The Savannah morning news., 1904-03-28
TOURIST FLYERS
COME OFF SOON
LAST LEAVE NORTH APRIL 9.
SEASON HAS BEEN BEST IN HIS
TORY OF THE BUSINESS.

Claim That Fast Flyers Are Not Pay
ing Propositions Denied by Rail-
road Man-Each of the Lines
Operating Them Has Made Money
This Season - Suggestion That
These Trains Be Operated Jointly
by Three Roads Interested in
Them No New Proposition.
The present tourist season will come
to a close in the early part of April,
the last of the tourist flyers leaving
New York for the South, April g. and
the last of the northbound trains leav-
ing st. Augustine April IL.
Despite rumors to the contrary,
especially in the early part of the sea-
son, the season has been the best in
believed all of the railroads operating
the tourist flyers have made money.
Under the head Improbable
Trains publication devoted to rail-
way interests recently stated that
tourist flyers have proved improbable,
stating that though each of the lines
operating them has had to maintain
four or five of the trains, representing
an investment of $4,000 to 100000 each
yet up to March /, the trains had not
averaged twenty-five passengers per
southbound trip, that the revenue on
the best patronized of them was not
so cents a mile southbound, and was
still less northbound. The writer clos
ed his article by suggesting that the
railroads in future operate these trains
Jointly, that is let the Atlantic Coast
Line operate one one day, the Seaboard
Air Line, the second day and the South
ern the third. and so on.
Discussing this proposition yesterday
q prominent railroad man said that in
the first place the author of the sug-
gestion had probably been misinform-
ed as to his figures of the earnings
of the flyers this season, which have
been greater than ever before, enough
to make them pay a good profit on
the investment they represent, and the
cost of operating them. Again the
question of operating them jointly has
already been discussed, some two years
ago, when the arguments then urged
against it were found to be much
stronger than those offered in its
favor, and these reasons still hold
good.
When the question was brought up
Mr.. T. M. Emerson, third vice presi-
dent of the Atlantic Coast Line, op-
posed the plan on several grounds,
chief of which was that it was the in
auguration of the fast trains that had
made Florida the resort that it is,
and had caused the large investments
that have been made in railroad and
hotel property in that state. Com
petition, he said, had developed busi
ness, for though the Atlantic Coast
Line was the first to begin the fly
ers, when the Southern Railway had
entered the field new business had
been developed, and still more of it
as the result of the Seaboard's inau-
guration of similar service.
The competition engendered by
the number of lines interested, he said,
had kept the resorts of Florida and
other points of the South well adver
tised, with the result that the public
had developed an interest in them that
had increased business from year to
year. With less competition on the
part of the roads there would be a
tagging of interest on the part of
tourists, with the result that many
that now visit Florida each year
would be captured by the roads that
are fighting for California business.