The herald., 1893-08-02
ENGLISH TRAVEL EXPENSIVE.
Why Rates by Rail For Passengers and
Freight Are So High.

ENGLISH TRAVEL EXPENSIVE.
Why Rates by Rail For Passengers and
Freight Are So High.
The eminent English railway author
ity, Mr.. William NJ Acworth, points out
many causes for the differences between
railways in this country and the United
States. The higher rate Of charges on
English roads are thus explained:
The very large capital outlay of Eng
lish railways is of course one main rea-
son 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 an act of parliament about 80 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 carried pays the railways on the
average about go cents. If we guess that
the average distance is about 25 miles, we
arrive at an average rate of 2.40 centsper
ton mile, which is not very far from
three times the average rate in the
United States. So in the case of passen-
gers we may guess that the average fare
Is about 1.75 per mile, which though
lower than the American average, is
higher than in any European country.
Such result seems very far from satis-
factory. High cost of construction might
have justified high range Of rates and
fares at the outset, but year by year the
per mile Of line open increases in dem
sity, and yet the goods rates hardly come
down at a1l-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 ex-
pensiye to work. They are becoming
more expensive year by year. In Amer
lea 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 Eu-
rope, 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 Man
haitian elevated were to try to run its
trains only once in 10 minutes in the
slack hours of the day the street cars
would rob it of the bulk of it's passen-
gers.
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 II hours from Lon
don. Consequently there must be trains
between the two points at all hours of
the day, to suit the convenience Of pas
sengers wanting to go at any time. Con-
sequently, too, each train runs with very
much less than trainload of passen-
gers. Then these trains must be run at
high speeds, for though few minutes
more or less are of little Importance in a
journey Of hundreds of miles, quarter
of an hour out of four hours is very
considerable percentage. High speeds
mean few stops, and few stops mean ad-
ditional trains to serve the second class
stations. Then high speeds and frequent
expresses for passengers mean high
speeds and short trains for good-that
is, half loaded engines, for an engine
loaded to its full capacity moves SO
slowly occupies the line, that is, for Sc
long period-that it is impossible to
find room for it. a'
But it would not be true to say that
the goods are worked at high speed sim
ply for the convenience of the railway
management. On the contrary, the de-
mand for speed In the case of merchan-
disc 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 de-
lvered to the consignee the first thing
next morning. Now, service such as
this, in the nature Of things, can never
be a cheap me.--Engineering Magazine.