MEXICAN RAILWAYS.

Evening Star, Issue 14037, 19 April 1909, Page 7

MEXICAN RAILWAYS.

«, Much interest attaches to an approaching consolidation of railway systems in Northwest Mexico, under the title of the Mexico North-western Railway, with a terminus at El £aso, Texas, where six important railway systems converge. Such a system will join the Gulf of Mexico with the Pacific. It will also solve the problem of a direct j route from the various points in the Mississippi Valley to the west coast of Mexico. The resources of the North-west of Mexico may he roughly summarised as mineral, timber, ranching, and agricultural. The most ■ interesting State there, both in respect of minerals and timber, is Chihuahua. In the famous Sierra Madre Mountains are probably the richest mineral districts in the world; yet the existing railways have never got beyond the fringe of the district. The mines that have been worked there and have brought great fortunes to those interested have been tapped on lines that are primitive and inadequate to the modern expert. Yielding, as they do, ore of a very high grade, it has been possible to extract wealth without paying heed to lower grade ore. —The Timber.— The timber in North-west Mexico is a high-quality for which there is a big home-, marked as well as in the southwestern park ft? the United States. No less than two and a-half million acres of Umber land will belong to the new amalgamated railway system, und on a portion of this timber lam? that lias been what the Americans call " cruised" experts have estimated thab theror&ra 800,000,000 ft of high-class lumber. There are mills in this part of Mexico to deal with ik» timber, but here again is an industry that requires to be brought up to date and organised on modem dines. Two a 9 thesm.*aw-mills, with am annual capacity -of* 100.000,000 ft' the Mexico' North-western Railwaj»'.Companjr have secured, and it is. further pro-posed-to build a third auc* touch' larger mill, probably ptt E\ Paso, which would be a suitable distributing -centre- for a'! parts of the United States. Tho industry from which so many interested in Mexico proper anticipate a greater part of Mexico's prosperity in the future is that ol catlleraising. As regards grazing, there are no finer grounds in the world than those of the central tablelands. These, like other wealth-giving districts, are not' suecessfuliv served in the matter of railroads, as they would be under a proper system directed from one head. The object of the Mexico North-western Kail way is to furnish adequate transpou facilities for the carriage of plant and ma chinory to the mines, to ship ores to the smelters at El Paso and Chihuahua, to carry lumber to the mills and ports, <'.p.-ri tip lands for settlement, and transport cattle and produce. As a link in tin- chain' of transcontinental tinnsportation the system will hi- of considerable importance as, when completed, it will form the most direct route from all Mississippi purls to tho ports of Guaymas and Agiabompo, on the west coast of Mexico