Read Ebook: The Railway Library 1909 A Collection of Noteworthy Chapters Addresses and Papers Relating to Railways Mostly Published During the Year by Thompson Slason Editor

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In presenting these statistics, the writer has endeavored to make them as colorless summaries of facts as an earnest desire to arrive at the truth permits. Such comment as accompanies them will be confined to comparisons and elucidation and not to the furtherance of any personal theories.

For the sake of brevity, the Interstate Commerce Commission will be referred to herein as the "Commission"; the Commission's "Statistics of Railways in the United States" as "Official Statistics" and "the year ending June 30th" will be implied before the year named unless otherwise specified.

The statements as to foreign railways are compiled from the latest official sources available.

Here the writer wishes to record his personal appreciation of the assistance rendered by the executives and accounting officials of the railways, whose co-operation has made this report possible. In the midst of increasing burdens imposed on them in reporting to federal and state commissions and legislatures, the requests for information from this Bureau might have seemed excusably negligible. The completeness of the report itself testifies to the cordiality with which the Bureau's work is viewed.

Acknowledgments are also due to Federal and State officials for their uniform courtesy in responding to the many requests from this Bureau, and the writer has been much gratified to receive from the chief government railway official of one foreign country the assurance that he considers its Annual Report "one of the most comprehensive and useful compilations of statistical matter relating to railways that has come into his hands."

SLASON THOMPSON.

CHICAGO, April 30, 1910.

MILEAGE IN 1909

According to the preliminary income report of the Interstate Commerce Commission for the year ending June 30, 1909, compiled from the monthly returns, the average railway mileage operated in the United States during the year was 233,002.67 miles; and the total mileage operated at the end of the year was 234,182.70.

The returns to this Bureau, compiled from the annual reports for the same year, cover 221,132 miles, against 216,460 in 1908, an increase of 4,672 miles. Reports to the Commission for December, 1909, showed a total operated mileage of 236,166 miles.

In its report dated December 21, 1909, the Commission stated that for the year ending June 30, 1908, substantially complete returns had been received for 230,494 miles of line operated, including 8,661.34 miles used under trackage rights. These are the official figures of mileage for 1908, which will be used in all subsequent comparisons with the Bureau's figures for 1909--the latter, however, may include some switching and terminal mileage excluded from the former.

Of the mileage reporting to this Bureau, 8,927 miles were operated under trackage rights, leaving a net of 212,205 miles of line covered by capitalization and rental.

Assuming that the total operated mileage in the United States at the close of the fiscal year 1909 was 234,182, the complete returns to this Bureau cover approximately 94.4% of the mileage and 97% of the traffic of all the railways in the United States. No attempt has been made, or will be made, to segregate the returns of switching and terminal companies from the Bureau's figures, of which they are an integral part.

SUMMARY OF RAILWAY MILEAGE IN THE UNITED STATES BY STATES AND TERRITORIES IN 1909, 1908 AND 1907 AND ITS RELATION TO AREA AND POPULATION.

Official mileage by States not available for 1908.

Mileage operated in Canada by American roads.

SUMMARY OF RAILWAY MILEAGE IN THE UNITED STATES BY STATES AND TERRITORIES IN 1909 AND 1908 AND ITS RELATION TO AREA AND POPULATION--Continued.

The column of operated mileage in 1909 testifies to the comprehensive character of the reports to this Bureau, while the last two columns demonstrate how railway extension has kept pace with the growth of the country. Territorially the United States now has 43% more railway mileage than it had in 1890, and the last column proves that the mileage is greater proportionately to the population than it was twenty years ago. The contrast in the density of population per mile of line between Rhode Island and Nevada is illustrative of the startling diversity of conditions under which railways are operated in the United States.

RAILWAYS BUILT IN 1909.

MILES OF LINE CONSTRUCTED DURING THE CALENDAR YEAR 1909 BY STATES AND TERRITORIES.

RAILWAY MILEAGE OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

The ratios of railway mileage to area and population in the table on page 19 may be compared with those of foreign countries for 1907 in the following statement:

SUMMARY OF THE WORLD'S RAILWAYS AND RATIO OF THE MILEAGE TO THE AREA AND POPULATION OF EACH COUNTRY IN 1907.

Of the above total railway mileage for the whole world, no less than 332,360 miles, or nearly 56%, is operated in English speaking countries, the mileage of the United States alone being over 35% of the whole.

To the most casual student the disparity between the density of population to railway mileage in the United States and Europe of one to five, is as apparent as it is significant of our necessity for so much greater provision of transportation facilities per capita. If our per capita mileage were relatively the same as that of Europe, the United States would be set back to the transportation facilities of 1869, when the completion of the Union Pacific raised its total mileage to 47,254 miles. But even then it had a ratio of one mile of railway to 810 inhabitants, which was higher than Europe's ratio today.

Clearly there is nothing in the statistics of the railway mileage of the world to account for the epidemic of railway phobia that periodically convulses the people and legislatures of the United States of America.

MILEAGE OF ALL TRACKS IN 1909.

Of almost equal importance to the mileage of American railways are the auxiliary tracks upon which the extent and efficiency of their public service so largely depends. As the next statement shows, these continue to increase more rapidly than the miles of line.

SUMMARY OF MILEAGE OF SINGLE TRACK, SECOND TRACK, THIRD TRACK, FOURTH TRACK AND YARD TRACK AND SIDINGS, IN THE UNITED STATES, 1897 TO 1909.

To the figures for 1908 should be added the 1,626 miles of main track and 2,085 of yard track and sidings of switching and terminal companies, excluded by the Official Statistician, raising the total of all tracks to 337,357.

It will be observed that in every instance the mileage of second, third and fourth track and yard track and sidings reported to this Bureau in 1909, the year of comparative stagnation in railway construction, exceeded the complete mileage of these tracks in 1908 reported to the Commission.

The above table shows that where there has been an increase of only 50,798 miles of single track, or 27.7%, in twelve years, all trackage has increased over 98,000, or 42%, during the same period. It also shows that during the same twelve years second track has increased 87%; third track 120%; fourth track 91%, and yard track and sidings 76%.

MILEAGE AND TRACK OF BRITISH RAILWAYS.

As English railways are so often brought into comparison with American railways, it is well to know the total of all tracks in the United Kingdom as well as the mileage. Both are given in the following statement, compiled from returns to the British Board of Trade for the years ending December 31, 1904 to 1908:

Here it will be perceived the mileage of British roads increased only 608 miles and the trackage only 2,035 miles in four years. During the same period, as shown in the preceding table, the mileage of American railways increased 18,251 miles and their total trackage 36,543. It is this continuous demand for increased mileage and trackage in the United States, to say nothing of equipment, that differentiates the problem confronting American railway management from British. In the United States we need more railways and still more railways, and the problem is to get the capital on reasonable terms to provide the facilities.

In railroad mileage alone we have over ten times that of the United Kingdom and we have more than six times as many miles of track. We have enough trackage in our yards and sidings to double track all the British railways, with enough over to put four tracks where they have only two tracks now.

EQUIPMENT

AN OBJECT LESSON IN EQUIPMENT.

No car shortage occurred to interrupt the orderly movement of railway traffic during the fiscal year 1908-09. On the contrary, there was an unprofitable surplus of cars throughout the year, ranging from 110,912 in September, 1908, to 333,019 in January, 1909. From this high figure the surplus was slowly reduced by the demands of traffic until subsequent to the close of the fiscal year, in September last, it reached a practical level of shortages and surpluses. During the year there was an average of 150,000 freight cars in the shops, where in times of ordinary activity the mean would be in the neighborhood of 100,000.

These conditions, which prevailed since November, 1907, account for the greatly reduced purchases of rolling stock during the years 1908 and 1909 shown in the following record of locomotives and cars built in the United States during the past eleven years:

ELEVEN YEARS' OUTPUT OF CARS AND LOCOMOTIVES.

Includes Canadian output.

Between 1898 and 1908 the Interstate Commerce Commission reported an increase of 21,464 locomotives, 11,697 passenger cars, and 856,999 freight and company cars. Allowing for the Canadian output in the above table, this would show 22,742 more locomotives, 13,821 more passenger cars, and 674,023 more freight cars built in ten years than are accounted for in the official returns. Roughly speaking, these last figures represent the number of locomotives and cars worn out beyond repair or destroyed that have to be replaced annually. It means that provision has to be made every year for the purchase of new equipment amounting to approximately 5% of locomotives and passenger cars and 4% of freight cars in order to maintain the equipment numerically, irrespective of the sums spent on maintaining the remainder in serviceable condition.

On the equipment reported by the Commission for 1908 this would necessitate the following outlay for replacement alone:

It is probable that the computed percentage for the replacement of locomotives and passenger cars is too high and that for freight cars too low. This is the opinion of operating officials. If so, it would amount to a set off and the aggregate would still be approximately 2,000,000 to be expended annually for new equipment to take the place of old, worn out and discarded rolling stock. Conditions forbade the expenditure of any such sum in 1908 and 1909.

NUMBER AND CAPACITY OF LOCOMOTIVES FOR EIGHT YEARS, 1909 TO 1902.

Next follows a summary giving the number and capacity of locomotives for the seven years since the Commission has included capacity in the published returns:

Complete returns will raise the totals for 1909 approximately to 57,704 locomotives of 1,465,070,000 pounds tractive power and 4,158,000 tons weight, exclusive of tenders. These figures bear out the conclusion expressed above that the purchase of new locomotives in 1909 was barely sufficient to replace those abandoned or destroyed during the year. The loss, however, was in a measure made good by the greater weight of the new engines. As the average weight of locomotives in 1899 was approximately 53 tons, the figures just given indicate an increase of nearly 114% in the weight of all locomotives during the decade.

DETAILS OF LOCOMOTIVE COSTS.

Ton of 2,240 lbs.

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