The new terminal is to be planned large enough to accommodate eventually the many passenger trains of the several large railroads that now enter the LaSalle and Dearborn stations. If this is ever brought to pass the city of Chicago will have accomplished a real economic benefit. For the land occupied by these two great stations and their yards is not alone a considerable acreage, but the terminals themselves have acted as real barriers to the most logical growth of the so-called Loop District—the busy heart of commercial Chicago. Barred on the east by Lake Michigan, and on the north and west by the Chicago River, this commercial center would have grown south long ago had it not been for these two great terminals. Their removal, therefore, would not only accomplish a passenger traffic consolidation—of great advantage to the through traveler—but would open a great downtown area for the development of Chicago’s heart.
[9] Definite announcement has been made by the Milwaukee that it will begin the extension of its electric-equipped main line through the Cascades to Puget Sound early in the summer of 1917. This will mean that for a time there will be a “gap” for about 400 miles in the vicinity of Spokane, where steam will continue to be used as a motive power. For a number of miles west of Spokane the Milwaukee’s main passenger line has trackage rights over the Oregon-Washington system. This fact, and the fact that electrification is best justified economically in mountainous districts is responsible for this “gap.” It is probable that it will not continue to exist for many years more.
At the present time the very high cost of electric locomotives suitable for hauling heavy freight and passenger trains for long distances is making the Milwaukee—today the unquestioned leader in this great progressive policy of electrification—move both slowly and surely. According to the last annual report of the road the most recent lot of twenty engines cost an average of $114,396.30 each—or about four or five times the cost of the largest steam locomotive. Despite the tremendous initial expense of these electric engines, their remarkable performances more than justify their cost.
[10] To a very prominent hotel in the White Mountains five years ago, ninety per cent of the patrons came by train; last year ninety-five per cent of the guests arrived in their motor cars.
“Talk about getting folks to go to California, or even to the Rocky Mountains,” said the veteran passenger traffic manager of one of the greatest of our transcontinental carriers, when he was in Boston a few weeks ago and heard of this, “we can and will advertise, but we are up against two tremendous competitors: The first of these is New York City, which is a tremendous permanent and perpetual attraction to all the rest of America 365 days out of the year. The second is the automobile, the family car, if you please, into which has gone the recreation money which otherwise might have been going into the ticket wickets of our railroads. Think of it, there were 900,000 pleasure cars built and sold in the United States last year, while the experts are placing 1,250,000 as the figure for 1917! More than $1,500,000,000—an almost incredible sum—was spent by Americans last year on automobiles, and all the things which directly pertain to them. What chance has the railroad against such a giant of a competitor?”
[11] “The railroad that neglects its branch-line service is playing with fire vastly more than it may suppose,” said a distinguished railroad economist only the other day. “It may feel that it has an economic right to neglect branch-line opportunities because of the limited revenue opportunities that these feeders ofttimes present. But it must not overlook one thing—the patent fact that many of the voters, the men and women whose sentiment expressed in their ballots may build or ruin the future of so many of our overland carriers, reside upon these same branch lines. Indeed, one may say that the manufacture of sentiment upon branch-line railroads is a business well worth the attention of a keen traffic-man. For it may be just that very amount of sentiment that might swing the balance for or against a railroad.”
[12] “Something more than a nation-wide railroad strike would have been required to interfere seriously with the business of the Norton Grinding Company, of Worcester, Mass., of the Halle Brothers Company, of Cleveland, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and some other far-sighted concerns,” says a circular issued by the White Automobile Company at the time of the strike crisis in August, 1916. In meeting the threatened emergency of having all freight shipments blockaded, these companies outlined a new example in industrial preparedness.
“The Worcester machinery makers and the great Bell institution increased their fleets of trucks by having the machines delivered overland to avoid all chance of strike congestion, while the Cleveland department store planned its own transportation system between the Atlantic seaboard and the Sixth City.
“The situation confronting the Norton company was one which demanded immediate action, and in which normal methods were of no avail. When a general suspension of all the ordinary facilities for moving goods seemed imminent, the Norton company placed its order for three five-ton trucks with the Seymour Automobile Company, The White Company’s Worcester dealer, and it was stipulated in the contract that the trucks should be delivered in Worcester within three days, independent of railroad service.
“The trucks were shipped by boat from Cleveland to Buffalo, and then driven overland to Worcester. The 500-mile journey was completed in the remarkably short time of forty-eight hours, with a gasoline consumption of better than eleven miles to a gallon. Stops were made only for the purpose of replenishing the gasoline and oil supply, and for meals for the drivers.”