The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-01-16
REMARKABLER. R. SYSTEM.
People Who Go to the ST. Louis Convention
VIII Ride in Fine Street Cars

finest street Car system IN the world.
People who come to the convention next
June may be prepared to see and enjoy
something unique in street railroad
equipment. They will ride in palace
cars propelled by electricity, and they
can ride from one end of the city to an
other and around it, 12 miles in all, fol
cents.
st. Louis was long time waking ur
to the demand for rapid transit. can
recall the sensation it created here not
very many years ago by the report OF
the starting of the wonderful cable cars
in Chicago. San Francisco had rapid
transit long before Chicago, and Chica-
go was far ahead of st. Louis. But that
should not be a subject of reproach. The
plodding car horse is still a feature OF
the landscape in Washington and New
York
When St. Louis awoke TO the need OF
quick transit, there was a long delay
while the railway owners debated the
relative advantages of cable and electric
propulsion. Il cable road was the first
started, and the opposition to the trolley
AOPo O4O$b@AOAIJ Al eA0 bASASAO0AN LA q
long time. But sufficient inducements
were offered the members of the city as
sembly after time, and franchises were
granted. Before many years the city
was gridironed with trolley lines. Bos-
toms system is more complicated and
clumsy, but it is not so farreaching i'll
its usefulness. Fortunately for St.
Louis, the street cars are not centered in
one or two of the business streets. Ev-
cry street leading to the business center
has one or more car lines on it, however.
Within the city limits are $40 miles
Of single track. The stranger who comes
here to see the city from a street car
must be prepared to do a good deal of
riding.
The gross annual receipts of the diff
ferent companies are So, 900, 900, which
would represent 100, 900, 600 passengers
carried in year, not counting dead
heads or making allowance for children
who ride at half fare. The cent fare
prevails here everywhere, and no tickets
are sold. There is very elaborate sys-
TEN of transfers, which makes it posi-
bic to reach almost any part of the city
from any other part for cents.
To carry these 100, 900, 900 passengers
Iu0T0 are S1O 1nOLNE LOU grip
and $40 trailers. These cars, if plac-
ed in line, would cover nearly 20 miles
of streets.
The four great systems are the Mis-
souri, railway, which controls 20 miles
of electric and 10 miles of cable road;
the Lindell, which controls 60 miles of
electric; tho Union Depot company.
which controls rs miles of electric, and
National sol, ha,
miles of electric and 10 of cable line.
The first three are owned i'll St. Louis;
tho fourth is the property of Chicago
syndicate.
The aggregate capital of the street
railroads Of the city is $21, 700, 900. and
they have a bonded indebtedness of
SIT. 900.
St. Louis was the city which inaugu-
rated the mail car system. It came from
a suggestion by John B. Harlow of the
St. Louis postoff1ce, now civil service
commissioner at Washington. The sys-
tenn has been in operation over lines
running north, south and west for sew
eral years. Boston took up the idea, dhd
now conservative New York and Wash
ington have street railway mail cars.
The express car system was intro
duced first on St. Louis railways. An
express car now runs on a fixed schedule
from South st. Louis to the heart of the
city, and before summer comes all the
lines in the city will probably be doing
an express business. In time, no doubt,
the delivery system of the shops will be
revolutionized. Delivery cars will be
loaded with bundles for different sec
tions, and delivery wagons will cover
short routes from general warehouses
in these sections.
The first street car ambulance was
built in St. Louis and used over the IN
ion Depot lines from the center of the
city to the City hospital. 1t was equip
ped with every necessary appliance for
performing a surgical operation, if nee
essary, en- route. The railway company
built this car and operated it for a time,
but it is out of use just now because the
city made no provision for paying oper-
ating expenses or putting in switches at
tho hospital grounds.
The funeral car is a novelty, founded
on the French fuperal train, which has
had some serious consideration. The OBJ
lection to it lies in the fear that the line
running to the cemetery might become
known as the funeral line. - The fu-
neral car has been planned-a combina-
ton car, with place for the corpse in
front and seats for the mourners behind.
Such a car could be switched from enc
end of the city to another from track to
track It would cheaper funerals about
one-haf.
The living and not the dead are the
chief solicitude Of the companies now,
however, and st. Louis people have rea-
son to congratulate themselves. The
cars on almost all the lines are mounted
on heavy springs, and they ride with
the ease of a railroad coach. They are
equipped with double seats of wicker
on each side of a broad aisle, and in the