Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1904-07-15
SOME RAILWAY
FIGURES ATDAZZLE

Dlu you ever SJOp 10 UUluk WIldb tlllS
country would be without railways?
Less than eighty years ago the vast
majority did not know the meaning
OF the word, and in 1922, when the
first charter, for line from Philadel-
phia to point on the Susquehanna
river, was granted correspondent
asked Baltimore paper ''what is a
railway line, anyhow" The editor
replied that he did not know but
perhaps some correspondent could
tell.
In a general way we know that the
United States has nearly half of the
railway mileage of the world; that
such mileage is capitalized at sl2, 900,
000, 900 and the value of the entire
assets is s5OO,OOO, 900 greater. We
know that of single track road we
have nearly 20O,O miles, while, If the
double track were added, there is
enough to reach from the earth to
the moon and part way around that
satellite.
The New York Commercial, in
carefully prepared article of recent
publication gives number of in
teresting figures astounding as well
as interesting and dazzling to any but
the American who has grown so
accustomed to great figures as to take
them almost as matter of course.
The value Of the railways of the
United States is greater than the
entire production of gold since the
discovery of America in 1892; greater
than the aggregate of deposits in all
the banks of the United States; equal
to about one-ffth of the total wealth
of this country
One railway system in the United
States has gross earnings amounting
to nearly twice as much as the entire
revenue of the United States Post
Office Department. In the fiscal year
OF 1901 the gross earnings of all the
railways in this country amounted to
81 ,5SS, ,526, ,037-this is equivalent to
more than one dollar for each inha-
bitant Of the earth, and the figures
are larger than the total number of
tons of anthracite coal that have been
mined since 1920
1t is concluded that about one per-
son in twenty in the United States is
supported directly by the railways, as
there are more than 100000 en-
ployes and each employe is supposed
to support, on an average, three other
persons. Salaries and wages paid in
1901 amounted to s6l0, 0,723,O 900. These
totals OF persons and of wages did not
include the 100000 or more who are
employed in the mines that furnish
railways with fuel and ores, the
number, greater than that, employed
in constructing locomotives, freight
and passenger cars or the $4,000 men
who furnish ties. OF railway ties
between eighty and one hundred
thousand are used annually, and the
statistician says that after their
production SPACE is laid bare each
year that would make path a mile
wide from New York to San Fran
cisco. The railways use between two
and threeDmilliOn tons OF steel rails
each year at an aggregate cost Of
seventy to hundred millions of
dollars, and they add annually to
rolling stock about 1000 locomotives
AND 10000 passenger and freight cars.
In the fiscal year 1901 the passengers
carried were 1878, 12l, and the tons
of freight, 1,OS9, ,226, ,440.
A government statistician figures
that an equivalent amount of land
transportation to that furnished by
the railways could not be obtained for
less cost than s11 ZOO, 600, 900 year.
The receipts of the railroads being
less than 81, 900, 900, 600, the aggregate
saving effected by the railroads is
SIC, ,O00, ,000, 900. This, however, is
rather in the realm of the speculative
than OF the actual. 1t is interesting
to note, however, that Carroll d.
Wright, United States Commissioner
Of Labor, as long ago as 1886, reported
that to do the work performed by the
28, 800 locomotives in the United
States at that time would require, in
round numbers, $4,000 horses and
Il, 500. 900 men.
Csn~ H>~~.&