For carrying milk, special cars have to be provided, as particular attention has to be given to the matter of ventilation in connection with a small amount of cooling for the proper carrying of the milk. Not only the cars but the train service has to be especially arranged for in particular cases.
Freight from all Quarters—Some Typical Trains.
As an instance, the Long Island Railroad Company makes a specialty of transporting farmers' truck-wagons to market. For this purpose they have provided long, low, flat cars, each capable of carrying four truck-wagons. The horses are carried in box-cars, and one farmer or driver is carried with each team, a coach being provided for their use. During the fall of the year, they frequently carry from 45 to 50 wagons on one train, charging a small sum for each wagon, and nothing for the horses or men. These trains run three times weekly, and are arranged so as to arrive in the city about midnight, returning the next day at noon. The trains by themselves are not very remunerative, but by furnishing this accommodation, farmers who are thirty or forty miles out on Long Island can have just as good an opportunity for market-gardening as those who live within driving distance of the city. This builds up the country farther out on the island, which in turn gives the road other business.
The movement of freight is not always successfully accomplished. In spite of good organization, every facility, incessant watchfulness, accidents will occur, freight will be delayed, cars will break down, trains will meet with disaster. The consequences sometimes fall heavily on the railway companies. The loss is frequently out of all proportion to the revenue. The following instance is from the writers own experience:
Some carpenters repairing a small low trestle left chips and shavings near one of the bents. A passing train dropped some ashes. The shavings caught fire and burnt one or two posts in one bent. The section-men failed to notice the fire. Toward evening a freight train came to the trestle, the burnt bent gave way, and the train was derailed. Two men were killed, one severely injured, and eighteen freight cars were burned. The resulting loss to the railroad company was $56,113. Of this amount, the loss paid on freight was $39,613.12. As a matter of interest, and to show the disparity between the value of the commodities and the earnings from freight charges received by the railway company, the amount of each is given here in detail, taken from the actual records of the case:
| Property destroyed. | Amount paid by railroad company. | Freight charges on the same. |
| Butter, 200 pounds at 35 cents | $70.00 | $0.50 |
| Ore, 75.9 tons at $3.50 | 265.80 | 56.91 |
| Paper, 4,600 pounds | 269.10 | 8.74 |
| Pulp, 10,400 pounds | 160.00 | 12.65 |
| Shingles, 85 M | 192.50 | 11.00 |
| Horsenails | 2,986.06 | 37.44 |
| Lumber | 252.00 | 18.40 |
| Apples, 159 barrels | 508.80 | 15.26 |
| Hops, 209 bales, 37,014 pounds | 34,908.86 | 59.22 |
| $39,613.12 | $220.12 | |
This was during the fall of 1882, when hops sold in New York for over $1 per pound.