REPORT OF THE PANAMA RAILROAD COMPANY. ) 33

its combined dock and lighterage facilities. That condition gave
rise to serious dissatisfaction on the part of and complaint by all our
Pacific cocarriers. To meet that situation, the board of directors,
in June, 1911, appropriated $428,700 for the construction at Balboa
of a reinforced concrete wharf and channel alongside. Sufficient
progress was made with the work during the year by the expenditure
of $343,141.09 for the company to announce to its cocarriers on
July 30, 1912, that the dock was open for service, but that vessels
regularly assigned to it would be obliged to load and discharge with
their own tackles, the company having not yet installed any per-
manent dock cranes. !

The pressure upon our Balboa (Panama) terminal facilities was
only temporarily relieved, however, as on August 17, 1912, a large
section of the Isthmian Canal Commission’s 1,000-foot lumber dock
collapsed and capsized the Pacific Mail Steamship Co.’s steamship
Newport moored alongside. Almost iamediatele thereafter, as
evidence developed of serious weakness in other sections of adjoin-
ing uplands, the dock was dismantled and its use discontinued
pending decision to rebuild or not. |

Temporarily the company’s Balboa (Panama) terminal facilities
are less adequate to its requirements than before the construction —
of the new concrete dock was authorized. However, no possible

e

effort will be spared to hasten work upon certain sections of the |

authorized permanent terminal docks for temporary use by Panama
Railroad Co. to relieve congestion at Balboa.

Under a contract with the Alvey-Ferguson Co., of Cincinnati,
Ohio, dated August 25, 1909, that concern experimentally constructed
six cement conveyors for use in discharging the cement ships at
the Isthmus. The first lot proved unsatisfactory and the firm then
constructed a duplicate set in which they endeavored to meet the
company’s peo cations that had been -amended in the light of
experience of operation. The original contract was for $29,000, but
efforts to perfect the appliances were very expensive in time and
money to the contractors and to this company. Recently the com-
pany accepted two conveyors under the contract which had been
extended and after compromising differences by a further payment
of $8,693.85, took title to all of the plant on the Isthmus at a total
expenditure under the contract of $28,818.89.

The previous coal contract expiring on April 1, 1912, a contract
was entered into with the Pocahontas Fuel Co. in competition with
numerous other bidders, to furnish our Isthmus requirements of
coal up to 550,000 tons per annum for two years and six months,
ending October 1, 1914, at a price of $2.70 per ton for the first year
and thereafter at $2.65 per ton, should the ruling rate for coal at
Norfolk, Newport News, and Sewells Point fall below $2.70. The
company hopes to secure better results by departing from its prac-
tice for many years of inviting bids annually.

While this company has participated in a general advance in
rates on foreign cargo in both directions across the Isthmus, it has
in no case originated any advance, all increases having been made
at point of origin by initial carriers, and upon justification concurred
in by the Panama, railroad as intermediate carrier and by the con-

necting steamship lines as final carriers to destination. |
74710—S. Doc. 1022, 62-3——3 |