Following the earlier judgment of the Official Statistician, this Bureau seeks to arrive at a fair approximation of the capitalization of the railways of the United States through the reports of operating roads and the capitalization of the rentals paid for leased roads. This, in the more recent language of the Statistician, furnishes the only capitalization that "measures the claim of railway securities on railway revenues."
Applied to the returns received by this Bureau from 221,132 miles of operated line, this formula yields the following result for the year ending June 30, 1909:
| Summary Showing Capitalization of 368 Companies Operating 221,132 Miles of Line for the Year Ending June 30, 1909. | ||
| Capitalization | ||
| 1909 | ||
| (182,046 Miles Owned) | ||
| Capital stock | $6,199,919,551 | |
| Funded debt | 8,015,841,805 | |
| Receivers' certificates | 20,497,447 | |
| $14,236,258,803 | ||
| Rental of 39,086 miles, $120,784,982, capitalized at 5%. | 2,415,699,640 | |
| Total | $16,651,958,443 | |
| Deduct:(a) | ||
| Railway stocks owned (actual value) | $1,889,157,214 | |
| Other stocks owned (actual value) | 206,461,423 | |
| Railway bonds owned (actual value) | 1,054,095,905 | |
| Other bonds owned (actual value) | 140,282,728 | |
| 3,289,997,270 | ||
| Net capitalization, 1909 | $13,361,961,173 | |
| Net capitalization per mile operated | 60,425 | |
| (a) The par value of these stocks and bonds owned is given as $4,739,231,832. | ||
An estimate of $25,000 per mile for the 11,870 miles of line not reporting to this Bureau would add $296,750,000 to the above total. From this should be deducted $150,000,000 for the sum assigned by the Official Statistician "to other properties," and we arrive at the following close approximation of the true measure of the capital employed in the transportation industry of the United States:
| Net capitalization, 233,002 miles operated line, 1909 | $13,508,711,173 |
| Net capitalization per mile of line | 57,962 |
| Net capitalization per mile of track | 39,730 |
In computing the average capital per mile last given, no allowance has been made for the 8,927 miles operated under trackage rights for the sufficient reason that the rental paid therefor is represented in the total capitalization just as fully as if so much capital had been expended in the construction of that many miles of line.
It is worthy of note that the net capitalization thus arrived at through a straightforward analysis of the returns of the operating companies is in substantial agreement with the Commission's report on the Intercorporate Relationship of Railways in 1908. The construction of 11,000 miles of line since 1906 would undoubtedly account for the difference between $58,050 and $57,962 per mile of line.
| Summary Showing Net Capitalization of the Railways of the United States, 1909-1904. | ||
| Year | Net Capital | Per Mile of Line |
| 1909 | $13,508,711,173 | $57,962 |
| 1908 | 13,007,012,563 | 58,864 |
| 1907 | 13,064,279,303 | 59,600 |
| 1906 | 12,628,000,000 | 57,966 |
| 1905 | 11,167,105,992 | 53,328 |
| 1904 | 10,711,794,278 | 52,099 |