The Leon reporter. (Leon, Iowa) 1887-1930, 1910-06-16
The New Charlton Train to be Dis.
continued.

The new passenger train between
charlton and Leon, which was put on
April 4th, under an agreement with
the Burlington officials and the busi-
ness men of Charlton as an expert
ment, is to be discontinued on July @.
When the train was put on the Of
hclals stated that they would give the
service three months trial, and if
1t did not prove to be paying one
would take the train off. When the
train was put on we stated that the
company did not desire to make it
a paying run and they have done all
they could to keep traffic down to
the lowest point. While the train
really started from Davis City in the
morning and laid up there on the re-
turn in the evening, they would carry
no passengers beyond Leon, running
deadhead without any passengers
from this station. The following let
ter from Passenger Traffic Manager
Eustis announces the withdrawal of
the train.
Chicago, June Z, 1910.
Mr.. H. G. Larimer, Charlton, Ia.
Dear Sir:-Pursuant to the under
standing with you and some twenty
hye others, leading business men and
officials of Charlton, including His
Honor the Mayor, Mr.. George F. Car
penter, the passenger train service
between Leon and Charlton was in
augurated as agreed, April 4th, with
the understanding that it would be
tried for three months, and to be
success and pay expenses it should
carry over the whole distance, an
average of 35 or 40 passengers.
AS | feared at the time, our good
friends at Charlton and a few of them
from Humeston, Garden Grove, Leon,
ETC., who spoke on the subject were
mistaken in the amount of traffic, in
fact was mistaken myself, as the
average number Of passengers car
ried is even lower than my lowest
estimate
There is practically no difference
IN the average number of passengers
carried from the beginning of the
month of April up to date. The earn
ings for the month of May after the
train had been running thirty days
do not equal per train mile the aver
age cost of moving an engine alone,
the average number of passengers
carried over the whole distance being
less than 10, with the result that the
earnings per train mile are less than
20 cents.
Whatever may be said about the
prospect or hope that this train will
DO better latter on if continued, the
fact is from our experience we can
see that there is no commercial neces-
;sity for this train, and it does not fill
any real commercial needs, as evil
denced by the lack of patronage.
l know it may be said that the
train might. probably would do lit
tie better if it left Leon later in the
morning, and perhaps also returned
from Charlton little earlier in the
afternoon, but as explained at the
time, the schedule that was arranged
was the only one possible if the train
was to be run at the minimum ex-
pense by using the north of Charlton
freight crew for the service. And the
patronage that has resulted is hardly
one-third that which the good peo-
pie of Charlton SO emphatically stated
might be expected.
The service will therefore be dis
continued with the close of the week
ending July End, and am sure that
neither Charlton nor the towns on the
line which will then have been served
for the three months experimental
period, will lose anything of import
ance 10 them. Yours truly,