Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1898-01-13

Il
Mr.. Davis or any body else wants to
know the price of hat or bar of soap
the person that he would go to, to find
the cost of those particular goods |
| would be the person who sold them |
He would go to the nearest hat store |
or grocery. When the Atchison. To.
peka s. Santa Fe railway wants to buy
cars or engines it does the same thing |
Il announces the fact and invites bids |
from all the various manufactures
They submit their bids and the Santa
Fe buys where it can get the best goods
cheapest. There is no secret whatever
about the prices of cars, and Mr. Davis
or any body else can ascertain them at
any time by applying in the right di-
| rection instead of to the secretary of the
Interstate Commerce Commission, who
has nothing to do with buying cars and
who never has had occasion to make
any official investigation of the matter.
MIR. Davis can get the facts at any time
by using 2-cent postage stamp and
writing letter, or he can use 1-cent
postal card. The reason for which Mr..
Davis wants these figures, however, is
little curious. He seems to think it
an outrage that first class passenger
service should cost more than immi-
grant and freight service. and he thinks
that this difference in cost is based on
the difference in the cost of the cars
used, but as he says: "This extra cost
for passenger and sleeping cars over
freight cars is not great" had not
supposed that anybody, however little
they knew of railroading, imagined
that it was the cost of sleeping car
that made the chief difference in the
expense of sleeping car travel as com
pared with freight traffic. 1t is quite
true that sleeping cars are expensive
things. They cost up to $4,000 apiece
and are usually rented by railway com
panies of the sleeping car companies
on mileage basis, the sleeping car
companies furnishing the porters, bed
ding, linen, lavatory and appal atus and
taking the money paid for the use of
the berths. If Mr.. Davis had asked any
railway man, say an average section
hand, what it was that made first class
passenger service so expensive, the cost
of the cars would probably not have oc
Cured to the railway man of whom he
had inquired as to one Of the items to
be considered in the additional expense.
/ It is an item, but is comparatively a
significant one. The real expense as
the section hand would have told him =
is in the weight of cars to be hauled
and the speeds at which they are car
ried This it is that costs fuel, wears
the life out of an engine, and batters
the rails and tracks and bridges to
pieces. To quote Mr.. Davis words:
he wants to know "why person weigh
ing one or two hundred pounds should
tonsaof freight" 1t was curious that
Mr.. Davis should have put the question
in these words, because as a matter OF
fact the average first class passenger on
| the fast trains of the Santa Fe road
weighs just about three tons. The
weight of the modern Pullman car is
: about so tons or 100000 lbs. Cars
have been built weighing as
much as 1890 pounds each, but
we use none quite so heavy as this on
the Santa Fe road. In so ton ar it
, is evident that there must be Is per.
sons to bring the average weight pei
person down to the neighborhood OF
, three tons apiece, exclusive of the
weight of the person himself, and also
exclusive of the weight of the baggage
t carried. We do not, am sorry to say
carry as many as IS persons on the av.
t erage in the sleeping cars our of regu
{ lar trains; but counting in the specia
5 excursion trains, it comes to as nearly
J three tons of dead weight to each pass
, enger as we can figure it.
1t is perfectly right, therefore, that
he should be charged as much as three
tons of freight. AS matter of fact
in consequence of the high speeds al
which he is carried and the great guam
tity of incidental expenses attached tt
Q the passenger department, which are
unavoidable, he ought to be charged
in proportion even more than he is
Railway men while talking to each 9th
er, not for puplic effect, always fully
recognize that first class passenger ser
vice does not pay its cost. When Mr..
Davis figures the initial investment in
the cars as being the only, or indeed
| the chief. item in the difference in TIT
. cost of service between sleeping Cal
: and freight traffic, he makes himself {
: little absurd That cost counts some
thing, as have said, BUTT is speed ant
weight of trains that cost most. and il
. |