Average Number of Miles each Passenger was Carried.
Still, the average distance passengers ride is important; for, if the number of passengers remains the same and their ride is shorter, the receipts are diminished. The returns show that while the number of passengers has increased since 1882 about fifty-six per cent., the total miles travelled have not increased quite fifty per cent., marking a falling off in the average number of miles each passenger rode. The reduction is graphically shown in the little chart given herewith. This result is no doubt largely due to the great increase of suburban travel which has developed about our large cities within the past few years.
It is necessary to state, however, that the figures embraced in this study do not include the traffic of the elevated roads of New York and Brooklyn.
Passenger Profits.—Again a marked difference between freight and passenger traffic appears in comparing the chart given below with the corresponding chart on [page 440].
Profit per Passenger per Mile.
The study covers the history of the same roads in each case. The history of freight profits shows a persistent falling off, which in the nineteen years amounts to four mills per ton per mile, a loss of two-thirds of the six mills of 1870. The history delineated on this chart shows the average profit of the two roads to be almost exactly at the same point that it was in 1870, while the profits for most of the intervening years have been much greater.
Were this the record of the freight traffic, it would be much more gratifying to the managers of the roads, for the New York Central & Hudson River Railway receives about twice as much, and the Pennsylvania Railway receives four times as much, from freights as from passengers. Attention is invited to the opposite results of the same policy on these two roads in 1876. The chart of passenger rates on [page 441] marks a decided reduction of rates by the Pennsylvania Road, and a slight reduction by the New York Central & Hudson River Road. The chart of profits records an increase for the former and a decrease for the latter. This year (1876) is the date of the Centennial World's Fair at Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Road had an enormous increase of passenger traffic (double that of the following year), a record which it did not equal until 1887. The New York Central & Hudson River Road had but a slightly increased traffic, the record of which it passed in 1881.
GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS.
Dividends.—While many readers are probably not holders of railway stocks, yet a look at the dividends received by those who are will not be without interest. The little chart given below tells an interesting, although a not over-attractive story.