Page:Sunset Magazine vol. 31.pdf/534

Rh rails, and I want them. Not at all: seventy I said, and seventy goes. Tell the superintendent of construction to see me at eight thirty o'clock tomorrow. Good-by— Nietzsche fully demonstrated" and so forth.

It sounds like the ravings of a rarebit fiend, doesn't it? But it's only the fragment of an afternoon tea conversation with Mrs. Meta J. Erickson. For Mrs. Erickson is the only woman railroad president in the world—and, though a student of philosophy as well, she is all woman, even if a railroad man at the same time. Withal, she doesn't allow business to interfere with her pleasure.

Upon the day that the directors of the Amador Central railroad were to meet in San Francisco it happened that Mrs. Erickson had a party engagement for the afternoon. She attended the business session in the morning, became the highest woman railroad official in this or any other country, hustled out of the office shortly after noon and two hours later was beautifully gowned and participating in a card game as calmly as any of the other club members.

This is merely an illustration of the energy, of the versatility, of the women of the Pacific Coast.

The Amador Central Railroad is in Amador county, California. It runs from Ione, where it connects with the Southern Pacific, to Martell, a distance of twelve miles. Mrs. Erickson's home is in Oakland. Her office, now that she takes up the presidency of the road in which she is the principal stockholder, is in San Francisco, in the Balboa building, right next door to her attorney. Her residence is at Bay Place and Montecito avenue, overlooking one of Oakland's beauty spots—Lake Merritt. When this railroad president is at home she is not planning some coup in the world of finance, but instead she is looking into the future, anticipating, and attending to her household duties and doing little things in behalf of her family—three boys and a daughter.

Mrs. Erickson is not a railroad president in name only. She is most practical in every particular, being familiar with the construction work as well as the details of operation. Why, she can run a locomotive and run it well! She inherited her interest in the railroad from her husband, Charles Erickson, a contractor, who died two years ago. During the time the road was in the course of construction, Mrs. Erickson spent months at a time with her husband, living in the construction camps and taking an active interest in the work.

In addition to the freight business, Martell being a mining town and an important shipping point, the Amador Central does a profitable passenger business. By agreement with the Southern Pacific, passenger coaches are run from Galt over the Southern