Arizona republican., 1909-08-16
PANAMA CANAL AND
 RAILROAD TRAFFIC
How the Completion of the Big Ditch Will Affect Transportation Lines.

The following article by George Welch Weber in The Railway Record' will be found interesting reading by students of the transportation prob lems of the near future:
 Confident predictions are made by those who know best that the Panama canal will be ready for opening in 1915. Few persons outside of those who have managerial charge of the railroads which will be directly af- fected by the canal have given much attention to its influence on railways. Those who have studied the question thoroughly say that the canal will bring into existence a coastwise. trading system along the entire seaboard of the United States from Maine on the Atlantic, to Washington on the Pa cific A service of this sort would consist of steamers and small sailing vessels. carrying goods from, say, New York to San Francisco, and stopping at many intermediate point to load and discharge freight. At San Fran cisco the vessels would take on re- turn cargo, stopping at different ports on the way back to pick up or unload additional consignmenIs. The rate for carrying freight by water in vessels of this sort. from New York to San Fran cisco, according to the estimates of those who have closely studied the matter will be about one-fifth of the rate now charged by the railroads for carrying the same goods across the continent And, it is not likely that railroads will find it practicable to so reduce their rates as to effectively compete with the ocean, going vessels. The effect of this would be to take from the trans-continental railroads good deal of traffic which they now en- and give it to the ships. But, the traf- fife diverted from the railroads in this manner will be, for the most part, only that which is heavy, cheap and slow. It will not embrace goods that require quick transit, either from the fact that they are perishable or because they have to be placed on the market quickly.
 Drawing Traffic From Interior.
 In its working out, the coastwise water transportation system will have the effect of drawing from the inter ior, say, for several hundred miles those classes of commodities which can be transported by water more Cheaply than by rail. The exact dis tance inland which this tendency will operate cannot be definitely stated. In- deed it will be different as to each ar ticle. Furthermore while an industrial product, manufactured within few hundred miles of the Atlantic sea board, may perhaps. find it cheaper to ship by way of rail to the Atlantic and by water to San Francisco, than it would to ship by all rail to san Fran cisco across the continent, the same shipper would not find it profitable to ship his goods to the Atlantic and thence by water to New Orleans, or Galveston, but would find it more economical to ship by all rail. In other words, the water portion of the ship ment has got to be sufficiently long to overcome the expense of shipping to the seaboard and of rehandling the traffic there. This operation of the economic law against the water traffic, would be much more pronounced if the articles in question were, also, required to be shipped by rail inland from the port of destination.
 lsolating the Interior.
 Probably, as time passes and all the economic forces get into operation there will be a considerable trend of commerce toward the sea all along our seacoast, on both oceans and the gulf As suggested this will probably extend inland several hundred miles A rough delimitation of it might show it to be the territory lying east of the Ale ghenies and west of the Rocky noun tains. Senator Teller of Colorado,