The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-29
RAILROAD FREIGHT TRAFFIC N
 AS A BUSINESS BAROMETER
OF IN sTATISTICs-INTRICAT OF ADJUSTING RATEs-MERE DULLES COSTS

must go out of business or remove to lake port A similar situation might exist in relation to industries situa- ted in seaboard cities as compared with similar enterprises hundred miles from the coast. It is better both for
 the country and the railroads to have industries distributed over wide areas rather than concentrated in few con- gested districts. Railroad men, as one means of overcoming the inequalities of geography. have created a system of differential rates by means of which rival enterprises in the same territory are given equal facilities for sending their wares to market. In the establishment of these rates geograph- teal position is not the only thing con- sidered Many elements enter Into the problem and the men who make the freight rates constantly endeavor to see that no city or section is fav- ored at the expense of another, al- though as they are only human mis- takes are sometimes made Then the Interstate Commerce Commission may De called upon to straighten matters out.
 Other things complicate the work of the freight agent. In level regions, a locomotive can haul thirty or forty cars easier than 1t can move fifteen or d and sharp curves abound. At times a road has a great quantity of freight moving in one direction while long ! lines of empty cars are going the oth- CT way. There is always danger that an increase of traffic on one branch may be accompanied by a correspond ing decrease somewhere else.
 The efforts of railroad managers to contribute to the prosperity of the AA increase the railroad business are ex- erted through many channels. Suit
 able traffic arrangements must be se cured with connecting lines; sometimes extensions of a system are desirable. One of the recent and notable instances | of the growth of a railway system was the requirement. of the Ontario and Western road by the New York, New
 Haven and Hartford, which by this manuever secured control of a route to l the coal fields and the Great Lakes. The popular impression that great l railway systems are always at war 1 Is not borne out by another notewor- thy incident in the history of the New Haven. President A. J. Cassatt of the great Pennsylvania system having be- | come director of the New Haven l road which maintains intimate rela- | tions with the Pennsylvania, although
 
 arate and distinct.
 Railways cooperate in still other
 ways. To aid the freight agents in the
 difficult task of solving varied and in- tricate problems, meetings are con- stantly held all over the country. One
 result of these meetings is the uniform division of freight into six classes. in
 which are included practically every conceivable product and each of which h0 kA passengers are divided into classes and
 pay accordingly. In Europe the pas
 senger pays in proportion to his pocket book and his love of comfort. In this country the shipper pays fin proportion to the value of his articles and their lack of density. Thus a ton of silk good travels at a far greater expense than a ton of pig-iron. These "class rates" form the rules on which the agent proceeds to base his exceptions in tn eform of Commodity rates" Commodity rates can never be entirely done away with for they are to the freight service what communication tickets are to the passenger department and every suburbanite Is alive to the necessity of communication tickets.
 The difficulty of classification is strikingly illustrated in the case of
 hay-apparently a very simple article about which there could be no trouble. It was formerly in the sixth class but the Interstate Commerce Commission decided to promote it to the fifth, giv- ing to the railroads the opportunity of charging so much more for carrying 1t. No road has yet taken advantage of this permission and hay continues to be shipped in the sixth class. In this case. the farmer were better protected by the railroads themselves than by the decision of the Commission.