The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-09-23
RAILROADS VS.. CANALS
FREIGHTs NOW CARRIED BY RAIL
CHEAPER THAN BY CANAL BOATS.
In pOrtant Meeting Held Yesterday
Grain and Grain Products.

The last number of Engineering News
contains a lengthy and interesting article
under the head of Heavy and Fast Trains
VS.. Canal Boats" The article indirectly
pays a compliment to the operation of the
Baltimore & Ohio Southwestern and the
Chesapeake & Ohio roads. The advocates
Of ship canals as competitors of railways
have now to consider the economical move
ment of freight by reason Of the increased
weight and speed of trains. The Engineer
ing News says the canal, it is commonly
assumed, is the cheaper means of transpor-
tation, but recent improvements in rail-
reading seem to bring this assumption in
doubt. Transportation by rail is now ex-
tremely low and the News thinks the de-
crease in cost has by no means reached
its end" The recent records of the Chesa-
peake & Ohio and b. & o. Southwestern
Railroads are cited by the News to illus
trate it's meaning. BY increasing its train
loads to an average of 352 tons the c. &
o. last year met all it's operating expenses
and fixed charges and put away a surplus
of $500, 541, with an average freight rate per
ton per mile on all classes of freight of
but 4.19 mills, and on coal, which makes a
large proportion Of it's business. with rate
of but 2.97 mills per ton per mile. This on
a line having two SUBMITS each over 1000
feet high. AS respects average trainload.
the c. & o., the News observes, eXcels in
progressiveness the Lake Shore, which in
the year ended Dec. 81 1885, averaged but
S22 tons to the train. within the past fort
night" the News adds, the B. & o. South
western ran two trains, one weighing 1872
tons and the other 734 tons, from Cincin-
natl to Parkersburg, 200 miles, in eight
hours and three minutes and eight hours
and four minutes, respectively, and the run
from St. Louis to Cincinnati, $40 miles, was
run in sixteen hours" If the G.. a o., the
News argues, can carry freight, as it does,
at a lower cost than any other railway in
the world over a line much of which is
single track, what limit shall be set to the
cost of freight carriage on a lOw-grade,
dOuble-track railway located especially with
a view to moving great Volume OF through
freight traffic at the lowest coSt?' The limit
is not in sight, and the friends of the pro-
posed canal from the great lakes to the
Hudson and TO the Ohio have to ask them
selves, 1t is suggested, whether in competl-
ton with improving railroads such canals
will obtain the traffic required to make
them pay.
1t is pointed out often as an argument for
further public outlay on canals that in
France the canals still do a. large business
owing to the lavish expenditure of the gov
eminent upon them. Canal transportation
is cheaper there than railway transporta-
ton because the canals are kept in good
condition. But the real cause Of the larger
patronage of the French cana IS the News
shows, is in the higher raj ties of French rail-
ways. French railway rates are vastly high
er than railway rates in the United States,
and it is for this reason that canal traffic
holds its own there and fails here. If the
French railways should reduce their rates
to our figures the canals would in France
as here, lose their business.