Business: Small Potato Road

No great rail tycoon is onetime (1926-31) Senator Arthur Robinson Gould of Maine. But he has been a happy rail tycoon and a prosperous one. The great blight which has fallen upon U. S. transportation systems has bothered him not at all.

The Gould railroad domain is known by the corporate title of Aroostook Valley Railroad Co. It consists of 36.60 mi. of 70-lb. tracks threading through the potato-rich Aroostook Valley, connecting with the Canadian Pacific at Washburn Junction and Bangor & Aroostook (“The Potato Road”) at Washburn. Its stations include Sweden. Adaline, Caribou, Bugbee, Carson and Presque Isle Junction, near where dwells Mr. Gould. Freight comprises 85% of its business, there being 140 potato depots holding 5.000.000 bu. of potatoes along its right-of-way. The road is electrified, buying its power from a station at

Aroostook Falls, N. B., which Mr. Gould was instrumental in building. The road’s equipment consists of two electric freight engines, four freight cars, four motor passenger cars, one motor snowplow.

While the Gould road is a minuscule dash on the U. S. railway map its results would gratify many a bigger system. Its gross earnings have averaged about $200,000 a year. In recent years it has usually earned more than double its fixed charges of about $40,000. In 1930 it earned

$19.17 a share on its 2,970 shares. In 1929 per share earnings were $15.52; in 1928 (a bad potato year), $4.88; in 1927, $15-When Mr. Gould was building his road around 1911 the Canadian Pacific took a friendly interest, guaranteed interest on a $368,000 bond issue floated in London. Lately the C. P. R. has wished to obtain control of the system. Mr. Gould and the C. P. R. agreed on a price of $267.87 a share. The I. C. C, said that not more than $215 could be paid. Last week Mr. Gould decided to sell at the lower price, turned over 2.000 shares to the C. P. R. for $420,000. When in the Senate Mr. Gould was an alleged Dry from a Dry State. This legend was shattered when a letter he had written to a home-wine company became public: “As you know I come from a Prohibition state . . . but I am about as loyal to the Prohibition element as some of those southern Democrats are to the Democratic party. … I know I shall have some fine wine out of this shipment. . . .”