Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1910-02-07
WORLDWIDE RATE
FOR MISSISSIPPI
New Steel Barge Company to
Revolutionize Transporta-
ton Methods.
RAILROAD MEN AT HELM
j. r. Peachy, Late of nlinoic Cen
trail, Becomes Traffic Manager,
and Announces Plans.

"A remarkable departure from old
time methods has Just been made by
the Mississippi Valley Transportation
company, the new steel barge line OF
which W. K Kavanaugh Is president,
In the appointment OF J. r. Peachy as
general trafic manager. The task
which Is given Mr.. Peachy is to pre-
pare schedules Of rates which shall
include the Mississippi as carrier
part OF the way In freight movements
that circle the world.
In the old days, and up to the pres
ent time. this has been almost without
exception true; the Mississippi was
merely carrier of local freight.
Grain for export was carried on bills
which read from Kansas City to ST.
Louis, or from st. Louis to New Or
leans. Flour from Minneapolis, where
ever its destination, was carried on a
local bill from st. Paul to st. Louis,
and had to be transferred and rebilled
and pay the full local rates at every
transfer point.
Nearly all freight was carried by
the consignor down to the landing,
dumped on the levee and left to await
the boat. When the boat came along
the clerk made a rate, wrote a hasty
receipt, accepted the cargo and took
It on the way, to be dumped off at
some other landing and receipted for
by landing keeper. The new com
pany does not intend to do business
Knows Competitive Conditions.
Mr.. Peachy comes to the new com
pany from long service in the Illinois
Central, in which he was closely allied
with Stuyvesant Fish. and his expert
ience during most of his life has been
in the making of rates for commodities
which moved between Chicago and St.
Louis on the one hand, and New Or
leans on the other, over a railway
parallel with and competing with the
Mississippi, so that he is thoroughly
familiar with the traffic which the new
line will have to handle and the COM
petitive conditions which it will have
to meet. His long training in this
service is a considerable asset to the
barge line.
Many railroads have already signi-
fed their intention of establishing pro-
portional rates with the new barge
line, and there is no doubt that prac-
tically every railroad crossing on the
river will become port Of-inter
change. where freight is taken off the
railroad by the use of efficient and
economical machinery and placed in
a barge to be carried 100 or 1000 miles
by water and then delivered to an
other railroad or to the consignee. Ex-
port shipments for South America and
for Asia, from Chicago and other man
ufacturing cities, will be handled part
way by the river, and there is no port
in the world to which a man may not
deliver his goods over the Mississippi
Valley Transportation company's
barges, and out to sea from New Or
leans.
Go After Rail Business.
Mr.. Peachy's great task is that of
compiling rates which shall be at the
same time satisfactory to the various
interests concerned. His policy will
be conservative, and yet it will be such
as to attract to the barge line not only
the bulky commodities which ordinar-
lily have sought the crude transporta-
ton offered by the river, but also the
high grade manufactured goods which
pay higher freights, and which have
heretofore been the exclusive properly
of the railroads. This will be a long
and difficult problem, but sufficient