--+----+------+-----+------+------+------+------+------+------+---------+
| M'ls run to one.| COST PER MILE RUN FOR. | |
+-----------------+-----------------------------------------+---------+
A.| Y. | Z. | AA. | BB. | CC. | DD. | EE. | FF. | GG. | HH. |
--+----+------+-----+------+------+------+------+------+------+---------+
1| 1.5| 122.3| 34.5| 01.76| 06.64| 00.53| 07.89| 00.61| 17.43| 177,659|
2| 1.1| 126.8| 27.7| 00.94| 07.34| 00.69| 10.69| 00.53| 20.19| 197,203|
3| 0.9| 77.7| 17.4| 02.32| 10.58| 00.90| 14.31| 02.04| 30.15| 182,402|
4| 2.7| 127.2| 32.8| 00.92| 03.69| 05.23| 05.24| 00.64| 15.72| 139,422|
5| 2.5| 128.2| 41.2| 01.08| 04.06| 00.44| 04.96| 00.61| 11.15| 135,780|
6| 3.1| 140.4| 36.3| 00.72| 03.22| 00.53| 05.82| 00.03| 10.32| --|
8| 1.5| 147.8| 37.9| 01.09| 06.84| 00.49| 08.04| 00.76| 17.22| 305,024|
9| 1.4| 150.0| 48.5| 01.30| 06.88| 00.40| 06.70| 00.82| 16.10| 383,682|
10| 1.5| 195.4| 46.5| 01.23| 06.77| 00.31| 06.49| 00.79| 15.59| 409,035|
11| 3.0| 173.6| 36.4| 02.13| 03.43| 00.47| 04.77| 00.02| 10.82| --|
12| 2.0| 171.0| 23.5| 00.36| 05.11| 00.59| 07.82| 00.14| 14.02| 66,834|
30| 2.3| 185.4| 74.9| 00.53| 04.40| 00.34| 04.15| 00.51| 09.93| 231,554|
31| 2.2| 154.1| 50.8| 02.87| 04.58| 00.40| 04.15| 00.54| 12.54| 202,289|
32| 1.6| 129.5| 31.2| 12.11| 06.25| 00.60| 06.64| 00.96| 26.56| 184,083|
34| 3.2| 108.5| 35.5| 11.41| 03.48| 00.54| 05.29| 00.67| 21.39| 107,060|
--+----+------+-----+------+------+------+------+------+------+---------+
| 2.5| 148.1| 38.5| 02.31| 04.98| 00.48| 05.97| 00.55| 14.29|2,722,027|
--+----+------+-----+------+------+------+------+------+------+---------+
The master car-builder has charge of the shops where cars are
built and repaired, and of the car-inspectors who are stationed at
central and junction points to prevent defective cars being put
into the trains.
Formerly each railroad used its own cars exclusively, and through
freights were transferred at every junction point. This involved
such delay and expense that railroads now generally permit all
loaded cars to go through to destination without transfer, and
allow each other a certain sum for the use of cars. Usually this is
about three-quarters of a cent for each mile which the car travels
on a foreign road. This involves a great scattering of cars, and
an extensive organization to keep record of their whereabouts
and of the accounts between the companies for mileage.[15] This
organization will be referred to more fully in connection with the
department of transportation. But the joint use of each other's
cars makes it necessary that there should be at least enough
similarity in their construction and their coupling appliances to
permit their indiscriminate use upon all roads. And conventions of
master car-builders have recommended certain forms and dimensions
as standards, which are now in general use.
There is much convenience in this, but one disadvantage. It
requires almost unanimous action to introduce any change of form
or of construction, however advantageous it may be. And to secure
unanimous action in such matters is almost as hard as it would be
to secure unanimity in a change in the spelling of English words.
Still there is progress, though slow, toward several desirable
reforms, the most important of which is the adoption of a standard
automatic coupler (see p. 142).
Having shown how the property of all kinds is kept in efficient
condition, we next come to its operation. This is called
"conducting transportation," and the officer in charge is usually
called the superintendent of transportation. All train-despatchers,
conductors, train-men, and telegraph operators are under his
immediate control. He makes all schedules and provides all extra
and irregular service that the traffic department makes requisition
for, himself calling upon the superintendent of machinery for
the necessary locomotives, switching engines, and cars. It is his
especial province to handle all trains as swiftly as possible, and
to see that there are no collisions. It is impossible to detail
fully the safeguards and precautions used to this end, but the
general principles observed are as follows:
First, a general time-table or schedule is carefully made out for
all regular trains upon each division, showing on one sheet the
time of each train at each station.
This schedule is all that is needed so long as all trains are
able to keep on time, and there are no extras. Trouble begins
when regular trains cannot keep on schedule, or when extra
trains have to be sent out, not provided for on the schedule. A
diagram, or graphic representation of this schedule, upon a board
or large sheet of paper, is an important feature of the office
regulating train-movements. Twenty-four vertical lines divide the
board into equal spaces representing the twenty-four hours of
the day, numbered from midnight to midnight. Horizontal lines at
proportionate distances from the top represent the stations in
their order between the termini, represented by the top and bottom
lines of the diagram. The course of every train can now be plotted
on this diagram in an oblique line joining the points on each
station line corresponding to the time the train arrives at and
leaves that station. The cut on the opposite page will illustrate.
It represents a road 130 miles long from A to N, with intermediate
stations B, C, D, etc., at different distances from each other, and
six trains are shown as follows:
A passenger train, No. 1, leaving A at 12 midnight and arriving
at N at 4.05 A.M. A fast express, No. 2, leaving N at 12.45 and
arriving at A at 3.30. A local passenger train, No. 4, which leaves
N at 1.15, runs to E by 4 A.M., stops there until 4.10, and returns
to N by 7 A.M.; being called No. 3 on the return, as the direction
is always indicated by the train-number's being odd or even. No. 5
is a way freight, leaving A at 12.05 and making long stops at each
station. No. 6 is an opposing train of the same character.
[Illustration: Diagram Used in Making Railway Time-Tables.]
[Illustration: A lamp swung across the track is the signal to stop.]
The diagram shows at a glance how, when, and where all these
trains meet and pass each other, and where every train is at any
moment. Should it be desired to send an extra train at any time, a
line drawn or a string stretched on the board will indicate what
opposing trains must be guarded against. For instance, to send
an extra through in three hours, leaving A between 1 and 2 A.M.,
a trial line will show that Nos. 5, 2, 4, and 6 must all be met
or passed, and as (on a single-track road) this can only be done
at stations, the extra must leave at 1.35 A.M., pass No. 5 at E,
meet No. 2 at F, No. 4 at I, and No. 6 at J. A dotted line on
the diagram indicates its run, and that No. 2 is held at F for 5
minutes to let it pass. If the road is double-tracked, only trains
going in the same direction need be regarded.[16]
[Illustration: A lamp raised and lowered vertically is the signal
to move ahead.]
But the more usual way of handling extra trains, when circumstances
will permit, is to let them precede or follow a regular train upon
the same schedule. The train is then said to be run in "sections,"
and a ten minutes' interval is allowed between them. That opposing
trains may be informed, the leading section (and when there are
more than two all but the last) wears on its locomotive two green
flags by day and two green lights by night, indicating that a train
follows which is to be considered as a part of the train leading,
and having the same rights.
[Illustration: A lamp swung vertically in a circle across the
track, when the train is standing, is the signal to move back.]
So far the rules are very simple, and they would be all that is
necessary if all trains could always be kept exactly on time. But
as that cannot be, provision must be made for all the complications
which will result. The first and most important rule is that no
train must ever, under any circumstances, run _ahead_ of time.
The next is that any train making a stop not on its schedule must
immediately send out flagmen with red flags, lights, and torpedoes
to protect it. This rule is a very difficult one to enforce
without rigid discipline, and its neglect is the cause of a large
percentage of the accidents "that will happen." The flagman who
must go to the rear, often a half-mile, at night, across trestles
and in storms, must frequently be left behind, to take his chances
of getting home by being picked up by a following train. There is
no one to watch him, and he will often take chances, and not go as
far back or as fast as he should; and if all goes well no one is
ever the wiser.
[Illustration: A lamp swung vertically in a circle at arm's length
across the track, when the train is running, is the signal that the
train has parted.]
Now, when a train is prevented from arriving on time at its
meeting-point, we must have some rules by which the opposing train
may proceed, or all business on the road would be suspended by the
delay of a single train. Only the general principles of these rules
can be stated within limits. They are as follows:
1. All freight trains must wait indefinitely for all passenger
trains.
2. When one train only is behind time, the opposing train of the
same class will wait for it a specified time, usually ten minutes,
and five minutes more for possible variation of watches, then go
ahead, keeping fifteen minutes behind its schedule.
3. But should such a train, running on delayed time, lose more
time, or in any other way should both trains get behind time,
then the one which is bound in a certain direction--for instance,
north--has the right to the track, and the other must lie by
indefinitely.
[Illustration: The General Despatcher.]
These principles, duly observed, will prevent collisions, but
they will often cause trains to lose a great deal of time. The
train-despatcher, therefore, has authority to handle extra and
delayed trains by direct telegraphic order. Every possible
precaution is taken to insure that such orders are received and
correctly understood. As there are great advantages following
uniformity of usages and rules among connecting roads, after
years of conference, in conventions and by committees, approved
forms of all running rules and signals have recently been adopted
and are now in very general use over the United States. Yet,
in spite of all possible precautions, accidents will sometimes
happen. Richard Grant White gave a name to a mental habit which,
in train-despatchers, has caused many fatal accidents. It is
"heterophemy," or thinking one thing while saying, hearing, or
reading another. A case within my knowledge, which cost a dozen
lives, was as follows: Two opposing trains were out of time,
and the train-despatcher wished to have them meet and pass at a
certain station we will call "I," as Nos. 1 and 2 are represented
as doing on the diagram (see diagram of schedule board, p. 161).
So he telegraphed the following message, to be delivered to No. 1
at "H" and to No. 2 at "J": "Nos. 1 and 2 will meet at 'I.'"
This message was correctly received at "J" and delivered to No.
2. But at "H" the operator had just sold a passenger a ticket to
"K," and, getting this name in his head, he wrote out the message:
"Nos. 1 and 2 will meet at 'K.'" But the mistake was not yet
past correction. The operator had to repeat the message back to
the despatcher, that the latter might be sure it was correctly
understood. He repeated it as he had written it--"K." But the
despatcher was also "heterophemous." He _saw_ "K," but he _thought_
"I," and replied to the operator that the message was O. K.
[Illustration: Entrance Gates at a Large Station.]
So it was delivered to No. 1, and that train left "H" at full
speed, expecting to run thirty-five miles to "K" before meeting
No. 2. There was no telegraph office at "I," and there were no
passengers to get off or on, and it passed there without stopping,
and three miles below ran into No. 2 on a curve.
By one of those strange impulses which seem to come from some
unconscious cerebration, the train-despatcher meanwhile had a
feeling that something was wrong, and looked again at the message
received from "H" and discovered his mistake. But the trains were
then out of reach. He still hoped that No. 2 might arrive at "I"
first, or that they might meet upon a straight portion of road,
and as the time passed he waited at the instrument in a state of
suspense which may be imagined. When the news came he left the
office, and never returned.
Double tracks make accidents of this character impossible; but
introduce a new possibility, that a derailment from any cause upon
one track may obstruct the other track so closely ahead of an
opposing train that no warning can be given.
[Illustration: Central Switch and Signal Tower.]
Where trains become very numerous additional safeguards are added
by multiplying telegraph stations at short intervals, and giving
them conspicuous signals of semaphore arms and lanterns, until
finally the road is divided into a number of so-called "blocks"
of a few miles each; and no train is permitted to enter any block
until the train preceding has passed out. And in the approaches to
some of our great depots, where trains and tracks are multiplied
and confused with cross-overs and switching service, all switches
are set and all movements controlled by signals from a single
central tower. Sometimes, by very expensive and complicated
apparatus, it is made mechanically impossible to open a track for
the movement of a train without previously locking all openings by
which another train might interfere. The illustrations on pages
169, 171, and above will serve to give some general idea of these
appliances.[17]
[Illustration: Mantua Junction, West Philadelphia, showing a
Complex System of Interlacing Tracks.]
There remains one other branch of the duties of the master of
transportation--the proper daily distribution of cars to every
station according to its needs, and the keeping record of their
whereabouts. And now that the gauges of all roads are similar,
and competition enforces through shipments, roads are practically
making common property of each other's cars, and the detail and
trouble of keeping record of them become enormous.
[Illustration: Interior of a Switch-tower, showing the Operation of
Interlocking Switches.]
The records are made up from daily reports, by every conductor, of
every car, home or foreign, handled in his train, and from every
station-agent of all cars in his yard at certain hours. From these
returns the car accountant reports to their respective owners all
movements of foreign cars and gives the transportation department
information where cars are lying. The honesty of each other's
reports concerning car movements is generally relied upon by
railroads, but "lost car agents" are kept travelling to hunt up
estrays, and to watch how the cars of their roads are being handled.
It has been suggested that a great step in advance would be to
have all the roads in the United States unite and put all cars
into a common stock and let them be distributed, record kept of
movements, and mileage paid through a general clearing house.
This would practically form a single rolling-stock company owned
by the roads contributing their cars to it. It could gradually
introduce uniform patterns of construction, improved couplers, and
air-brakes, and could concentrate cars in different sections of the
country in large numbers as different crops required movement, thus
avoiding the blockades which often occur in one section while cars
are superabundant in another. Consolidations usually render more
efficient and cheaper service than separate organizations can do,
and this may come about in the course of time.[18]
We have now seen how the road is maintained and its trains safely
handled. The next step in order is to see how business is secured
and the rates to be charged are fixed. This department may be
controlled by a traffic manager, with two assistants--the general
freight agent and the general passenger agent--or the officers may
report directly to the general manager without the intervention
of a traffic manager. But it would be a more accurate expression
to say, not that these officers "fix" the rates, for if they did
few railroads would ever fail, but that they accept and announce
the rates that are fixed by conditions of competition between
different markets and products, and between different railroads
and water lines. Among these complex forces a railroad freight
agent is nearly as powerless to regulate rates as a professor of
grammar is to regulate the irregularities of English verbs. He
can accept them and use them, or he may let them alone, but the
irregularities will remain, all the same. There is no eccentricity,
for example, more idiotic or indefensible to the ordinary citizen
than a habit railroads have of sometimes charging less money for
a long haul than they charge for a shorter haul. Yet I believe
there is not a railroad line in the United States which will not
be found guilty of this apparent folly of charging "less for
the long haul" if its rates to distant points are followed far
enough. For if followed far enough we shall come to the ocean,
and find the railroad accepting business between two seaports. For
instance, all railroads running westward from New York through
some of their connections finally reach San Francisco, and compete
for freight between these ports. But the rates they are able to
obtain are limited by steamers using the ocean for a highway,
and sailing vessels using the wind for motive power, and able to
carry heavy freights at one-tenth the average cost to railroads
across mountains and deserts. This average cost must fix the
average rates charged by the railroads to intermediate points,
such as to Ogden, in Utah. So the railroad must either charge less
for the long haul to San Francisco, or leave that business to be
done solely by water. Yet it may be profitable to the railroad to
accept the business at such rates as it can obtain; for, as in all
business ventures, manufacturing or mercantile, _new_ business
can be profitably added at less than the average cost. And if
profitable to the railroad its tendency is beneficial, even to the
intermediate points which pay higher rates, as promoting better
service, besides being advantageous to the whole Pacific Coast in
tending to keep down the rates by water.
But it would lead too far from our subject to follow this and
several other questions which are suggested by it. Only it may
be said briefly that the original Interstate Commerce Bill,
introduced by Mr. Reagan, absolutely prohibited "less for the long
haul." The Senate amended by adding "under similar circumstances
and conditions," and the Interstate Commerce Commission has held
that "water competition" makes dissimilar circumstances and thus
legalizes it.
And in this connection it may be added that the other Senate
amendment to the Reagan bill, creating an Interstate Commerce
Commission, was, next to the above amendment, the wisest measure
of the bill. It forms a body of experts whose opinions and
decisions must gradually educate the public, on the one hand, to
a better understanding of transportation problems, and restrain
the railroads, on the other, from many of the abuses incident
to unchecked competition among them. For, however theorists may
differ as to the advantages or disadvantages of competition
in manufactures and commerce, either absolutely unchecked or
checked only by high or low tariffs, I think all will agree that
unchecked _railroad_ competition is a great evil, because it
results in fluctuating rates and private rebates to large shippers.
The rebates, to be sure, are forbidden by law, but they can be
disguised past recognition. I have known a case, for instance,
where a receipt was given for 75 barrels of whiskey, when only
73 were shipped. The shipper was to make claim for two barrels
lost and be paid an agreed value as a rebate on his freight bill.
In another case, a road agreed with a certain shipper to pay his
telegraph bills for a certain period in order to control his
shipments. Understating the weight or class of the shipment is
another common device for undercharging or rebating.
In nearly every foreign country there is either a railroad pool or
a division of territory, to prevent this sort of competition, which
is only pernicious. A merchant needs to feel assured that rates are
stable and uniform to all, and not that he must go shopping for
secret rates, in order to be on an equality with his competitor.
In the United States the railroads had largely resorted to pools
before the Interstate Commerce Law forbade them. The result of
this prohibition has generally been very advantageous to the best
lines, which, under the pool, really paid a sort of blackmail to
the poorer lines to maintain rates. If the penalties of the law
can restrain such lines from rebating and under-billing, to be rid
of the pool will be a great blessing to the well-located roads. If
not, then the roads will be driven into consolidation, for the end
of fighting will be bankruptcy and sale. Fortunately consolidation
has already gone so far in many sections of the country that the
difficulties of abolishing rebates have been greatly reduced. And
as far as it has gone it has proved of much advantage both to the
public and to the stockholders.
Fortunately, too, the other results attendant upon consolidation
have been sufficiently demonstrated to remove any intelligent
fear of extortion in rates or deterioration of service. Who would
to-day desire to undo the consolidations which have built up the
Pennsylvania Railroad or the New York Central, and call back to
life the numberless small companies which preceded them? The
country has outgrown such service as they could render, and the
local growth and development along the lines of these consolidated
companies certainly indicates improved conditions. In this
connection, too, the improvement in cost and character of service
is instructive. In 1865 the average rate per ton per mile on the
principal Eastern lines was about 2.900 cents; in 1887 it was 0.718
for a service twice as speedy and efficient.
There are many other live issues of great interest and importance
in transportation suggested by this subject, such as "re-billing"
or "milling in transit," and "differentials," but space forbids
more than an explanation of the meaning of these two especially
prominent ones.
A B C
-----------------------------
Let A B and B C be two railroads connecting at B. Let the local
rates A to B be 10 cents per 100 lbs. on grain, and B to C also
10 cents. Let the through rate A to C be 18, since longest hauls
are usually cheapest per mile. Let A be a large grain market, such
as Chicago. Now a merchant at C can save 2 cents per 100 lbs. by
buying direct from A instead of buying from a merchant at B. For
the grain will pay less for the single long haul than for the two
short hauls. But perhaps the town of B has for many years enjoyed
the trade of C, and there are large mills and warehouses erected
there. B will then say it is "discriminated against," and will
demand the privilege of "re-billing" or "milling in transit."
That is to say, when a merchant or miller at B ships to C grain,
or flour made of grain, which he received from A, the two roads
consent to make a new way-bill and treat the shipment as a through
shipment from A to C. The road B C charges but 8 cents, and the
road A B gives B C one cent from the 10 it originally collected.
This involves much trouble and a loss of revenue to the roads,
and is, apparently, a discrimination against the home products of
B, but roads frequently do it where there is competition at C by
rival lines, and also at local points along their lines to build up
mills, distilleries, and factories of all kinds in competition with
those located elsewhere. As yet the Interstate Commerce Commission
has not pronounced upon this practice.