[13] “The effect of the improvements wrought as the result of the self-propelled vehicle’s influence is already strikingly apparent. When Franklin County, New York, voted $500,000 in bonds to improve its system of roads, twenty-five cans of milk, weighing one hundred and twenty pounds each, constituted the average two-horse load. After the money raised by the bond issue had been spent, motor-trucks hauled fifty cans to the load. With the sum of $28,000 the twelve-mile stretch of road leading from Spottsylvania Court House to Fredericksburg was improved. In a single year $14,000 was saved in draying.
“The estimated cost of hauling the corn, wheat, oats, potatoes, cotton, and hay crops of the country is annually $153,000,000. No one knows how much of that vast sum could be saved if motors were able to ply between the farm and the railroad station. Very few cities have compiled statistics. Some light is shed on the subject in a report prepared by the Chicago municipal markets—not so much on the influence of good roads as on the reduction in haulage costs, which is effected by self-propelled vehicles running on fine pavements. It appears that it costs eleven and one-quarter cents to carry one ton a mile by motor in the city of Chicago, and seventeen and three-quarter cents by horse. The average cost of delivering a package by the department stores, grocery stores, and meat markets of the city is approximately eight cents by motor and sixteen cents by horse for each mile.
“Apply these figures to the cities of the entire country, and consider further that motor-trucks can deliver goods directly from the farm to the city retailer, and it seems not unreasonable to expect that the cost of living must at least be held stationary, if it is not actually reduced by the wider introduction of mechanical road vehicles. Surely, the horse must eventually disappear in our towns, at least, if the city consumer pays an average of one dollar and ninety cents for vegetables which the farmer sells for one dollar; if it costs more to haul by horse one hundred pounds of produce five miles from Chicago wharves to the householder or the retail store than to ship it by boat from the shores of Lake Michigan to Chicago; if it costs nearly half as much to deliver a ton of coal by horse from the railroad tracks to the business district of Chicago as it does to ship it four hundred miles by rail from southern Illinois to the city.”—Waldemar Kaempffert in Harper’s Magazine.
[14] “During 1916 the largest movement of troops took place in the United States, since the Spanish-American war. It began early in the year when regular army detachments of cavalry, infantry, artillery and engineers were sent to the border on March 11, March 20, May 9 and June 11. The transportation of these organizations was accomplished in an excellent manner, in exceptionally good time, and without accidents of any nature. On May 9, the militia of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, were called to the border, and on June 18, 1916, the National Guard troops of all the other States were called into the service of the United States, and directed to assemble at their state mobilization camps. From these points to designated stations on the frontier transportation arrangements were under the direction of the War Department. The troops began leaving their mobilization camps about midnight on June 26. On July 1 there were en route to the border from various sections of the United States, 122 troop trains, carrying over 2,000 freight, passenger, and baggage cars, with a total strength of 36,042 men. On July 4, 101 troop trains were en route, and 52,681 militia troops (not including Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas) were either at the border or on the way thereto. From the beginning of the movement up to July 31, 111,919 militia troops were moved to the international boundary.
“Some idea of the task imposed upon the railroads of the country by the transportation of the National Guard may be had when it is considered that 350 trains were necessary to carry the first 100,000 troops. Over 3,000 passenger cars, including standard Pullman and tourist cars and coaches, were provided, and in addition about 400 baggage cars, most of which were equipped as kitchen cars for serving hot meals en route, 1,300 box cars, 2,000 stock cars, 800 flat cars, and approximately 4,900 locomotives and crews, not including switching engines, yard engines and their crews. The call upon the railroads for the transportation of the militia occurred in the fortnight which includes the Fourth of July, the time of the greatest density of passenger travel in the eastern States. Instructions were issued by all railroads concerned that the movement of troop trains was to be given preference over other travel, and it is believed that this was done in all cases.
“To have effected the entire movement of all the troops in tourist sleepers would have required approximately 3,000 cars, or five times as many as were in existence. The Pullman Company, by utilizing some standard sleeping cars, made available for the movement 623 tourist cars. In all cases where it was possible to do so tourist equipment was furnished, and where they were not immediately available the troop were met en route and transferred to tourists in every possible case. Official reports from all military departments show that no organization moved in coaches in less space than three men to every four seats, and wherever possible two seats for each man. The total number of men transported in coaches averaged 30 men to each coach.
“Although the movement of organized militia came at a time when the commercial traffic on the railroads was the largest in years, it was accomplished with very little interference with regular train service, and with no congestion whatever, either at initial or terminal points or en route. In July there were moved into the Brownsville, Texas, district 106 special trains, composed of 1,216 cars of passengers and 1,201 cars of freight for the army, in addition to 680 cars of army supplies, handled in freight trains, and the usual commercial traffic. This district is reached only by one single-track line, and all rolling stock had to be returned over the same line.
“The concentration of the militia on the Mexican border and the mobilization for the great war in 1914 are not comparable, as all civil traffic was suspended in Europe to make way for military movements, and the distances involved in the movement to the Mexican border were very much greater than those in Europe. The longest run in Germany was about 700 miles, and in France much less, whereas the distances traveled by the troops in the United States varied from 608 miles, in the case of Louisiana troops, to 2,916 miles in the case of Connecticut troops. The majority of the troops came from northern and northeastern states and were carried over 2,000 miles, in most cases in remarkably fast time. For example, the Seventh New York Infantry with 1,400 men, equipment, ammunition, and baggage left New York at 2 p. m. on June 27, and arrived at San Antonio, Texas, at 8:30 p. m., on June 30, a distance of 2,087 miles. Shipments of freight were made from Washington and vicinity to the border in four days, from New York and vicinity in five days, and from the Great Lakes in a little more than forty-eight hours.
“As a specific example showing how the cooperation of the railroad companies assisted the army, there may be cited the case of the first motor trucks purchased for the expeditionary forces in Mexico. Twenty-seven trucks were purchased under bid in Wisconsin on March 14. They were inspected and loaded in fourteen cars; the men to operate them were employed and tourist cars furnished for them, following which a train was made up which left Wisconsin at 3:11 a. m., on March 16. It arrived at Columbus, N. M., 1,591 miles away, shortly after noon on the 18th; the trucks were unloaded from the cars, loaded with supplies, and sent across the border, reaching General Pershing’s command with adequate supplies of food before he had exhausted the supplies taken with him from Columbus.”—From the report of Quartermaster-General Henry G. Sharpe, of the United States Army, as reprinted in the Railway Age Gazette.
[15] “When railroads were started in England, they were influenced by stage coach precedents. They put the engineer behind the iron horse and called him a driver, they called the railroad car a coach or a van. They imitated the class distinction of the four-in-hand, and then charged by the mile. Coach travel cost by the mile. There were no terminal charges, no road upkeep charges. It was a piece rate proposition, a price per mile proposition as to revenues. The great difference between horse coaches and railroads was overlooked. Probably 90 per cent of stage coach expenses, whether of capital investment or operation, lies in the coaches, horses and harness. Even in the modern railroad, in the United States, only 20 per cent of the capital and 20 per cent of the operating expense are in the moving trains. Classified passenger and classified freight rates based on distance are founded on one-fifth of the real cost. This is not all. The cost of the other four-fifths has been increasing steadily from the start. Yard expenses are increasing far more rapidly than road expenses. The cost of terminals is growing with the square of the population. What is more serious, both will continue to rise. Getting so much for nothing, both passengers and shippers congregate in the big cities, and add still further to the congestion, to the increased cost of the part of railroading.