THE SMOKE NUISANCE 153 



EAILEOADS AND THE SMOKE NUISANCE 



By CLINTON ROGERS WOODRUFF 



AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION 



IT is estimated, so says the Scientific American, that 150,000,000 tons 

 of coal are used annually by the railways of the United States, 

 out of which but 7,500,000 tons are used in drawing the trains, while 

 142,500,000 tons go up the smoke-stack. And a recent English writer, 

 John W. Graham, declares that a locomotive uses 3% tons of coal per 

 day on an average, and scatters the smoke of 36 pounds of coal over 

 every mile on fast trains. 



These two statements give us some conception of the appalling 

 extent of the smoke nuisance so far as the railroads are concerned, and 

 fill us with amazement and incredulity. How is it possible that rail- 

 roads which are run for the profit of the stockholders, or at least are 

 presumably so run if we may credit the statements made before legis- 

 lative committees by their representatives, can permit so great a source 

 of waste to have gone so long unchecked? "Why is it that so many 

 railroad ofiicials have opposed in every way possible efforts to reduce the 

 evil? 



In Boston, according to one observer who has carefully studied the 

 situation, the New York Central and Hudson Eiver Eailroad Com- 

 pany, through its officials, curtly refuses to discuss the matter or to 

 make any change in its smoke-producing methods, and he made sub- 

 stantially the same charge against the New York, New Haven and 

 Hartford road. Z. A. Willard in an open letter to the Boston Herald 

 (on March 7 last) declared that 



Having been deeply interested for many months past in an endeavor to 

 prevent or mitigate the smoke nuisance resulting from the use of soft coal on 

 locomotives engaged in suburban traffic, I was called in consultation by the 

 Boston management of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad and 

 informed that under no circumstances would this company make any change 

 involving expense. Economy was now the ruling consideration. 



When informed that the nuisance could be entirely obviated by the use of 

 coke — coke being no more expensive than soft coal — the answer was the same, 

 " Economy." 



When reminded that eighteen locomotives had been constructed for the 

 suburban traffic designed especially for burning anthracite, the answer was the 

 same, " Anthracite costs money, and would not be considered." So that if so 

 small a matter as the prevention of annoying smoke will not be considered by 

 the New York Central authorities, tunnels, electricity, etc., may as well be 

 relegated to the limbo of the impossible. 



VOL. LXXIV. — 11. 



