San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1893-04-04
ENGLISH TRAVEL EXPENSIVE.
Why Rates by Rail, for Passengers
and Freight, Are So High.


eminent English railway lawyer,
Mr.. William NJ. Acworth, points
out many causes for the differences
between railways in his country
and the United States. The higher
rate 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
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 suppress
the information 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 car
ried pays the railways on the av-
erage, about 60 cents. If we guess
that the average distance is about
% miles, we arrive at an average
rate of 2.4O cts. per tOn-mile, which
is not very far from three times
the average rate in the United
States. So in the case of passengers
we may guess that the average fare
is about II 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 justified high range of rates
and fares at the outset, but year by
year the traffic per mile of line
open increases in density, and yet
the goods rates hardly came down
at all,-in the last year or two their
tendency has been all the other
way,-while the passenger fares
only came down very slowly.
And yet the explanation is not
far to seek. Our services have al
ways been expensive to work, they
are becoming more expensive year
by year. In America trainloads
are mainly limited by the capacity
of the engines; ours by the weight
of goods or number of passengers
that have had time to accumulate
in the very short interval between
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 the day of the week atwhich 1t
starts. On the other hand, if the
Manhattan Elevated were 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 is all be-
tween places which in America
would be regarded as close tOgeth-
er. We call Manchester "the north
of England" yet Manchester is
only Il 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. Consequently, too, each
train runs with very much less
than a train-lOads of passengers.
Then these trains must be at high
speeds; for, though few minutes
more or less are Of little importance
in a journey of hundreds
of miles, a quarter of an
hour out of four hours is a very
considerable percentage. High
speeds mean few stops; and few
stops mean additional trains to
serve the SecOnd-clasS stations.
Then high speeds and frequent eX-
presses for passengers mean high
speed and short trains for goods
that is, half-lOaded engines; for
an engine loaded to its full caprci-
ty moves 50 slowly, occupies the
line, that for so long a 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 railway management. On
the contrary, the demand for speed
in the case of merchandise traffic
! is fully abreast of that in the case
of passengers. Broadly, it may be
said that the English gOOds-ser-
vice is based on the sup
position that, between i'm
portant towns at least, whatever is
handed to the railway company at
the forwarding station over night
will be delivered to the cOnsignee
the first thing next morning. Now,
a service such as this, in the ma
ture of things, can never be a cheap
one.
UrouIlrDIor in oil ctulaS an6