The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-11-16
BOTH OPPOSE
 ELECTRIFY|NC
New Haven and Boston and AL bany Report on Projected
 Hub Plan
COST WOULD BE HUGE
President Me1len Claims It Would Involve Serious Financial
 Deficits.

Boston, Nov. 16.-Tn obedience to the legislative requirement that ''the rail road corporations operating within the metropolitan district of Boston be di- rected to prosecute studies with refer ei1ce to the Identification of their pas senger service in said district,'' Presi- dent Mellen of the New York, New Ha- ven 6 Hartford and the Boston & Maine roads. and A. H. Smith, vice president and general manager of the Boston 6 Albany road; have submit ted to the joint board on metropolitan Improvements. as required. the results Of their investigations of the subject on their respective roads.
 These reports are Voluminous and contain an immense amount of detail much of which is technical. They will be studied by a subcommittee of the joint board and the conclusions of the subcommittee will be submitted to the full joint board. The full board will then, by direction of the same leg.s- lative resolve of 1910, draft an act pro- viding for the identification of the passenger service of the roads within the district This draft is to be sub mitted to next years general court not later than January 15
 The immensity of the identification project is indicated by the fact that its estimated cost would be approx imately s9, 1S5. .262 Even this figure is not regarded by the railroad ex- perts as being anywhere near what really successful identification of the railroads in this metropolitan district would cost, for they say that to give good results the scheme should be ex- tended to the freight service also, and that the cost of such extension would be "of the most imposing magni- tude"
 It was not within the province of the railroad homogeneous to include their desires in their studies and they have refrained from doing so directly. Their position in the matter may be gained, however, from two statements One is that the cost of operation of the electric equipment on the Boston & Albany would bankrupt that road unless it were met by increased fares within the district The other, in- cluded in the study submitted by Mir. Mellen, is that the records show that the New Ravens electric operation in New York city has failed to earn in- tereSt on the investment and has in creased the cost Of operation and that less favorable conditions for electrical equipment in Boston make it "impos- sible to escape the conclusion that the deficit in fixed charges and operating expenses will be still greater
 
 study declares that if the proposed tunnel between the North and South stations is to be constructed in the near future the installation of an cleo tric system at the present terminals could not reasonably be considered The estimated net cost of the pro- posed identification of the Boston & Albany is $6,413, GOO The net cost or operation of the proposed system would 1 be, it is estimated, $539. .101 annually. This operation cost would make an es- l timated deficit of nearly s500, 900 in the operation of that road, the report as serts, unless fares. perhaps in the metropolitan district alone, were in creased sufficiently to cover this extra expense.
 The estimated cost of construction on the Boston 6, Maine system would be approximately S,Ss9, ,192. The es- timated construction cost to the New York, New Haven & Hartford would be approximately SIS, 3,sS2,7 ,750 In the | report submitted to the joint board by MT. Mellen these estimates are giv- | en in gross. with the suggestion that the value of retired equipment, such 1 as steam engines and passenger coach es that would be substituted with cleo | tric engines and other rolling stock necessary to the changed conditions, | would be so doubtful as to make it | fmpracticable to assign values to them 1 in this connection.