190 TRANSPORTATION 



pelled to ship them over the roads. Are we to be compelled to wait until the 

 season is over, until our cattle are shrunk, so that we can not get the price 

 for them which they would otherwise bring? Or what are we going to do?" 



Murdo Mackenzie now takes up the question of the speed of 

 trains. He speaks in part as follows: 



"Now, I have said enough about the car supply. I want to show you 

 what speed- we get over the railroads. I had a shipment of cattle in June 

 coming from Estelline, Texas, going up into the northwest. It took me 53^ 

 days to get those cattle hauled 1000 miles. The first 172 miles took me 36 

 hours (about 5 miles an hour)." 



Mr. Mackenzie then speaks of three other shipments of cattle, 

 which made the following speeds, respectively: 93/2 miles per 

 hour; 7J miles per hour; 5^ miles per hour. He introduced as 

 evidence a letter from the Solicitor of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture containing further material on the average 

 speed of stock trains. In a group of 42 cases on one road, the 

 average speed was 9J/2 miles per hour. In a group of 24 cases on 

 another road the average speed maintained was 12.3 miles per 

 hour. Other cases ran as follows: third road (22 cases), average 

 speed 5.4 miles per hour; fourth road (28 cases), 10 miles; fifth 

 road (122 cases), average varying from 1.9 miles to 15.6 miles 

 per hour; sixth road (14 cases), 6.4 miles; seventh road (15 cases), 

 11 miles; eighth road (166 cases), 9.7 miles per hour. In seven or 

 eight hundred cases the average running time of stock trains was 

 9.4 miles per hour. 



An investigation of the speed of freight trains carrying potatoes 

 in refrigeration cars from the region of the Red River of the North 

 to markets East and South showed that the average speed is 

 miles per hour. 



Delays in freight shipments largely occur at sidings and junc- 

 tion points, where other trains must be met, and at the city termi- 

 nals, which are grossly inadequate to handle the business passing 

 through them. The remedy here would involve not merely the 

 coordination and reconstruction of city terminals, but the double 

 tracking of all important main lines. Improvements of this kind, 

 however, as well as the addition of new rolling stock involves 

 vast increases in capital expenditures on the part of the railroads. 

 In the face of this situation, it does not seem likely that railways 

 can make these increased outlays and at the same time lower 

 rates on agricultural products. What way is left, then, for the 

 American farmer to secure better rates and services? 



Some light on this question comes to us from England, where 

 a similar system of private ownership prevails. The British 



