The car space provided for the mails on this route is equivalent to ten full sixty-foot cars daily, over the whole length of the route, or 365,000 car miles a year. At 18 cents per mile the pay would be $65,700, whereas the actual pay is only $42,132. If the Government paid for the service in proportion to the facilities it demands and receives, it would pay $98,244.
VI.
Route 135,007. Chicago to Burlington (205 Miles). Average Daily Weight, 192,540 pounds.
| Per cent Space | Per cent Earnings | Should Earn on Space | Did Earn. | |
| Passenger | 73.14 | 74.72 | $210,134 | $214,671 |
| 17.19 | 13.74 | 49,387 | 39,462 | |
| Express | 9.67 | 11.54 | 27,782 | 33,170 |
| $287,303 |
On the basis of space used and facilities provided for the mails, the Burlington road is underpaid $119,000 a year on this route.
Two-thirds of the weight of mail is carried in special trains run at great speed and unusual expense, for which no extra allowance is made. The extension of the route to Omaha is across Iowa, where it is "Land Grant," and subject to land grant deductions.
The Government made a "gift" to the company in 1856 of lands amounting to 358,000 acres and then valued at $1.25 per acre, or $447,500.
The mail pay deductions to June 1, 1910, on account of this Iowa land grant aggregate $1,650,000, and still continue at the rate of $62,000 a year.
Neither in the foregoing six statements of results upon separate mail routes, nor in the general statement of results upon the Burlington Road has any allowance been made for the expense to the company of what is called the "Mail Messenger Service."
At all points where the post office is not over one-fourth of a mile from the railroad station the railroad company must have all the mails carried to and from the post office.