The San Francisco and Great Salt Lake conducted extensive surveys and was said to have purchased a tract of land at Martinez for a terminal. The company was overtaken by the panic of 1893, however, before it had secured the financial support which was essential to its success. It suffered also from differences of opinion among its friends with respect to the policies to be pursued. Mr. Leeds insisted that to be a success the new road must have a through connection. Shippers, he said, would not patronize a purely local line when a through line was available, because a competitor with through facilities could afford them service which a local line could not.[454] On the other hand, there were capitalists who expressed willingness to subscribe to the stock of a local system, but who would not put a cent into an overland line,[455] and between the two parties the necessary subscriptions were not obtained. The project was finally withdrawn when the promoters failed to secure certain legislation which they thought necessary to make their plans a success.[456] Another Project Following the failure of the San Francisco and Great Salt Lake enterprise, plans for railroad construction in California made no progress for several months. It had now become evident, however, that the state legislature was not disposed to pass a maximum rate enactment, and that any reduction in the level of local rates in California must come either from the good-will of the Southern Pacific or from the construction of competing lines. Under these circumstances, plans for railroad construction were revived, this time under the direct leadership of the Traffic Association of California. Exactly when the Traffic Association took up the idea of promoting a competing railroad in the San Joaquin Valley cannot be stated with confidence. Newspaper reports indicate that the project was discussed at least as early as April, 1893. Whether or not a beginning was made in this month, it appears that by June, 1893, plans had progressed sufficiently to permit the publication of a prospectus, sent out with the approval of San Francisco shippers. This prospectus invited the citizens of San Francisco and of the state of California to subscribe to the capital stock of a railroad which should run from the city of Stockton to the head of the San Joaquin Valley, in Kern County, a distance of about 230 miles. The plan was said to be to secure as much money as possible in the city of San Francisco, and then to ask the people of the valley, from Stockton up, to add thereto a fair quota. Construction was to begin at Stockton instead of at San Francisco, in order to save expense and in reliance upon the effect of water competition on San Francisco Bay—a competition which was expected to maintain a low level of rates between Stockton and its larger neighbor. The cost of a good road from Stockton to Bakersfield was estimated at something less than $20,000 per mile.