necting with
the Union Pacific’s main line. Meanwhile the Oregon Steam
Navigation Company has retired to enjoy the results of good
management in other lines of investment.
The railroads that centre at Portland are those of the Southern Pacific system, formerly known as the Oregon and California and the Oregon Central, which form a junction one hundred and ten miles south. The Southern Pacific gives connection with all the California lines and trans-continental roads. The Union Pacific, as above stated, has direct through connection with the East. The Northern Pacific’s Columbia River branch starts at Portland and follows the river to a point opposite the Cowlitz Valley, where it crosses by means of a ferry and runs north to Tacoma, whence its main line crosses the Cascade Range, and makes a long detour southeast via Pasco and northeast via the Panhandle of Idaho before reaching Montana, where it makes another long angle southeast and northwest before it reaches the parallel on which it stretches out for St. Paul. These routes involve sight-seeing over a vast scope of country, embracing all the great mountain ranges on the Pacific Slope, and their commercial advantages may easily be apprehended.
The Canadian Pacific also furnishes eastern connection with Portland by the outside steamer route to Victoria, or by the Northern Pacific and Puget Sound steamers to the western terminus of the road in British Columbia. The Great Northern also reaches Portland by using the Union Pacific’s lines in East Washington, thus giving the tourist bis choice of five transcontinental routes. Besides these great lines there are two narrow-gauge roads which run through the farming districts in the Wallamet Valley and contribute to the business of the me-* tropolis,—the Portland and Willamette Valley Railroad, on the east side of the river, and the Oregonian Railway, on the west side. These roads have recently been added to the Southern Pacific system and are being made standard gauge. The Oregon Pacific is an uncompleted road extending at present from Ya- quina Bay, on the coast of Oregon, across the middle of the Wallamet Valley to the Cascade Mountains. Its route is surveyed across East Oregon to a connection with the Union Pacific at Ontario, near t
