It seems to me, however, that we are beginning to miss the real point and pith of the thing. Let us grant the motor-truck some of the obvious things that are in its favor: the vastly increased proportionate energy of the internal combustion engine over that of the steam locomotive, no matter what may be its fuel; the flexibility and economy of the unit over that of the electric motor in districts and upon lines of comparatively light volume of traffic. These advantages the motor-truck has already shown where it is given the opportunity of a well-paved highroad. Upon a bad road there is little economy in its use. It thrives best upon the roads which were built, primarily at least, for the comfort of the passenger automobile.
But suppose we improve upon that well-paved highroad. There is not a concrete nor an asphalt highway in the world that is comparable with the polished surface of the smooth steel rail. The tractive power of any unit increases vastly when it is used—often as high as twenty-five times.
In other words, and to drop simile, we take off the expensive rubber tires of the motor-truck and substitute for them the steel, flanged wheels of the railroad-car or locomotive. Presto! We have a completely self-contained locomotive far lighter than the lightest practicable steam locomotive and running at about a 35 per cent. power economy, while with that locomotive we combine the freight-car or the passenger-car, or both.
“If it were not for the gasolene-motor unit I should not be able to operate this little road to-day,” says the general manager, superintendent, and all-around Pooh-Bah of a short-line up in the hills of northwestern Pennsylvania.
I know precisely what he means. His oil comes from near-by wells. He buys it at a great economy. His good-sized truck—it will carry seven or eight tons of freight or passengers—is enabled to make six round-trips a day over twelve miles of line at far less cost than a small locomotive and train would involve for but two round-trips a day. In other words he has tripled his service, with inevitable beneficial results to the passenger-traffic of the little road, and has made real savings in his operating costs. A road which otherwise would have been added to that appalling total of abandoned railroad mileage for 1921 has been saved, to the great benefit of the communities that it serves.
Not long ago I rode from Kane to Mount Jewett, twelve miles across the hills of that same northwestern corner of Pennsylvania. I wanted to catch the northbound flyer of the Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburg railroad out of the latter town. Between Kane and Mount Jewett there stretches a rather remote branch of one of America’s largest and best operated railroads. It was in the dead of winter and I should have preferred to ride upon a railroad train. But one train a day and missing the important connections gave me no opportunity whatsoever. I was forced to ride in a motor-bus upon a slippery ice-coated highway. Twenty-three other persons, the most of them also trying to catch the northbound flyer of the B. R. & P., were doing the same thing. The bus made four trips a day in each direction and the driver said that it was not only good business but steady. He charged seventy-five cents for the ride in each direction, which was something more than six cents a mile. A good many people complain at paying more than 3.6 cents a mile upon the rail, but they are not usually short-haul riders.
Here was a steam railroad losing its traffic by default. Obviously it might not be able to put a steam train on that little run—in all probability a worn-out engine with two worn-out and dirty cars—and make a successful opposition to the motor-bus, but I think that with its own well-planned motor-unit operated on frequent headway and in connection with the trains at its terminals it would regain for the railroad a large portion of the lost traffic. Unfortunately, as I have said, this was a remote branch line. Yet the president of the railroad of which it is a branch has much pride in the thought that he loses nothing in the efficiency of the operation of his property because it is merely widespread. He honestly and sincerely is trying to build up its service, to repair the inroads made into it during the period of Federal administration. He has done wonders in a few short months. But, largely because he is but a man and not a super-man, he cannot know everything about his remote branches of this sort. He cannot even build up an organization that will know it. No president of a 4,000-mile railroad ever can. Which is one of the large evils to be charged forever against the absentee landlordism method of operating our railroads.
In a certain Eastern State there is a small railroad of about 130 miles in length which narrowly escapes being known as a real short-line railroad. The fact that the road’s annual earnings barely exceed a million dollars just bring it within the Interstate Commerce Commission’s classification of Class I railroads. It traverses a rough mountain region. Its business is largely seasonal. In the summer it hardly can secure enough passenger-cars and locomotives to handle its tourist business. In the winter it can hardly find enough passengers to justify the operation of two small trains over the line, while at all times its freight traffic is inconsequential.
When first I came to know this property a dozen years or more ago it operated three passenger-trains a day the year round over the entire system—the main line and two branches. But that was before the day of the competitive motor-buses and the improved highways that now parallel almost every mile of its trackage and for which, as a heavy taxpayer, it has contributed rather liberally. Its local fare at that time was fixed at three cents a mile, although a State law compelled it to sell mileage books at the rate of two cents a mile.