Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-10-27
UNIMPEACHABLE
EVIDENCE ABOUT
RAILROAD PROFITS
BY LEVI STEVENS LEWIS.

An interested party requests some
particular definite evidence that the
clear net profits of the New York
Central Railroad Company, and the
Pennsylvania, each of them, exceeds
1000 per annum of the entire capital
of either company, stock and bonds
included.
Here follows the evidence.
The data submitted applies equally
TO either or both of these two great
public highways; the two great trans
portation systems on earth.
An official document of the New
York Central printed fifteen years
ago declares that IAN average of 400
regular passenger trains arrive at and
depart from the Grand Central depot
in New York City each business day
of the year." and that ''its ponderous
locomotives haul from so to 100 load
ed cars to the train; many of which
cars carry 1000 bushels of grain, or
90 tons of coal, or 80 tons of merchan-
disc" and that SEVERAL HUN
DRIED freight trains per day pass
over its tracks, forming an endless
chain of traffic between the great
commercial and industrial and agri-
cultural centers of the west and New
York City and Boston"
Another of its official documents
printed in 1915, boasts that its gross
income had increased 100 per cent
(doublsd) during the first thirteen
years of the twentieth century.
The Pennsylvania Railroad Com
pany claims to handle more traffic
than the New York Central; to carry
more passengers and haul more
freight. Whether this claim is well
founded or not, it appears to be, ac-
cording to the reports of the Inter
state Commerce Commission.
The Pennsylvania advertises that
its traffic over all lines both east and
west of Pittsburgh required the oper-
alton. of 100000 trains carrying
both freight and passengers during
the three calendar years 1914, 1910
and 1916; that it carried during these
years 553,S90,063 passengers a dis
lance of approximately l5,O0O,000,-
900 miles of $50 times the distance
| from the earth to the moon" This
is an average exceeding S,OO0 trains
a day two-fifths of which are said to
be passenger trains and three-fifths
freight trains. 1t now adyertises
| (l922) that it requires 10000 pas
senger trains each month to handle
its passenger traffic only which con-
firms what all well-informed people
already know, namely, that railway
traffic both freight and passenger,
steadily increases with each recurring
year.
Both the Pennsylvania and the
New York Central operate something
more than 10000 miles of track,
operating in "the most populous and
the most prosperous section of the
United States" and where the major
ity of the people of the United States
live and cultivate the products of the
soil.
If the freight traffic only of these
two great systems require the opera
ton Of several hundred trains a day
according to the New York Central
and upward" of 1000 trains accord
ing to the Pennsylvania, it will Ger
tainly be conceded in the absence OF
more definite information that each
of them operate not less than 200
freight trains every day in the year.
Perhaps some of these trains may
haul empty cars only producing no
revenue. If they operate not more
than 200 trains daily and one train
i'm ten hauls empty cars only there
remains $50 revenue operating trains
in operation.
Each train hauls an average cargo
of not less than 900 tons. Profit at
the rate of half a cent a mile $500
for each mile of track. If any con
siderable quantity Of freight IS hauled
at a rate so low as to limit the profit
TO half a cent a mile the writer has
been unable TO learn of it. A ton OF
-four is hauled 100 miles for S4.25.
Cost Of transportation rs cents. Net
profit $3.50 which is three and one
half cents per mile.
If one train earns $500 profit per
mile Of track in "a hours, $50 trains
earn 5000, 900 daily for each mile Of
track which is s10,800,000 for 10000
miles in "a hours or S3,942, 900, 900 in
365 days. Deducting 80 13 pei
cent for any possible miscalculationi