If he is a new man in the territory, he is measured against his predecessor. Afterwards, he is measured month by month, against the corresponding month of the preceding year. All tickets which were sold from his territory, and in which his road shares, are credited to his influence. It becomes a matter of cold calculations and of dollars and cents. If this April does not show an increase over April of last year, the T. P. A. must make a mighty good explanation to his chief. It will have to be famine or pestilence or something nearly as bad to justify the slump in ticket sales. An insinuation on his part that a reduction of the service of his road was responsible for the slump would never be accepted at headquarters.
The New York Central Railroad is building a new Grand Central Station in New York
City, for itself and its tenant, the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad
The concourse of the new Grand Central Station, New York,
will be one of the largest rooms in the world
South Station, Boston, is the busiest railroad terminal in the world
The train-shed and approach tracks of Broad Street Station, Philadelphia,
still one of the finest of American railroad passenger terminals
So, all in all, the life of the travelling passenger agent is no sinecure. It is easiest when he is in the home territory of his road, rather pleasant when that road is non-competitive. But when he is out in “foreign” territory, fighting for a road which is hardly more than a name to the folk with whom he comes in contact, his difficulties increase; when, if his road is one of the weaker fry, its trains slower and less frequent than some of the other trunk-lines, his difficulties increase. The differential-fares by which the slower competing roads are permitted by their stronger brethren to charge a reduced rate between important distant traffic points were adopted to help to equalize this difficulty. But the differentials do not count, neither do the differential lines now get their share of the through business. Last year fifty per cent of the passengers between New York and Chicago went on the eighteen-hour train, even though the regular full fare of $20 in each direction is increased by an excess fare of $10, aside from the Pullman rates. Twenty-five per cent more travelled on the limited trains, which makes an excess of $5, in addition to Pullman rates, in each direction. It begins to look as if the American public were willing to pay for added comfort and convenience. Pullman operation has doubled within the past ten years. Pullman chair-cars are operated to-day on hundreds of miles of branch line railroads that would not have dreamed of such a luxury a decade ago.