The difficulties in adjusting the matter of the long and the short haul, as has been shown, have caused the formation of pools and various other traffic associations, the object of which has been to prevent rate-wars. To this extent they resulted in positive good, for a rate-war in the end is apt to be as hurtful to the community as to the railway company. The attempt to settle such questions has also resulted in a great deal of legislation. Some of this has been wise and good; but not a little has been hurtful both to the railroads and to the community. The general result is seen in the great combination of competing lines and, more recently, of competing systems.
Passenger Service.—Passenger traffic is more easily managed than the movement of freight. For the greater part the rates are fixed by law. On a few eastern roads local rates are two cents per mile; in the main, however, a three-cent rate prevails, except that in sparsely peopled regions the rates are four and five cents per mile. On many roads 1,000-mile books are sold at the rate of twenty dollars; on some the rate is twenty-five dollars per book.
Long-distance rates involving passage over several roads are somewhat less than the local rates. These rates are determined by joint passenger-tariff associations. Each individual road fixes its own excursion and commutation rates; one or another of the joint passenger associations determines the rates where several roads divide the traffic. The latter are usually one, or one and one-third fares for the round trip.
Except on a few local roads in densely peopled regions the passenger service is much less remunerative than freight business, and not a few railways would abolish passenger trains altogether were they permitted to do so. Rate-cutting between competing roads has not been common since the existence of joint passenger associations. It is sometimes done secretly, however, through the use of ticket-brokers, or "scalpers," who are employed to sell tickets at less than the usual rate; it is also done by the illicit use of tickets authorized for given purposes, such as "editors'," "clergymen's," and "advertising" transportation.
In many instances, where several roads have the same terminal points, it is customary for the road or roads having the quickest service to allow a lower rate to the others. Thus, of the seven or eight roads between New York and Chicago, the two best equipped roads charge a fare of twenty dollars on their ordinary, and a higher rate on their limited, trains. Because of slower time the other roads charge a sum less by two or three dollars for the same service. This cut in the rate is called a "differential."
Railway Mileage.—The railways of the world in 1900 had an aggregate of nearly four hundred and eighty thousand miles distributed as follows:
| North America | 216,000 |
| Europe | 173,000 |
| Asia | 36,000 |
| South America and West Indies | 28,000 |
| Australasia | 15,000 |
| Africa | 12,000 |
In western Europe and the eastern United States there is an average of one mile of railway to each six or eight square miles of area. In these countries railway construction has reached probably its highest development, and the proportion seems to represent the mileage necessary for the commercial interests of the people.
The railways of the United States aggregate 193,000 miles—nearly one-half the total mileage of the world. Over this enormous trackage 38,000 locomotives and 1,400,000 coaches and cars carry yearly 600,000,000 passengers and 1,000,000,000 tons of freight. They represent an outlay of about $5,000,000,000. Owing to the absence of the international problems that have greatly interfered with the organization of European railways, the roads of the United States have developed "trunk-system" features to a higher degree than is found elsewhere.