The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1893-08-01
ENGLISH RAILWAYS.
Why Travel Is More Expensive Across
Water Than Here

Why Travel Is More Expensive Across the
Water Than Here.
The eminent English railway author
ity, William Acworth, points out many
causes for the differences between rail
ways in the his country and the United
States. The higher rates of charges on
English roads are thus explained
THE very large capital outlay of
English railways is of course one main
reason of the high standard of rates
and fares in England Exactly how
high that standard is we have no means
of knowing, for our railway statistics,
made up in form that was laid down
by act of parliament about thirty years
back, carefully suppresses the informa-
ton that it is most necessary for us to
have.
ton miles and passenger miles are
not here recorded. We know that each
ton of goods carried paid the railways
on the average about 60 cents. If we
guess that the average distance is
about twenty-five miles we arrive at an
average rate of "a cents per ton mile,
which is not very far from three times
the average rate in the United States. So
III OllC CdSC VI Jc1coC11S CAo ffC NAY hCsS
that the average rate is about /. % cents
per mile, which, though lower than the
American average, is higher than in
any European country. Such a result
seems very far from satisfactory. High
cost of construction might have justi-
fed a high range of rates and fares at
the outset but year by year the traffic
per mile of line open increases in densi-
ty, and yet the goods rates hardly
come down at all-in the last year or
two their tendency has been all the
other way-while the passenger fares
only come down very slowly.
"And yet the explanation is not far
to seek. Our services have always been
expensive to work; they are becoming
more expensive year by year. In
America train loads are mainly limited
by the capacity of the engines-ours
by the weight of goods or the number
of passengers that have had time to ac-
cumulate in the very short interval be-
tween one train and another Let me
illustrate: If a man is sailing from
New York to Europe, he will choose
his favorite line or his favorite boat,
regardless of the time of day or day of
the week at which it starts On the
other hand if the Manhattan Elevated
was to try to run its trains only once
in ten minutes in the slack hours of the
day the street cars would rob it of the
bulk of its passengers.
Now, in England our business is all
between places which in America
would be regarded as close together.
We call Manchester the north of
England yet Manchester is only four
and one-half hours from London. Con-
sequently there must be trains between
the two points at all hours of the day,
to suit the convenience of passengers
wanting to go at any time. Conse-
auently, too, each train runs with
very much less than a train load
of passengers. Then these trains must
be run at high speeds; for, though
few minutes more less are of little inn
portance in journey of hundreds Of
miles, quarter of an hour out of four
hours is a very considerable percent
age High speeds mean few stops, and
few stops mean additional trains to
serve the second-class stations. Then
high speeds and frequent expresses for
passengers mean high speeds and short
trains for goods-that is, half loaded
engines; for an engine loaded to its
full capacity moves so slowly-occupies
the line that is, for so long period
that it is impossible to find room for it.
But it would not be true to say that
the goods are worked at high speed
simply for the convenience of the rail
way management. On the contrary the
demand for speed in the case of mer-
ehandise traffic is fully abreast of that
in the case of passengers, Broadly, it
may be said that the English goods
service is based on the supposition that,
between important towns at least,
whatever is handed to the railway
company at the forwarding station
over night will be delivered to the con
signee the first thing next morning.
Now, service such as this, in the
nature of things, can never be cheap
one. Chicago Times