On the West Shore and Buffalo road its limit of grade is 30 feet to the mile going west and north, and 20 feet to the mile going east and south. Next for easy grades comes the New York Central and Hudson River road. From New York to Albany, then up the valley of the Mohawk, till it gradually reaches the elevation of Lake Erie, it is all the time within the 500 foot level, and this is maintained by its connections on the lake borders to Chicago, by the "Nickel Plate," the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, and the Canada Southern and Michigan Central.
The Erie, the Pennsylvania, and the Baltimore and Ohio roads pass through a country so mountainous that, much as they have expended to improve their grades, it is practically impossible for them to attain the easy grades so much more readily obtained by the trunk lines following the great natural waterways originally extending almost from Chicago to New York.

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