RAILWAY SERVICE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



681 



Assuming these railways to be completed, 

 either in the States to which the new mileage 

 has been assigned, or in some others, the pro- 

 portion of the total mileage (209,000) to the 

 area of the United States (omitting Alaska) 

 will then be only one mile to about fifteen 

 square miles. In other words, the United 

 States (omitting Alaska) would then be about 

 one quarter as well served as Massachusetts 

 now is. 



The average construction called for in this 

 estimate was 6,250 miles a year from the 1st of 

 January, 1881. The actual construction from 

 Jan. 1, 1881, to Jan. 1, 1885, estimating 1884 

 at 4,000 miles, has been 28,047 miles, or at the 

 rate of 7,000 miles a year. 



It may be asked, What inducement will there 

 be for the construction of the additional mile- 

 age that will be required in order to justify 

 this prediction, if existing lines fail to pay a 

 profit on their operation? To this question 

 several replies may be given : 1. Had all the 

 railways now in existence been constructed on 

 a cash basis, and had they been represented by 

 stock and bonds that had been subscribed and 

 paid for in good money, they would as a whole 

 have represented a profitable investment to 

 their owners, and would even now yield a rea- 

 sonable income on their cost. 2. Railways are 

 becoming the necessary substitute for common 

 ways for local or cross-country traffic, and they 

 must be constructed for such purposes, even if 

 for a time they fail to pay in income directly, 

 because indirectly they give value to otherwise 

 almost useless land, and they create the very 

 traffic that will sustain them. How this traffic 

 is created by the railways can best be shown 

 by comparing the increase of the grain-crops of 



the United States with the extension of the 

 railway mileage ; and, although during the past 

 four years the railway mileage has been forced 

 in apparently too great a measure, yet the same 

 rule may hold in each period of ten or twenty 

 years : 



GRAIN-CROPS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



YEAR. Bushels. 



1875 2,032,235,800 



1876 1.962,821,600 



1877 2,178,934,646 



1878 2,302,254,950 



1879 2,434,884,541 



1880 2,448,079,181 



1881 2,066,0-^9,570 



1882 2,699,394,496 



1888 2,623,319,089 



1884... 



YEAR. 



1865 1,127,499,187 



1866 1,348,027,868 



1867 1,329,729,400 



1868 1,450,789,000 



1869 1,491,412,100 



1870 1,629,027,600 



1871 1,528,776,100 



1872 1,664,331,600 



1873 1,538,892,891 



1874 1,455,180,200 



Another example of the way in which the 

 extension of the railway service may build up 

 a single State, and thereby ultimately become 

 profitable to its owners through the increase of 

 local traffic, may be found in the conditions of 

 the railway service of the State of Ohio. The 

 data are taken from the report of Commissioner 

 Sabine. This State lies midway between East 

 and West. In 1883 it contained 6,897 miles of 

 railroad, against 3,324 in 1869. In 1869 the 

 actual tons moved over all the railways report- 

 ing in the State numbered 14,559,704, of which 

 55 per cent, represented local traffic and 45 

 per cent, through traffic. In 1883, 63,683,423 

 tons were moved, of which 66 per cent, rep- 

 resented local traffic and only 33 per cent, 

 through traffic, showing how the local traffic 

 gains, both absolutely and relatively. The charge 

 per ton per mile in 1869 was 2*443 cents; in 

 1883, only '875 cent per ton per mile. Graph- 

 ically the Ohio railroad traffic may be repre- 

 sented in this way : 



1869 

 14,559.704 



local 

 Through 



1883 



68,683,643 



Local 



Through 



Tons 2fooe<f. 



Charge per Ton per Mile. 



I860 2.44S 

 1883 .875 



The actual freight charge on all the railroads 

 reporting in Ohio in 1883 was, in round figures, 

 $67,000,000. Had this traffic been subject- 

 ed to the charge of 1869, the sum would have 

 been $201,800,000. The difference between 

 these two sums is, in currency, $134,800,000 ; 

 in gold, $89,400,000. Since two thirds of this 

 traffic was local, the saving in the cost of the 

 transportation of the commodities used by the 

 people of Ohio themselves, on their local traffic 

 only, was $60,000,000 in gold in a single year. 

 This saving of a single year would suffice to 



construct 2,000 additional miles of railway in 

 that State at a cost of $30,000 a mile ; i. e., to 

 increase the mileage of the State 30 per cent. 

 It is therefore apparent that the indirect profit 

 of railway service is so great as to compel the 

 rapid extension of the work, even if the new 

 lines may yield no immediate income to their 

 owners. 



In the introduction to the " Railway Man- 

 ual" of 1870-'7l, Mr. Henry V. Poor made 

 this statement : " Over ordinary highways, 

 wheat and Indian corn, the most valuable of 



