Next to the California Pacific in the Southern Pacific system, in respect to earnings, came, in 1895, the South Pacific Coast Railroad, with gross earnings of $8,000 per mile; the Southern Pacific railroads of New Mexico, California, and Arizona, with earnings ranging from $6,500 to $5,800; the Northern Railway with $5,177; and finally the Northern California and the Oregon and California Railroad companies, with earnings per mile of $2,600 and $2,400, respectively. The figures so far given all relate to the Pacific system. In general it may be said that the earnings of Atlantic system lines were slightly greater per mile than those of the western properties. This statement does not, however, hold good of all the Atlantic companies, nor, on the average, for the Texas roads, statistics for which are given separately. Diversion of Traffic to El Paso Route Unquestionably there was a difference in interest between different parts of the Southern Pacific system, particularly between the Central Pacific or Ogden route, and the Southern Pacific or El Paso route. When the Southern Pacific was first completed to El Paso, the question was raised as to whether it would be the policy of the management of the whole system to divert all transcontinental freight via the southern route. In a letter to a bureau of the United States Treasury Department, Mr. Huntington observed that it would be necessary to continue to do a large part of the through business over the Central Pacific in order that that road might be enabled to meet its interest charges and the requirements of the government indebtedness. The point was evidently regarded as one which called for a decision as to policy. Mr. Huntington further pointed out that it would be injudicious for the Southern Pacific to push any advantage too strongly which it might have, lest it provoke retaliatory action by other lines.[500] The early practice of the Southern Pacific did not, however, altogether accord with this counsel of moderation, and the company seems not only to have been very active, but actually to have succeeded in capturing as much as 90 per cent of the New York-San Francisco business; also, while it did not permanently retain so large a share of the through freight which moved by rail, it continued to carry the major portion of the westbound traffic from the Atlantic seaboard to California until perhaps the year 1887.[501] Some of the freight which the Southern Pacific handled during this period was new business, but a considerable portion of it was taken from the Central Pacific.