The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-10-18

per cent of the stock of the southern roads paid none. The dividends of the northern roads averaged 4.5 per cent, while those of the roads of the south averaged 2.35 per cent. The capitalize tion of the roads of the north averaged S92, AS per mile. and of the roads of the south $4S,604 per mile. Counting each mile of second, third, and fourth track as mile of line, the capitalization in the northern group per mile of line was s72,794 as compared with sf7,572 for the roads of the south.
 The southern roads carried only 34 per cent as many passengers one mile per mile of line as those of the north. The roads of the southern group carried only o7 per cent as much freight one mile per mile of line as those of the north in both instances each mile of second, third and fourth track being counted as a mile Of line. On the same basis the gross earnings of the roads of the south were only 55 per cent as much per mile of line as those of the roads of the north and the total income was only 4s per cent as much. On the same basis the net income of the southern group was only 45 per cent as much per mile of line as that of the roads of the north.
 It is estimated that prior to the anti
 
 70 per cent of the passenger traffic of the United States was carried on passes. On this basis some 150. 000,000 free rides were had at the expense of the railroads dur Ing a single year. Aside from a few southwestern railroads there has been no disposition whatever to get around the anti-pass law. The 2-cent law in Virginia has caused one railroad to double it's pas- senger equipment-the Virginia and Southwestern. It used to have a rate of cents a mile. The reduction has more than doubled the traffic. There are now 21 states that have lowered rates on pas senger traffic recently. Most of them have flat 2-cent rates.
 Today the traveller from New York to Chicago can lock up his office at the close of business, go to the Grand Central sta- tion or ferry across to the Jersey City station, board one of the new 1S-hour trains and get to Chicago before the open- ing of the business day there. And while going, if he will pull down the curtains, he might almost imagine himself at q hrst-class New York hotel. If he wants to get shaved he finds a barbershop. If 1 he wants to dictate letters or telegrams 1 he finds a free stenographer aboard. If he wants to read he has access to an excel l lent little library in which there is some- l thing to suit every cultivated taste. He | can take his regular morning bath and l find his clothes carefully pressed. If he 1 Is convivial there is a handsome little bar on the train where the cup that 1 cheers may be had in the usual variety. In l fact, about everything that man should wish he will find And there are trains of | a similar character, except as to speed, l on nearly every important road in the 1 United States. A foreigner, when taking l his first trip on one of these fine trains l looked around him for awhile and then re- marked: Riding on the train in America l is like being guest in a rich mans l house.
 The average life of a passenger car is about 25 years, though they are rather like the Hsshman's knife. He had all the 1 blades renewed twice, had a new handle and several springs put into it. and yet l it was the same old knife. And so with 1 the car. It is overhauied many times l during it's life that it may not have single bit of it's original self In 1t when it goes to the scrap heap. It starts out as one Of the finest cars of the crack lim- tied of the road. In a year or two it goes down to the ordinary express train. then 10 the main line accommodation then to the branch line, and finally 1t is hltched on to a work train, from whence it goes 10 the scrap heap.
 
 journal devoted to the interests of rail- road men, that John Skillman. Lacka- wanna engineer. has run his train from Lincoln Park to Mountain View, a dis 1 tance of two and two-thirds miles, in 54 seconds. If this statement is correct he holds the record of the world. This l would be at the rate of IF miles per l hour. The highest record officially made 1 in the United States is about 130 miles.
 England holds the record for a run of i 100 miles or more. In 1904 Great Western train 11s.5 miles at the rate of 84.6
 miles per hour. The best American rec ord is about 72 miles on such a run.
 The shortest railroad in the United States is little one up at Thousand Islands, the B. T. l. & P, which Is 8 part of the New York Central. It Is just 150 feet long The longest is the Rock Island-Frisco lines with 13,227 miles or i line. The Pennsylvania has about l1.voo miles of line. There will only remain | when the Pennsylvania completes the re- location of its line between Philadelphia
 and Harrisburg, one and haif miles ol ] the original track. The change has all
 been made to save few minutes In the , schedule time. The work of building the
 great Iucn cutoff Is another instance of i the lavish expenditure of money to cut
 off A few miles and few grades. When the Union Pacific was first built the en- | gineers sighed when they reached Salt | Lake and wished they could go across IL.
 But they did not have the money and they had to build some heart-breakns
 grades around it. William Hood was then
 a young engineer with the Union Pacific.
 In after years he rose to responsible po-
 sitons He told Eugene Hartman that
 he could bridge Salt Lake. Hartman
 realized that ii would cost a kings ran
 som to do it, but he raised the money A
 woman was recently travelling over this l cutoff and remarked to one of the en- l gineers who had helped to build 1t that
 1t certainly was fortunate that those lit