Testimony of Jay Gould, May 19, 1887, PRC, 1:588.

For actual costs, Testimony of James W. Davis, June 21, 1887, PRC,3:1087.

The best American bar iron was running between $146 (its peak) a ton in 1865 and $75 in 1870. Pig iron ran between a little under $60 to a little under $40 during this same period. Ties usually ran 25 to 50 cents.

Arthur Mellen Wellington, The Economic Theory of the Location of Railways (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1891), 763, 776.

In 1868 the Central Pacific calculated 88 tons of iron (at $75 per ton) for rails and superstructure per mile,

Testimony, PRC, 8:4547.