Are postoffice facilities in apartment cars, and full cars, provided for the convenience of the railways? No, indeed. Entirely for postoffice. Over how many miles were these full and apartment cars hauled in 1908? 232 millions of miles. What is average weight of mail per car? 2.09 tons. How much mail can storage cars without postoffice features carry? 10 to 15 tons. If all mail were carried in storage cars how much would it reduce the car miles? About 163 millions a year. And this 163 millions is due to the postoffice features? Yes. What's the average number of cars in passenger trains in the United States? 3.95. What proportion of that is mail cars? About 11 per cent. What's the average earnings of passenger trains? $1.26 per train mile. Does that include all mail and express earnings? Does mail pay 11 per cent of average earnings? No. It contributes only 9.4 cents per train mile or 7.5 per cent. To pay 11 per cent of average earnings, mail would have to pay 47 per cent more than it does. What's the average cost of running passenger trains? $1.47 per mile. If United States mail paid its fair share of this cost (or 11 per cent), what would it be? 16.17 cents per train mile. Then it is costing the railroads 16.17 cents to furnish space for which they receive 9.4 cents, or 72 per cent more than they get for it? More nearly 100 per cent when to operating expenses are added taxes, interest on bonds, etc. As population grows denser, does amount of mail increase? Certainly. Then in time the increase in weight brings proportionately increased pay? It does to the United States. It's same postage rate for letters if there are 2 or 2,000,000. The railways of course receive pay in proportion to the increase weight? They do not. Why? The rate is decreased as the weight increases. Give example. 200 pounds or less average over length of route is on non-landgrant roads, $42.74 per mile per year. On land-grant roads it is $34.20. When it is an average of 5,000 pounds, or 25 times as great, the rates are $171 and $136.80, only four times as great. Intermediate weights are proportional. Is this reduction a voluntary one on the part of the railways? It is not. Who makes it? Congress and postoffice department. What is the alleged reason for their action? To make the postoffice expenses less than the income. Does United States make similar rate reductions in rents, teaming, light, heat, etc., charged for by individuals and companies? No. Why? Everyone knows. Are other postoffice expenses less in same proportion as is the railway pay? No. In eight years previous to 1908 total expenses grew 93 per cent ($1,000,600,000). The income grew 87 per cent ($89,000,000). What portion of the expense increase was for railway service? Only 11 per cent. What went for rural free delivery in 1908? $33,935,000, or 34 per cent. How much for postmasters? 25 per cent, or $25,000,000 of the increase. Have the postoffice expenses always exceeded the income? What years has this excess been greatest? Since the adoption of rural free delivery. In 1900 this service cost $420,000, and the year's postoffice surplus over all the expenses was $5,385,000. In 1908 rural free delivery expenses had grown to $35,462,000. Other expenses (not including pay to railroads) had grown to $135,804,583, and the postoffice deficit was $17,441,719. That is to say, the increase in income of postoffice has been all absorbed by increase in rural free delivery and other expenses (not including pay to railroads)? Yes. How much have the "Acts" and "Orders" referred to herein taken from the railroads? About $8,500,000, or 17 per cent of the total received by them in year ending June 30, 1908, for handling the mail and furnishing postal cars. Is there any justification in such "Acts" and "Orders"? Not from any point of view. Labor, material and the price of everything have advanced materially. Yet in the face of conditions that, in all fairness should have raised it, railway mail pay is practically the only thing that has been decreased. 70 FOOT STEEL POSTAL CAR-PENNSYLVANIA R. R. 1910 CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE RAILWAY President Northern Pacific Railway Company. ADDRESS AT THE MONTANA STATE FAIR, HELENA, MONTANA, In order to consider this question, a brief statement must be made showing what the railway system of the United States is today; what it represents; the work it does, and the work it must prepare to do if safe and adequate transportation is to be furnished to the people of the United States. The railways of the country, in their present form, have been built since the close of the Civil War, or in less than fifty years, and are the wonder and admiration of students of the transportation problem who come here from other countries. There are 234,182 miles of railway, and more than 340,000 miles of track in this country, as compared with a trifle less than 300,000 miles of railway in all the other countries of the world combined. There are nearly 58,000 locomotives; more than 45,000 passenger train cars; nearly 2,200,000 freight and service cars. On these tracks, and with these engines and cars were run in the year ending June 30, 1909, freight trains for 560,602,557 miles, and passenger trains for 491,903,107 miles, or an average of 2,883,577 miles every day in the year. This is equal to a trip around the world at the equator 116 times each 24 hours. These trains handled in the year ending June 30, 1909, 217, 756,776,000 tons of freight one mile and 29,452,000,000 passengers one mile. The significance of these figures will be better understood by stating that they are the equivalent of hauling a ton of freight 2,419 miles for every man, woman and child in the United States, and giving each of them a ride on a passenger train of 327 miles. The number of tons of freight moved over each mile of railway during a year is the measure of the freight work performed for the country by the railways. There was In the United States. In England .969,000 tons one mile in 1909 .530,000 tons one mile in 1908 In Germany .880,000 tons one mile in 1908 .497,000 tons per mile in 1907 In France showing that the American railways are furnishing a greater service per mile of railway than the older countries. Right here in Montana the Northern Pacific for the year ending June 30, 1910, furnished freight transportation equal to 1,586,801 tons one mile for every mile of its track in the State, over mountains and through heavy snow storms for part of the year. On parts of the main line more than 3,000,000 tons of freight per road mile were moved, or transportation in excess of the average of the United States railways. NEED FOR INCREASED FACILITIES. Since 1889 the miles of railway in the United States have increased 52.7%; the passengers carried one mile on those railways have increased 154.8%, and the tons of freight carried one mile 224.3%; the number of employes 116.2%, and the taxes 230.8%. With 90,000,000 busy people in this country the next 20 years must see a constant addition to the railway facilities of the country if the commerce is to be moved satisfactorily, and the Railway User must see to it that the Railway Owner has sufficient margin to justify the enormous additional investment that must be made in order to provide the needed transportation. The passenger trains of the United States earned on the average for the year ending June 30, 1908, $1.27 per train mile, and the average cost per train mile for expenses, not allowing anything for taxes, using the total freight and passenger train miles, was $1.47. From this it is plain that there is no margin in the passenger business for taxes, interest and dividends, and that passenger train service, as a whole, is furnished without profit, and often to the detriment of the freight business, which must be moved promptly for the development of the country. This country, as it grows in population and wealth wants more and better passenger train service, and better stations, just as it wants more and better hotels and more and better street paving and lighting, more and better restaurants; but in the case of the hotels, paving, lighting, restaurants and many other things, the public are willing to pay more, and do pay more for the better facilities. Not so with the railways; with more trains, heavier |