The daily sentinel., 1901-08-26

hallrO0QlnS, IN ltS beginnings 1uu
Throughout its exuberant youth, says
Carl Hovey in Ainslees Magazine. was
q business which made use of nerve,
q big head for planning and plotting
and a constant slap-dash application,
after which the returns were pretty
sure. Nowadays it is all as sophisti-
Gated as a cash register. A successful
year indicates that some one has
taken enormous pains to study the fig
ures, and that the result of his dill
gence has been pretty accurate
knowledge Of the class Of business that
would pay. A railroad carries freight
and passengers for a living. The
managing head, in order to direct the
business profitably. must know what
1t costs him to provide the service for
which the public pays. Common sense
and the instinct Of self-preservation
demand this course at once, but they
are not SO forward in suggesting what
is to be done first. How can one come
at such knowledge? 1t costs SO much
annually to maintain the track and
the terminals. 10 much to pay the sal
aries of the train crews, yardmen,
clerks, officials, and law department,
too. How much, then, will it cost to
carry six carloads Of potatoes $50 miles
out on the main line to Berryville?
The problem looks like one by which
cunning pedagogues advise little boys
that it is impracticable to add hens
and geese together in the same sum
or useless to seek to know the cost of
seven-eighths pounds Of butter in a
catch question where you are told only
the price Of a pound Of lard The diff
ference is that the railroad figures do
show a glimmer Of sense. But this
proves to be will-o'-the-wisp leading
nowhere. Nothing can be done with
them until you have slaughtered most
of the items wholesale and arbitrarily
have selected a few promising ones
with which to do business LET us
say the line carried in the year 1889
$4,000. 900 tons Of freight distance Of
one mile; the work has been meas
ured, with this result, which stands on
the books as SO, ,00O, 900 ton miles The
pay for doing the work, measured also,
averages four mills to ton mile, so
business for that year amounted to
100000. The expense is to be meas
ured by a unit which is called the
train mile.' In this instance it is the
freight train mile. The immediate
cost of running a freight train a mile
can be computed readily. and 1t in
cludes: Cost of fuel for the locomo-
tive, and the wages of an engineer,
fireman. conductor. couple of brake
men and flagman. The number OF
cars may be anything you please so
far as these expenses are concerned, for
it will not affect them much. In the
present case say that the average
trainload was 400 tons, large. but
sound figure. Therefore the number
Of train miles that had to be run to
earn the 100000 was 125,OO0. Train
mile cost WAS reckened at rs cents.
Therefore we have: Expenses. 500, ,750;
profit, $1O6 $50. Not the actual profit,
to be sure, but we get on better by
keeping the geese separate from the
hens, and the figures have their use.
Take the company's report for the
following year, 1900. The same work
was done, let us say, 5O.0O0,000 ton
miles. The average trainload, how
ever, was 500 tons. No wonder the
road found itself with more money
to divide than 1t had in the year 1899.
For by increasing the trainload the
number Of train miles was lessened,
and train expenses were inevitably re-
duced to the tune of nearly $4,000.
The gross revenue remained, of course,
the same. The figures are disgrace
fully rough, but they tell the truth.
They shout 1t through a megaphone.
The way to make money is to increase
the trainload. A well-known technical
writer in Wall Street calls this the
touchstone Of successful or economical
railroading.' To save train miles is
to save money drop by drop. to save 1t
with a sure promise of drops enough
| in all to make an ocean.-New York
Press.