named counties in the main have no adequate railroad facilities, and the project line, if it ever becomes a reality, will be of inestimable benefit in the development of southern Virginia.
    The capital stock of the Tidewater Railway Company is rated in the charter at a minimum of $50,000 and a maximum or $100,000, to be divided into shares of $100 each, and the principal office in the state of Virginia will be located in this city.
    Captain Ranson is very reticent concerning the plans of the company and the amount of local capital involved, and the refusal to discuss the matter any further than the facts laid forth in the charter.  He says that, so far as he is aware, its success is assured, but that he is not at liberty to go into details concerning it.
    Just what will be the outcome is a matter of speculation.  The capital stock of the company -- the maximum sum of $100,00 -- would build about five or six miles of railroad on a dead level, but in the mountainous district through which it is proposed to run the Tide Water, it would hardly be sufficient to construct an ordinary tunnel.

Bluefield Daily Telegraph
February 27, 1904

[The list of counties could make one think he is in England.]

Gordon Hamilton
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