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<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS">Bluefield Daily Telegraph<BR>June 30,
1909</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=4>VIRGINIAN AND HOCKING VALLEY IN
ALLIANCE</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG>Substantial Progress Said to Have Been Made Toward
Completing The Railway System</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=left> </DIV>
<DIV align=left> For more than a year plans have been
discussed by the Hocking Valley and Virginian railways for the construction of a
bridge across the Kanawha river at Deepwater, in Kanawha county, where the
Kanawha & Michigan meets the latter road and, while the public is not
informed as to the status of these negotiations, it is asserted by those
interested that substantial progress has been made toward connecting the two
systems.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> The final disposition of westbound traffic of
the Virginian railway after it arrives at Deepwater is a matter of great
interest to the railroad world, for here is a high-class road, costing $70,000 a
mile, which within the course of a few years, will have to earn perhaps $15,000
gross per mile to be able to pay the interest on its $33,000,000 first mortgage
bonds on their debt. This Hocking Valley system, without an actual trunk
line reaching to tidewater, and the Virginian railway, without a trunk line
reaching to the lakes, meeting at Deepwater (a point above a central line
between ocean and lakes) seems to present mutual advantages which cannot but
result in close relations between the two companies.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> It is the belief of bankers interested in the
situation and influential in shaping its further development, that if a traffic
alliance should come about, the business of the Hocking Valley would immediately
assure the Virginian its fixed charges, while the growing business of the latter
would in time make the net earning capacity of the Hocking Valley and the
Kanawha & Michigan, its subsidiary, equal to that of almost any of the great
railroad systems.</DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=left>[A<EM> Hocking Valley website states that the C&O gained
control of the Hocking Valley in March 1910, which would have given the Hocking
Valley a route to Tidewater without involving the Virginian. The
Virginian's Kanawha River bridge was built, but not until 1930, which
was after the Kanawha & Michigan was separated from the C&O and
became part of the NYC, according to a K&M website.</EM>]</DIV>
<DIV align=left> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Script size=6>Gordon
Hamilton</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>