The Washington times., 1912-08-24
RAILROADS OF WEST
DECLARE MOTORCARS
/ CHECK TRAVELLING
Men Who Formerly Used
| Trains Now Own Auto
mobiles, Is Complaint.

Ever since the advent of the popular
priced car which has made it possible
for the man of moderate means to in
dulge in motoring, the automobile has
been blamed for many things. The
latest complaint comes from the West,
and, strangely enough, it Is the rail-
road traffic officials who are complain
ing.
Automobiles are just playing hob
with the passenger receipts of West
ern railroads, and traffic officials are
wringing their hands over the new
condition." says a prominent railroad
man.
Local passenger traffic out of Oma-
ha, Denver. and other cities, has
dwindled to almost nothing. and tourists
are now travelling by automobile instead
of railroad. In the place of using the
railroads to reach mountain and lake
resorts, Westerners are taking shorter
trips in their automobiles. AS a result
trains are running half full of passen-
gers, and the country roads which par
allel the railroads are crowded with
motor cars all day long and half the
night"
One Car to Forty-eight Persons.
SO serious has the situation become
that one of the big Western railway
companies has asked the secretary of
. State of Nebraska for all possible in
formation concerning automobiles. One
bit of information was that there was
one machine in Nebraska to every for
ty-eight persons within the boundary.
This includes men, women, and children
Instead of patroniZing railroads. peu-
pie are now taking automobile trips on
their vacations" the railroad men say,
and local traffic Is simply cut to pieces.
When business man at one station
wants to transact business in an adjoin-
ing town, instead of waiting for a train,
= he climbs into his automobile and is
soon at his destination. The loss to the
railroads is ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS than
any one would imagine"
Seeks Missing Cars.
Railroad officials say. according to
data received from the office of the
secretary of State. that 1900 automobiles
disappeared when the assessor went
around a short time ago. There have
been $4,000 machines registered with the
secretary. Five thousand of this num-
Der are credited to ''deads" and motor
cycles, but when the county assessors
sent in their returns last week 1850
automobiles were all that had been list
ed for taxation by the owners. Now
the secretary has got busy in an at
tempt to find the remaining $500 cars.
And all these $4,000 cars are busy
running around with passengers who
would take the railroad trains If there
We're no automobiles. In past years
IT was a notorious fact that in all
trains operating between Omaha and
Lincoln there were many passengers
who. who stood in the aisles for lack Of
seats. strap hangers" were in evil
dence everywhere. But that Is all
changed now. Trains which formerly
were so filled with passengers as to
cause complaint to the State Railway
Commission now operate with scarcely
more than one-half the seats filled.
Farmers Speed Maniacs.
And how these farmers do speed They
don't even slow up for the city streets
The city man in the country is on
rough roads and is afraid to send
his machine at it's best pace, but when
the farmer strikes the asphalted streets
of Omaha or Lincoln he simply "opens
'er up" and breaks every speed law in
the city. They have all sorts of acci-
dents but that does not deter them
from cutting out the muffier and going
At breakneck speed.
We have no way of coping with the
situation. say, the railroad men, Thou
sands of people who ordinarily take a
railroad trip every year are this sum
mer remaining at home and taking au-
tomobile rides in the evening Nebras-
kans alone have purchased 1850 cars
since January l. 1911. and the craze
seems to get worse rather than better.
Nebraska now has more automobiles
per capita than any State in the Union,
ana. although there are but 1,250,OOO
people in the State, it is the fifth State
In the number of automobiles. and the
people are still buying Ike mad. And
every one bought makes just that much