as the Eastman Heater Cars. They are provided with an automatic
self-feeding oil-stove, so arranged that fire can be kept up under
the car for about a fortnight without attention. These are largely
used in the fruit trade.
[Illustration: Unloading a Train of Truck-wagons, Long Island
Railroad.]
For carrying milk, special cars have to be provided, as particular
attention has to be given to the matter of ventilation in
connection with a small amount of cooling for the proper carrying
of the milk. Not only the cars but the train service has to be
especially arranged for in particular cases.
[Illustration: Freight from all Quarters--Some Typical Trains.]
As an instance, the Long Island Railroad Company makes a specialty
of transporting farmers' truck-wagons to market. For this purpose
they have provided long, low, flat cars, each capable of carrying
four truck-wagons. The horses are carried in box-cars, and one
farmer or driver is carried with each team, a coach being provided
for their use. During the fall of the year, they frequently carry
from 45 to 50 wagons on one train, charging a small sum for each
wagon, and nothing for the horses or men. These trains run three
times weekly, and are arranged so as to arrive in the city about
midnight, returning the next day at noon. The trains by themselves
are not very remunerative, but by furnishing this accommodation,
farmers who are thirty or forty miles out on Long Island can have
just as good an opportunity for market-gardening as those who live
within driving distance of the city. This builds up the country
farther out on the island, which in turn gives the road other
business.
* * * * *
The movement of freight is not always successfully accomplished. In
spite of good organization, every facility, incessant watchfulness,
accidents will occur, freight will be delayed, cars will break
down, trains will meet with disaster. The consequences sometimes
fall heavily on the railway companies. The loss is frequently out
of all proportion to the revenue. The following instance is from
the writers own experience:
Some carpenters repairing a small low trestle left chips and
shavings near one of the bents. A passing train dropped some
ashes. The shavings caught fire and burnt one or two posts in one
bent. The section-men failed to notice the fire. Toward evening a
freight train came to the trestle, the burnt bent gave way, and
the train was derailed. Two men were killed, one severely injured,
and eighteen freight cars were burned. The resulting loss to the
railroad company was $56,113. Of this amount, the loss paid on
freight was $39,613.12. As a matter of interest, and to show the
disparity between the value of the commodities and the earnings
from freight charges received by the railway company, the amount of
each is given here in detail, taken from the actual records of the
case:
------------------------------+-----------------+------------------
Property destroyed. | Amount paid by |Freight charges on
|railroad company.| the same.
------------------------------+-----------------+------------------
Butter, 200 pounds at 35 cents| $70.00 | $0.50
Ore, 75.9 tons at $3.50 | 265.80 | 56.91
Paper, 4,600 pounds | 269.10 | 8.74
Pulp, 10,400 pounds | 160.00 | 12.65
Shingles, 85 M | 192.50 | 11.00
Horsenails | 2,986.06 | 37.44
Lumber | 252.00 | 18.40
Apples, 159 barrels | 508.80 | 15.26
Hops, 209 bales, 37,014 pounds| 34,908.86 | 59.22
------------------------------+-----------------+------------------
| $39,613.12 | $220.12
------------------------------+-----------------+------------------
This was during the fall of 1882, when hops sold in New York for
over $1 per pound.
The plan of payment for car service by the mile run,
without reference to time, has the merit of simplicity and
long-established usage. It is, however, in reality, crude and
unscientific, and has brought with it, in its train, numerous
disadvantages.
The owner of a car is entitled, first, to the proper interest
in his investment, that is, on the value of the car; second, to
a proper amount for wear and tear or for repairs. The life of a
freight car may be reasonably estimated at ten years, so that ten
per cent. on its value would be a fair interest-charge. The average
amount for repairs varies directly as to the distance the car
moves, and may be put at one-half cent per mile run.
It will be seen that by the ordinary method of payment the
car-owner is compensated for interest at the rate of ¼ of a cent
for the time that the car is in motion, but receives nothing for
all the time the car is at rest. If cars could be kept in motion
for any considerable portion of each twenty-four hours, this would
prove ample. But in practice it is found that few roads succeed
in getting an average movement of all cars for more than one
hour and a half in each twenty-four. This gives about five per
cent. interest on the value of the car, only one-half of what is
generally conceded to be a fair return. Still further, there is no
inducement to the road on which a foreign car is standing to hasten
its return home. On the contrary, there is a direct advantage in
holding the car idle until a proper load can be found for it,
rather than return it home empty. The most serious abuses of the
freight business of the country have grown from this state of
affairs. It costs nothing but the use of the track to hold freight
in cars; consequently freight is held in cars instead of being put
in storehouses, frequently for weeks and months at a time.
There is but little earnest attempt made to urge consignees to
remove freight; on the contrary, the consignees consider that
they can leave their freight as long as they choose, and that the
railroad companies are bound to hold it indefinitely.
One special practice has grown up as a result of this condition,
that of shippers sending freight to distant points to their own
order. This practice is most prolific of detention to cars, and yet
is so strongly rooted in the traffic arrangements of the country
that it is most difficult to put an end to it. Cars "to order" will
frequently stand for weeks before the contents are sold and the
consignee is discovered, during which time the cars accumulate,
stand in the way, occupy valuable space, and have to be handled
repeatedly by the transportation department of the road, all at the
direct cost of handling to the road itself, and loss of interest to
the owner of the car.
[Illustration: Floating Cars, New York Harbor.]
Only two methods have so far been suggested to abate or put an end
to the evils which have been but slightly indicated above. The
first is a change in the method of payment for car service to a
compensation based upon time as well as mileage, which is commonly
known as the "per diem plan."
This plan consists in paying for the use of all foreign cars a
fixed sum per mile run, based on the supposed cost of repairs of
the car, and a price per day based upon what is estimated to be a
fair return for the interest on its value. This plan was originally
suggested by a convention of car accountants, and was brought
up and advocated by Mr. Fink, the Chairman of the Trunk Line
Commission, in New York, in the fall of 1887. At his suggestion,
and largely through his influence, it was tried by a few of the
roads (the Trunk Lines and some of their immediate connections)
during the early part of the year 1888; the amounts as then fixed
being one-half cent per mile run, and fifteen cents per day. The
results of this experiment, while they were quite satisfactory
to the friends of the proposed change, yet were not sufficiently
conclusive to demonstrate the value of the plan to those who were
indifferent or hostile to it.
For various reasons, chiefly local to the roads in question, the
plan was discontinued after a few months' trial. The experiment
resulted, however, in the collection of a large mass of statistics
and other data, the study of which has led many to believe that
the plan is the proper solution of the difficulties experienced,
and, if adjusted so as not to add too much to the burden of those
railway companies who are borrowers of cars, that it would meet
with the approval of the railway companies throughout the country.
It certainly provided a strong inducement to all roads to promptly
handle foreign cars, and in that particular it proved a great
advance over the existing methods of car service. The charge per
day of fifteen cents was found too high in practice. Ten cents
per day and a half-cent per mile would produce a net sum to the
car-owner very slightly in excess of three-fourths of a cent per
mile run. While this appears but small, yet it would be quite
sufficient to amount in the aggregate to a considerable sum, and
would serve to urge all railway companies to promptly unload and
send home foreign cars. This plan would result, if generally
adopted, in largely increasing the daily movement or mileage of all
cars, or, what would be equivalent, would practically amount to a
very considerable increase in the equipment of the country.
The plan has recently been approved by the General Time Convention,
and there is strong probability that it will be very extensively
adopted and given a trial by all the railways during the year 1890.
The second method of remedying the existing evils of car service
is in a uniform and regular charge for demurrage, or car rental,
to be collected by all railroad companies with the same regularity
and uniformity that they now collect freight charges. This car
rental, or demurrage charge, would not be in any sense a revenue
to the car-owner; the idea of it being that it is a rental to the
delivering company, not only for the use of the car but for the
track on which it stands, and the inconvenience and actual cost
that the company is put to in repeated handling a car that is held
awaiting the pleasure of the consignee to unload. The difficulty
in the way of making such a charge has been the unwillingness of
any railroad company to put any obstacle in the way of the free
movement of freight to its line, and the fear that an equivalent
charge would not be made by some one of its competitors. Of late,
however, the serious disadvantages resulting from the privileges
given to consignees at competing points, by allowing them to hold
cars indefinitely, have led the different railway companies to come
together and agree upon a uniform system of demurrage charges at
certain competing points.
If these two plans could be put into operation simultaneously, a
fair and uniform method of charging demurrage, coupled with the per
diem and mileage plan for car service, the results would be most
satisfactory not only to the railway companies and car-owners, but
also to the community.
* * * * *
The matter of freight transportation is a vast one, and whole
chapters might be written on any one of the various topics that
have been but slightly mentioned in this sketch.
The subject is fraught with difficulties; new complications arise
daily which, each in its turn, have to be met and mastered. The
publicity recently given to the various phases of the railway
problem has done much to enlighten the public mind in regard to
these difficulties.
The result has already been evident in the growing spirit of mutual
forbearance and good-will between the railway companies and the
public. Let us hope that this will continue, and that as time goes
on their relations will steadily improve, so that the public, while
yielding nothing of their legitimate demand for safe, prompt, and
convenient service, will at the same time see that this can only
be secured by allowing the railways a fair return for the services
rendered; while the railways will learn that their true interest
lies in the best service possible at moderate, uniform rates.
FOOTNOTE:
[27] EXPLANATION. Each connecting road at each junction station is
assigned a number, and when a car is received from a connection
the record is shown by entering the road number in the upper space
of the block under the proper date, followed by the character ×
if loaded; or, if empty, together with the time, as for example:
Car 29421 is shown as received, Dec. 2d, from the Amherst &
Lincoln Ry. at Port Chester (10), loaded (×), at 21 o'clock, or 9
P.M. A similar entry in the lower space of the block indicates a
_delivery_ to connecting line. The middle space of the block is
used for the car movement, the first number or letter showing the
station from which the car moved. The character × as a prefix to
a station number indicates that the car is being loaded at that
station. The --, when used as a prefix, shows that the car is being
unloaded; as an _affix_ it indicates a movement empty, or on hand
empty. When the -- is used _under_ a station number it indicates
a change date record, that is, leaving a station on one date and
arriving at another on the following date. Station numbers or
letters without other characters show that the car is loaded.
The sign (B) is used when a car is left at a station for repairs,
while in transit. The sign (T) denotes that the lading was
transferred to another car, a transfer record being kept showing
to what car transferred; the sign (R), when a car is on hand at a
station or yard for repairs. Shops are assigned numbers with an O
prefix; the upper and lower spaces being used to show delivery to,
or receipt from the shop, similar to the interchange record.
For convenience the twenty-four hour system is used for recording
time, and is shown in quarter-hours; thus, 10, 12^1, 18^2, 21^3,
representing 10 A.M., 12.15 P.M., 6.30 P.M., and 9.45 P.M. This,
used in the movement record, shows the running time on each
division, or detention at train terminals.
The "transfer" column shows the station at which the car was
reported on the last day of the previous month, and the _arriving
date_; also from what road received, with date.
HOW TO FEED A RAILWAY.
BY BENJAMIN NORTON.
The Many Necessities of a Modern Railway--The Purchasing and
Supply Departments--Comparison with the Commissary Department of
an Army--Financial Importance--Immense Expenditures--The General
Storehouse--Duties of the Purchasing Agent--The Best Material the
Cheapest--Profits from the Scrap-heap--Old Rails Worked over into
New Implements--Yearly Contracts for Staple Articles--Economy
in Fuel--Tests by the Best Engineers and Firemen--The
Stationery Supply--Aggregate Annual Cost of Envelopes, Tickets,
and Time-tables--The Average Life of Rails--Durability of
Cross-ties--What it Costs per Mile to Run an Engine--The
Paymaster's Duties--Scenes during the Trip of a Pay-car.
The commissary or supply department of a railroad is not unlike
that of a large army. Like a vast army, its necessities are many,
and the various departments which make up the whole system must be
provided with their necessary requirements in order to accomplish
the end for which it is operated.
If, again, we regard a railroad as a huge animal, the quantity
of supplies needed to fill its capacious maw is something
overwhelming. It is always hungry, and the daily bill of fare
(which includes pretty much everything known to trade) is gone
through with an appetite as vigorous and healthy at the end as
it exhibits in the beginning. Yet how few there are who realize
the important part this one feature plays in the operation of
the thousands of miles of railroad throughout the world! Upon
the proper conduct of this department depends very largely the
success of any road, so far as its relation to the stockholders
is concerned; for while, as has been the case in the past,
combinations and pools have aided in maintaining rates, and have
served to increase the income, and attention has been paid to
securing additional business in every possible way, the "out-goes"
have often been overlooked, to the detriment of dividends and the
general welfare of the property.
The supplies must be furnished in any event, in order that the
various departments may perform their allotted duties--coal for
the engines, stationery for the clerks, ties and rails for the
tracks, oils for the lubrication of the thousands of axles daily
turning, passage-tickets for the travellers, and a thousand and one
things which are absolutely necessary for the safe and efficient
conduct of every railroad in active operation. Each item serves its
purpose, and, properly assimilated, keeps alive all the functions
of one vast and complicated system. It is easy to see, then, the
importance, first, of proper economy in buying, and then a correct
and systematic distribution of all supplies. On the Philadelphia &
Reading Railroad, for instance, the annual supply bills aggregate
more than $3,000,000, covering such supplies as those just
mentioned, and, in fact, everything which is purchased and used in
the operation of the road; so that on a large system like that,
the commissary department requires no end of detail, both in the
purchase and the distribution of all material.
The expenditure for lubricating oils, waste, and greases alone
amounts to more than $150,000 per annum, while the outlay for fuel
represents about $1,200,000, and this is comparatively a small
sum, since that road is a coal road, so called, and the cost for
fuel, as a matter of course, is reduced to a minimum. There the
store-room system, which has now been pretty generally adopted by
many of the larger roads, is fully exemplified. With a General
Store-keeper in charge, all supplies purchased are accounted for
through him, and distributions are made daily among the sub-store
rooms, which are located at convenient points; and they in turn
distribute among the various departments, for consumption, all
accounting daily to the General Store-keeper at Reading.
To give an idea as to the quantity of material required in the
service on such a road, it may be stated that from twelve to
fifteen car-loads of supplies per day are shipped to various
points. When we consider that an ordinary car will carry from
fifteen to twenty tons of freight, we find that the annual
requirements will average about four thousand car-loads, or, say,
about fifty thousand tons, and if all the cars were made up into
one solid train they would occupy fully twenty-five miles of
track, and consume an hour and a half passing a given point running
at the ordinary speed of freight-trains.
To account carefully for all this requires necessarily a large
army of clerks and other assistants, though, with the fundamental
principles correct, it is no more difficult to account for large
quantities than for small. The supplies are purchased in the first
instance, delivered at the General Storehouse, are there weighed or
measured and receipted for, are then distributed on requisition,
and finally delivered to the several departments when needed; are
charged out to the various accounts, after consumption, and all
returns and records are finally kept on the books of the General
Store-keeper.
It would be a large army indeed which would require so much for
its maintenance; and, remembering the hundreds of roads, small and
large, throughout the country, the measure of one's comprehension
is nearly reached in estimating the amount of money and the
thousands of tons of material represented.
If the buyer of railroad stocks for investment, besides looking
into the returns of freight and passenger business for his
decision, would investigate carefully the method adopted for the
purchase and distribution of supplies on any road in which he may
be interested, he might get information enough to satisfy himself
that a large portion of the earnings were dribbling out through
this department, and that, as a result, his stock might eventually
cease to be a dividend payer.
In the matter of buying, the result depends entirely upon the
purchasing agent, and this position must necessarily be occupied
by a man of honor and integrity, coupled with a reasonable amount
of shrewdness and aptitude for such business. As this department
covers to a greater or less degree pretty much all the known
branches of trade, the buyer cannot, under ordinary circumstances,
thoroughly master the whole field as an expert; but he can
nevertheless inform himself in the most important articles of
manufacture to the extent of preventing deception or fraud. The
field is extensive, and the sooner railroad companies realize that
the purchasing agent is not a mere order clerk, the sooner they
will discover that their disbursements for supplies are very much
less, and that the chief part of the leakage has found its source
in this very department.
Exactly the same principles are involved in this matter as in the
case of a thrifty proprietor of a country-store, whose profits each
year depend materially upon the closeness and care with which his
stock in trade is purchased from the wholesale dealers in a large
city. A purchasing agent's experience is varied in the extreme,
dealing as he does with all classes of salesmen and business
houses. There is no end to the operations which skilful salesmen
go through in offering their stock; but after some experience a
sharp buyer will be able to fortify himself against the best of
them--even against the clever vender of varnishes who disposed of
one hundred barrels of his wares in small lots to different buyers,
on a sample of maple-sirup. On the other hand, a salesman who,
when a buyer asked him if his oil gummed, replied that "it gummed
beautifully," lost the chance of ever selling any goods in that
quarter.
As has been said, the ordinary or general supplies consumed in the
operation of the average railroad include almost everything known
to trade. Tobacco, for the gratification of the taste of a gang
of men out on the road with the snow-plough, is not outside the
list; and even pianos, for some trains (since the days of absolute
comfort and possible extravagance have begun) for the benefit of
passengers setting out on long journeys; nor do we lose sight of
books, bath-tubs, and barbers. The practical feature involved,
however, calls for an endless variety of expensive as well as
inexpensive materials.
It is a safe rule to follow that anything which goes into the
construction either of track, equipment, or buildings, should be
the best. Care should always be exercised against the use of any
material the failure of which might be the cause of loss of life,
and consequently result in heavy damages to the company. Iron alone
enters so extensively into railroad construction and operation
that it is safe to say three-fourths of all manufactured in this
country is consumed directly or indirectly in this way; and besides
its use in rails and fastenings (the latter including spikes,
fish-plates, and bolts and nuts), and in the many thousand tons of
car-wheels and axles annually required, there must be reckoned the
almost unlimited number of castings daily required in the way of
brake-shoes, pedestals, draw-heads, grate-bars, etc. The lumber and
timber for buildings, bridges, platforms, and crossings, and the
large quantity of glass which is necessary, are among other large
items of expenditure.