Let us assume that we are about to build a railroad. If we are going to strike our road in from some existing line or some accessible port into virgin country, we may hope for land or money grants from the State, county, town, or city Government. That is a faint hope, however, in these piping days of the twentieth century. So much scandal once attached itself to these grants that they have become all but obsolete. We shall have to fall back upon the individual enterprise and help of the persons who are to benefit by the coming of the railroad. They may be folk who simply regard our project as a good investment, and place their money in it with hopes of a fair return. Even if we are not going into virgin territory to give whole townships and counties their first sight of the locomotive, but are going to strike into a community already provided with railroad facilities but seemingly offering fair opportunity for profit in a competitive traffic, we shall find capital ready to stand back of us. A railroad will cost much money, the mere cost of single-track construction generally running far in excess of $35,000 a mile; and it should have resources, particularly in a highly competitive territory, to enable it to carry on a losing fight at the first. For the money it receives it will issue securities, upon incorporation and legal organization, almost invariably in the form of capital stock and of mortgage-bonds. The stock will probably be held by the men who wish to control the construction and the operation of the line; the bonds will be issued to those persons who invest their money in it, either for profit or as an aid to the community it seeks to enter. The bonds are, in almost all cases, the preferable security. They pay a guaranteed interest at a certain rate, and at the end of a designated term of years they are redeemable at face value, in cash or in the capital stock of the company. There are other forms of loan obligations which the railroad issues--debenture bonds, second-mortgage bonds, short-term notes, and the like. To enter upon a description of these would mean a detour into the devious highways and byways of railroad finance--an excursion which we have no desire to make in this book.