ROUTE NEAR THE THIRTY-SECOND PARALLEL. 
103 
business, to be found only at the two extremities, with but little way business, the capital required 
must be idle an average time equal to half that required for construction, which latter will not 
probably be less than 10 years, and the interest during that time would add from twenty- 
five to thirty millions to the capital. If, in consideration of the great national benefits which the 
construction of the road would confer, the government of the United States could lend its aid to 
the road so as to relieve it from the payment of interest upon the cost of the road during the time 
of its construction, it would seem probable from the foregoing that it might be built by private 
means. Without this much aid from the government, the road will probably never be built. 
A donation of land, such as has been generally proposed, will be of little comparative value. 
I regret that there is not time to enter a little more into these discussions. 
The following extract from ihe annual report of the railroad corporations in the State of Mas¬ 
sachusetts for 1852, giving the length, cost, yearly earnings, expense of working, &c., of the 
roads in that State, may be found interesting. 
Following it is an extract from the annual report of the State engineer and surveyor on the 
railroads of the State of New York, showing the length, cost, &c., of the roads in that Stale. I 
have made these extracts as brief as possible. It will be seen that the estimated cost of the 
route of the 32d parallel, after every consideration of the unusual circumstances that will produce 
an increased cost, is about the same per mile as the roads in these States: 
Extract from an abstract of “ Annual Reports of the Railroad Corporations in the State of Massachu¬ 
setts, ” showing totals of the leading statistics of all the roads. 
Capital. $56,236,600 00 
Capital paid in. 46,539,220 34 
Cost. 60,019,051 77| 
Length. 1,2S0.29 miles. 
Length of double track. 270.33 “ 
Length of branches. 103.68 “ 
Speed of passenger trains adopted per hour. 23.63 “ 
Speed of freight trains adopted per hour....... 12.98 “ 
Earnings. $7,713,208 35 
Expense of working. 4,541,468 31| 
Net earnings. 3,211,197 75 
Dividends. 2,483,545 94 
Debt. 16,009,095 77 
Surplus... 1,112,072 95 
Extract from the 11 Annual Report of the State Engineer and Surveyor on the railroads of the State of 
New York — February, 1854.” 
The length of all the railroads in operation in the State is. 2,432 miles. 
The length of railroads laid is about. 2,497 “ 
The length of double track in addition to the above is. 664 “ 
The number of locomotives in use is. 586 
The number of passenger cars in use is. 834 
The number of baggage and freight cars in use is. 6,895 
The number of miles run by passenger trains is about. 6,594,963 
The number of miles run by freight trains is. 4,227,807 
Total number of miles run..... 10,822,770 
The whole number of miles travelled by the passengers is about— .. 531,572,298 
