MKMOIR OF DANIEL TUEADWELL. 863 



-Upon any route where the traffic docs not require such frequent trains as (.» mak 

 rle road insufficient or unsafe, (tor the d<>ul>le track is required to accommodate ' /»< 



»• a 



/ 



trains rather than a great amount of traffic,) it must be as j. >d for the public* > a double 

 one, and more profitable for its stockholders, even if the cost of building tlj latter were 

 no greater than the former; or, in other words, most of the Bingle roads ol Mas liusdts at 



this moment are more valuable than they would be if made double without cost to their 

 owners; or, if the government would offer to lav down a second track upon such roads without 

 expense to the proprietors, upon condition only thai the proprietors would conduct their 

 business upon the double tracks, and keep the whole in repair, it would not be for the interest 

 of the proprietors to accept the donation, because their income would he no greater, theii 



running expenses no less, while the repairs would be so much enham d as to ai ci materialh 

 the net income from which the dividends are made. 



"The whole of this leads to the unavoidable conclusion, that, if the proprietor- of the (In r 

 and Holyhead Railroad, for example, would break up one of their tracks and tumble one ol 

 their tubular bridges into the Straits of Menai, their pro] rty would be more productive than it 



is as it now exists, or they would be in the way to receive dividends sooner than they will it 



the whole be preserved. Does not this go to account for the greater profits obtained From 

 the New England than from the European railroads, and the superiority of tin/ system upon 

 which they have been planned and constructed? 



" With the exception o 



(or th 



« 



improvement has been made upon railways or the machinery connected with them in ih 

 United States. Some chantres have been made by us in Locomotives ami cars, and there have 



been improvements in the sense of adapting them to our condition and modes of intercourse, 

 but they have not to any great extent affected the great system of railway locomotion. The 

 wooden sleepers were adopted purely to save the greater cost of stone, and without any fore- 

 sight of the superiority which is proved to be inherent in them." 



In June, 1851, the Hon. Nathan Hale, in an article on American Railroads in 

 the Boston Daily Advertiser, of which he was then editor, compares these roads 

 with the English roads, and shows that the progress of this improvement lias been 

 more rapid and more successful in this country than elsewhere ; that the cost of 

 construction and management has been less, and the return to the stockholders 

 much larger. In 1849, the aggregate length of the nine principal railways in 

 England was 2,258 miles, built at a cost of $217,000 a mile; from these the average 

 dividends paid the shareholders was less than three per cent, the other railways, 

 equalling these nine in length, paying less, and some of them nothing. Comparin 



small things with great, it was shown that, at the same time, of the G13 miles of 

 railroad in Massachusetts (238 miles of double track, and 375 miles of single), 

 costing about $53,000 per mile, more than half paid, in 1850, an average divi- 

 dend of eight per cent from the net profits of the year, and the average dividend 

 paid on all the roads exceeded seven per cent, each company having retained a 

 greater or less reserve. This was done notwithstanding the far smaller amount of 



