The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1893-04-08
TRANSPORTATION TO TIE WORLDS FAIR.

The passenger rates OF the Chicago
and Ohio river railroads for the worlds
fair, fixed at a meeting of general pas
senger agents on Thursday, will not
meet the expectations of the people.
For instance. the price of a ticket from
Indianapolis to Chicago and return is
put at So. When there is no cutting the
price of such O round trip ticket is only
80. For months at a time Chicago
tickets have been sold for So at Indian
apolis. While there are thousands who
would prefer to pay the rate fixed for
sleeping car accommodations and the
absence of crowds. there are tens of
thousands who are unable to pay such
rates. and will be content to 60 in car
loads, with only the baggage they can
carry in their hands if they can get
transportation for half the regular rates.
If the rates named for the Ohio river
railroads should be adhered to. O
very large proportion of the people
who are now looking forward to q trip
to the worlds fair with eagerness
will be compelled to forego the
satisfaction which does not occur often
or than once in q lifetime. 1t may be
that the rates fixed are as reasonable as
they can be made upon the basis of
trains of heavy sleeping cars with thirty
people to q car, but 1t stands to reason
tn at cars not weighing more than half
as much as the sleepers, carrying sixty
people with only hand baggage. or re-
duced to fifty pounds to a passenger,
can be run at q profit for half the price
named in the circular Of the Chicago
and Ohio river roads. A railroad Off
cial stated, last summer, that there was
a reasonable profit in excursion trains
to Niagara Falls ut SIS a round trip ticket
from this city. The Chicago Tribune
has the statement of On expert to the
effect that a fair profit can be made by
running excursion trains at a cent
a mile without sleeping-car accom-
modations. When there was money in
carrying passengers from Indianapolis
to w Washington by thousands for S11.50,
over seven hundred miles and return.
many going in %sleepers, it should be
profitable to take people by the ordinary
carload from Indianapolis to Chicago
and return, four hundred miles, for 81,
or So at the most.
1t will be very u~nfortun ate for the
railroads, as we'll as the worlds fair, if
they should seem to take advantage of
the general desire of the people to at
tend by combining to demand what
must be regarded as exorbitant rates of
transportation IN comparison with those
of much less important occasions. 1t is
very doubtful if the railroads would
make as much money by insisting upon
rates which are less than 90 per cent
less than the regular charge as they
would by the adoption of a reasonably
liberal policy, but if they could make a
great dee. more money during the sea-
son of 1893 the ill-will of the people,
which they would certainly incur by a
combination to keep up rates, would
count against the corporations in many
way for years and turn temporary profit
into subsequent losses. The general
good will of the people toward a rail-
roads one of it's positive assets. To the
Journal it seems that at least at periods
during the worlds fair the managers of
the roads which have issued the agree
ment referred to would find it profitable
to run trains made up exclusively of the
usual passenger coaches, with limited
baggage, for half of the prices they
have named.