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ADDRESS ON TRANSPORTATION. 



By W. G. Curtis, Assistant to General Manager of the Southern Pacific Company. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am very much obliged to you 

 for this opportunity to listen to your counsels and to participate in your 

 discussions. The question which engages your attention is one in which 

 the corporation that I represent is as deeply concerned as any other 

 single interest can possibly be. The interest of the Southern Pacific 

 Company in the fruit industry of this State is greater than that of any 

 individual grower. Your interests in the aggregate of course are para- 

 mount. I have heard very much that is new to me about orchards, 

 very much that is new to me about fruit raising, and especially fruit 

 marketing; and with your kind indulgence I will say a few words, 

 making them -as brief as possible, from the view point of the railroads. 

 There is a common misconception concerning the cost of operating rail- 

 roads, which it has seemed to me is due to the fact that so much of the 

 expenses are not made apparent to the public in their dealings with 

 the rail carriers. Of the total expenses of operating and maintaining a 

 railroad, about 9 per cent is the general expenses; for example, the 

 expenses of administration, printing, taxes, and commercial agencies; 

 22 per cent goes for maintenance of way and structures, as the track, 

 bridges, buildings, etc.; 15 per cent for maintenance of locomotives, cars, 

 and other equipment; 24 per cent goes for wages of engineers, firemen, 

 station expenses, laborers, clerks, telegraphers; 30 per cent is cost of 

 fuel for locomotives, steamers, shops, heating and lighting buildings, 

 cars, etc., damage to property, and other expenses for conducting trans- 

 portation. 



The tendency of many people, as I have stated, is to over-estimate the 

 income and under-value the expenses of a railroad, and it most prob- 

 ably arises from the fact that the patrons of the railroad company are 

 only concerned with the movement of rolling stock and transportation 

 rates. In other words, it is probable that most of the railway patrons 

 have some comprehension of the 24 or 25 per cent of the total operating' 

 expenses required for engineers, conductors, station men, etc., but 

 understand little or nothing about the 75 or 76 per cent of the expendi- 

 tures which do not enforce themselves upon the public attention in any 

 way; the maintenance branches of railroad service being seemingly 

 conducted with so little visible effort as to apparently require no very 

 great expenditure of money. 



Californians are nothing if not aggressive in the conduct of their enter- 

 prises. The pioneer overland railroad was started by California enter- 

 prise. The first section was built by Californians, and they had several 

 miles completed and in operation in this State before any rails were 

 laid westward from the Missouri River. Seeing the opportunities 

 developed by the completion of this transcontinental road, Californians 

 were not slow to put to the test the capacity of the State for producing 

 most, if not all, of the fruits of tree and vine theretofore supplied to our 

 Eastern States by local productions or foreign importations. Not only 

 did you gentlemen and your friends and associates in the fruit-growing 

 industries enter into competition with the long-established trade of 

 foreign countries, but you have set for the railroad the task of carrying 

 your green deciduous fruits away over from the western to the eastern 



