There are on file in the Post Office Department one hundred and two separate statements showing, for the month of November as to each mail route on the Burlington system, the space occupied and used for mail and for express and for passengers.
In order to make a comparison it was, of course, necessary to reduce each item of space used in each car to a common basis of feet, and the following table shows what are the actual facilities furnished in passenger trains for the three classes of traffic reduced to linear car-foot space:
Car Foot Mileage.
| Mail. | Passengers. | Express. |
| 62,246,130 | 428,164,920 | 39,525,540 |
| (11.75%) | (80.8%) | (7.45%) |
[Form 2602.]
Station Facilities Furnished for the Mails and Express and the Value of Other Items of Service Rendered.
Mail Expense.
| Monthly Cost of Handling Mail at Stations, labor, etc. | $14,241.67 |
| Monthly rental value of mail rooms in stations | 1,008.61 |
| Monthly rental value of tracks occupied by mail cars for advance distribution | 157.69 |
| Cost of lighting and heating mail cars for advance distribution | 114.25 |
| Value of 309,827 miles of free transportation to post office employees, not including postal clerks in charge of mail | 6,196.54 |
| Switching mail cars for advance distribution | 2,795.80 |
| Total for November | $24,514.56 |
The foregoing does not include the rental value of space furnished by the railroad company to the Government for handling mails and mail trucks on station platforms, and for storing the mails on platforms at large terminals. This is a large item, but statistics of such space used were not called for. At Chicago Station platform space to the amount of over 6,500 square feet is devoted exclusively to mails handled by the Burlington and Pennsylvania.