The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-09-08
THE NEW MILEAGE BOOK
BECOMING POPULAR WITH THOSE
ENTITLED TO TRAVEL ON Ut.
Travel and Tonnage beyond Parallel
i'm Observation-Disclosures Earn
ings of Indiana Roads.

Daniel Donough, general ticket agent at
the Union Station, states that the new
mileage is selling much better than he had
anticipated it would, and no more COM
plant is heard than there was regarding
the old style of mileage. He thinks the
scalpers are already feeling the effects of
this nonscalpable mileage being put on the
market. II. NJ. Bronson, assistant general
passenger agent of the Big Four, says the
new mileage is selling better than has the
old style of mileage of late, and there is
a perceptible increase in revenue from local
travel which now cannot travel on mileage
scalped. but must put up cents per mile
George Haylor, district passenger agent of
the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton, says
he has sold a number of the books and
has had no complaint worthy of note re-
garding the new ISSUE He Is still selling
the old style of book, good over the Monon
and the Cincinnati Hamilton & Dayton. W.
w. Richardson, district passenger agent
of the Pennsylvania lines, and the Van
dalia, says the new book is being purchased
freely, and the commercial travellers, for
whose special benefit it is issued, are be-
ginning to talk very favorably of the mile
age, which is good over thirty-two roads
and saves their carrying a half dozen or
more mileage books of different lines.
George T. Gunnip. general agent Of the
passenger department of the Santa Re for
several central States, says he has Travelled
good deal in this territory and is sur
prised to see how much of the new mileage
is offered on the trains showing the trav-
cling men are disposed to give the new
issue fair trial. The Railroad Gazette in
its current issue does not take as hopeful
Of no mil &C 6n naG g
senger officials quoted above. The Gazette
says:
1.-The new interchangeable mileage ticket
which was to clear the traffic atmosphere
in the Central States like a balloon full Of
ozone, has had most of the bouyancy
Knocked out of 1t, even before it begins its
mission. The Chicago. Indianapolis 4 Louis
Vile refuses to honor the tickets and its
name has been scratched Of from all the
tickets that have been sold. Mileage tickets
are used largely for. competitive business
between Chicago and the Ohio river (Cin-
cinnati and Louisville), and this road COM
plains that the other roads do not live up
to an agreement by which they were to
lengthen the time of some of their trains.
With time schedules as they are the c.,
|. * l.. feels at a disadvantage, and so re-
serves the option of selling tickets to COM
petitive points at less than the price asked
for the 1,000-mile books met 2 cents a
mile) The Erie and the Toledo, st. Louis
a Kansas City have stood aloOf all the
time. so that the scheme, based on this
ticket, for correcting the long-standing
ticket abuses in this Scalp-ridden territory
has TO be launched with three big holes in it.
IT is a pity that the device embodyng such
decided improvements on former conditions
cannot have q thorough trial land indeed
1t is possible that 1t may, in spite of the
drawha cks), but every one must recognize
that at best this is remedy which falls
very short of meeting the difficulties that
need to be cured A mileage ticket is a
nuisance at best. With it honest conduc-
tors make mistakes. careless ones let the
company be cheated. and dishonest ones
themselves chpa finding
of passengers to cooperate with them Re-
curing the coupons to be surrendered at
the ticket offices prevents some of the evil
but the requirement is such an irritation
to drummers that it largely neutralizes
their satisfaction with the discount they re-
ceive4 Even If such a ticket were justified
by good business reasons, there is no
difference between the price asked per mile
and the price e cents per mile) for SINGLE
trip tickets. Citizens who believe in regu-
i9tfng rates by specific legislation stick to
the theory that the rate to all passengers
should be precisely the same, and a dis
count of 80 1-3 per cent, while not entirely
without justification, fails to satisfy a suf-
to offset the dissatisfaction of those who
want low rates for everybody The use of
mileage tickets for regular through COM
petftiLve business is, of course, a perver-
sion of the mile-cOupon form and ought to
be abolished. The mileage ticket never
would have come into such general use for
that purpose if some one had not thought
appear respectable, but Of course every one
now knows just how thin a disguise this
is and there can be no good reasons for
continuing it,