SOME FIGURES ON THE COST OF PASSENGER AND 
FREIGHT TRAIN SERVICE. 
R. A. Thompson.* 
In 1906, fourteen of the principal railroads of Texas, aggregating 
more than 76 per cent of its mileage, filed suits in the Federal District 
Court, enjoining the freight rates and tariffs of the State Railroad 
Commission. These suits were dismissed upon motion of the plaintiffs 
in 1908. 
Incidental to securing evidence with which to defend these suits, the 
Commission issued orders requiring the several railroads to file with it 
statements showing the “cost and performance of locomotives” and “cost 
and statistics of train service,” giving separately the data relating to 
the passenger, freight, work-train and switching services, annually for 
the six years ending June 30, 1906. An additional general order was 
issued in 1907 requiring all of the railroads in the State to ..file monthly 
reports, on forms issued and prescribed by the Commission, beginning 
July 1, 1906, containing substantially the same information as the first 
prders. The Commission desired particularly to arrive at some estimate 
of the actual cost of operating and maintaining the several classes of 
train service, particularly the passenger 'and freight. 
In pursuance of these orders the railroads involved in the suits filed 
the statements required as far as they were able. Some of them stated 
that they had not been keeping their accounts in such form as would 
enable them to make even a fairly accurate segregation of the several 
items of expense’, as between the several classes of service, and others, 
on account of records having been destroyed, could not comply with 
the orders for the full time required. 
From ten of these railroads, however, the Commission secured data 
that was to some extent satisfactory and which enabled it to arrive at a 
fair estimate of the actual and relative costs of the principal items of 
passenger and freight train services. For the reason that a uniform 
system of keeping these accounts had not been used by the railroads 
the division of some of the expenses, as between the different services, 
was made by some of the railroads upon arbitrary bases, such as the 
train-mile, car-mile, etc., and were not accurately correct to this extent. 
Also the methods of charging certain expenses under the several heads 
were not uniform, and gave results that appear to differ widely. This 
refers particularly to the cost of train service, other than locomotive. 
Chief Engineer Kail road Commission of Texas. 
