14 



MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 299 



No charges are made for the loading or unloading of rail shipments. At Barclay 

 Street the unloading service is performed by railroad employees at no cost to the 

 shipper. 



No charge for loading was included because this varied under different condi- 

 tions. If the car was loaded at a time when farm labor and equipment were 

 otherwise idle, the cost was negligible. If the loading was done when picking was 

 at its height a charge of $.5 to $10 might well be added to the computed cost of 

 shipment by rail. 



The charges collected for moving 600 boxes of apples by rail from points in 

 Massachusetts to the various stations in New York are given in Table 6. The 

 cost of shipping an equal volume by truck is indicated in the last column. 



Table 6. — Charge from Stations in Massachusetts to Stations in New 

 York City (600-box lots) 



Rail Carriers Serving Massachusetts Apple Areas. 



Massachusetts apple growing sections are served by four railroads. Some sec- 

 tions are served by more than one railroad. Shippers in the Nashoba belt and the 

 northern part of Worcester County are served by both the Boston and Maine and 

 the New Haven. The former road covers a somewhat wider area than the latter. 



