trade area they now cover. New units have opened in many towns and 

 cities; some older units have gone out of business due to company measures 

 to consolidate territories, inopportune management decisions, unfavorable 

 locations for securing, on an economical basis, a proportionate share of 

 the expanding market, or proprietary inclinations or deaths. The point is 

 rapidly being reached where the opportunities for opening additional re- 

 tail feed units and obtaining volume without excessive resort to certain 

 undesirable competitive practices may be more limited than in the past 

 two decades. To achieve additional economies in the future, it will be 

 necessary to place increased emphasis upon relocating existing units ac- 

 cording to detailed and careful locational analyses. 



Location as Related to Railroads and Present Units 



Optimum locations for retail grain-feed units might be determined in 

 part by reference to Figure 1. Utilization of railroad transportation to a 

 point as close to the center of the trade area as possible is desirable. Long 

 hauls by railroad being generally cheaper than by truck, and with the added 

 advantage of equalization through the milling-in-transit privilege, it is eco- 

 nomical to cover as much of the distance to the customer by rail as can 

 be accomplished.* Figure 1 is useful to determine where other retail units 

 have seen fit from experience to locate. It also shows the extent of com- 

 petition likely in and around a given area in terms of numbers of retail 

 units. 



However, the assumption of past experience as a locational criterion 

 presupposes static conditions with respect to the availability of railroad 

 service and to location of the quantitative centers of consuming areas 

 (herein the number, type, and size of accounts serviced). For many com- 

 modities, truck transportation is steadily displacing rail transportation to 

 many points. At the time of writing one additional railroad route in the 

 State (Plymouth to Woodsville) was under study for discontinuance. There 

 are likely to be others in future years where overall revenue, use, or need 

 is below the level required by the railroad to justify continued operation. 

 In most instances, discontinuance of railroad service is likely to be to 

 the disadvantage of retail feed units serving the area. Actually many pre- 

 sent locations may be due to traditional or institutional factors, or to the 

 immobility of invested capital. For example, a retail grain-feed unit may 

 continue to operate at a given point in the short run if the net disadvantage 

 in operating costs is not significantly more than the depreciated value of 

 the cost of a unit at an optimum location less the salvage value on the 

 present unit (or similar comparisons involving rent at one or both points). 

 Eventually, however, present location may yield to other influences such 

 as those discussed below, or to those related to overall business in the 

 areas (such as the continuance or discontinuance of railroad services). 



Number, Size, and Type of Farm as Related to Location 



Some of the additional criteria which need to be considered from a 

 locational standpoint are the number, type, and size of producing units; 

 the relative concentration of grain-feed tonnage required; and the relative 



* Out of 178 grain-feed dealers spotted on Figure 1, only 15 were located in towns 

 without rail facilities in 1954. More than half of this number had been served by 

 rail until fairly recent years. 



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