The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, during the calendar year 1900, increased its freight traffic by 1,760,000 tons. Of this only 194,000 tons were specified as products of agriculture and animals, while products of the forests actually declined by 84,000 tons. In other words, nearly all of this phenomenal increase in business in 1900 was due to the movement of manufactures, minerals and merchandise. A comparison made for the last three decades makes this point still more clear. Since 1880 there has been very little increase in agricultural tonnage upon this trunk line, with an actual decrease in the movement of grain. This, perhaps, may be in part explained by the great development of grain traffic upon the lakes, which, of course, absorbs much business formerly carried by this road. In other words, farm products and provisions transported by the Lake Shore rose from 3,465,000 tons in 1880 to only 3,843,000 tons in 1900. The movement of petroleum and lumber actually decreased, owing to the construction of pipe lines and the clearing of the forests. On the other hand, manufactures and merchandise increased threefold in volume, rising from 3,754,000 tons in 1880 to 14,932,000 tons in 1900. Whereas agricultural products in 1880 formed over forty per cent. of the traffic upon the Lake Shore, they constituted in 1900 less than twenty per cent. Much the same tendency is manifested by other routes. Thus for the fiscal year 1901, the Chesapeake & Ohio reported substantial decreases in the actual tonnage of flour, grain, sand, stone, iron, etc.; but a largely augmented movement of general merchandise of the higher classes. Many of the soft-coal roads, such as the Cleveland, Lorain & Wheeling, which used to carry nearly two-thirds of their tonnage in the form of coal, now carry less than forty per cent. A feature of importance in the great prosperity of the anthracite coal roads has been a steady increase in the volume of their general traffic as distinct from coal tonnage. All over the country, in short, the steady growth of population and the decline in the proportion of grain for export is reducing, relatively, the importance of low-grade tonnage, supplanting it by a movement of supplies and merchandise in the contrary direction.
The classification of tonnage for the United States, as a whole and by main divisions, is shown by the following excerpt from Statistics of Railroads for 1909:
Freight Traffic Movement
| Class of commodity | United States | Trunk Line Territory | Southern Territory | Western Territory | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tonnage Tons | Per Cent | Tonnage Tons | Per Cent | Tonnage Tons | Per Cent | Tonnage Tons | Per Cent | |
| Products of agriculture | 73,600,000 | 8.92 | 19,000,000 | 4.65 | 9,500,000 | 7.92 | 45,100,000 | 15.18 |
| Products of animals | 20,600,000 | 2.49 | 7,600,000 | 1.86 | 1,000,000 | .83 | 11,900,000 | 4.03 |
| Products of mines | 459,500,000 | 55.60 | 256,200,000 | 62.71 | 63,000,000 | 52.20 | 140,200,000 | 47.22 |
| Products of forests | 97,100,000 | 11.75 | 21,500,000 | 5.28 | 25,300,000 | 20.95 | 50,200,000 | 16.92 |
| Manufactures | 108,600,000 | 13.15 | 70,000,000 | 17.15 | 13,300,000 | 11.09 | 25,100,000 | 8.48 |
| Merchandise | 33,900,000 | 4.11 | 13,500,000 | 3.31 | 4,800,000 | 3.98 | 15,600,000 | 5.26 |
| Miscellaneous | 32,800,000 | 3.98 | 20,500,000 | 5.04 | 3,600,000 | 3.03 | 8,600,000 | 2.19 |
| Grand total | 826,400,000 | 100.00 | 408,600,000 | 100.00 | 120,700,000 | 100.00 | 297,000,000 | 100.00 |
Conclusions from these figures are well worth noting. The importance, measured by traffic rather than revenue, of low-grade freight classed as products of mines, is notable. This forms more than half the aggregate tonnage for the United States, and has appreciably increased within the last ten years. In 1910 it constituted almost two-thirds of the business in trunk line territory and almost one-half in the West. Products of agriculture, on the other hand, even in western territory, amount to less than one-fifth of the total tonnage. These facts indicate clearly the diverse conditions under which railways operate in different parts of the country. The next table,[493] besides incidentally throwing more light upon the relative tonnage of staple commodities, will suffice to establish our main point—namely, that the nature of the traffic vitally affects all ton mile revenue statistics. It entirely, in fact, overshadows mere changes in the general level of freight rates. Any argument concerning the movement of such charges, which fails to correct fully for this factor, may be dismissed at once as valueless.
Summary of Selected Commodities for the Year Ending June 30, 1910[494]
| Commodity | Freight carried in carload lots Tons | Ton-mileage of freight carried in carload lots | Revenue from freight carried in carload lots Ton miles | Average receipts per ton per mile from freight carried in carload lots Cents |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grain | 31,947,009 | 7,067,690,568 | $44,553,330 | 0.630 |
| Hay | 5,856,185 | 954,623,830 | 9,731,590 | 1.019 |
| Cotton | 3,400,316 | 689,594,719 | 12,573,674 | 1.823 |
| Live stock | 10,754,108 | 2,449,310,036 | 29,802,514 | 1.217 |
| Dressed meats | 2,407,454 | 724,239,606 | 6,548,955 | .904 |
| Anthracite coal | 28,202,577 | 5,104,428,347 | 30,083,630 | .589 |
| Bituminous coal | 192,479,389 | 22,228,778,428 | 110,139,107 | .495 |
| Lumber | 68,482,732 | 11,891,569,514 | 87,225,470 | .734 |
A second consideration in the interpretation of ton mile data, of equal importance with the nature of the traffic, is the length of the haul and the proportion of local as distinct from through business. This necessarily follows from the nature of a distance tariff. Only on condition that the rate augmented in direct proportion to the increase of distance, would the revenue per ton mile remain constant. The diagram at page [108] is instructive in this connection. The charges—denoted by the height of the curve at any given point—tend to grow much less rapidly than distance. In other words, the rate curve approaches a parabolic form, until after a certain point it becomes practically a flat rate, independent of distance. This fact of necessity causes ton-mile revenue to decrease steadily with the length of the haul. For ton-mile revenue is but the ratio of the abscissa to the ordinate of the curve at any given point; the former being the rate charged, the latter the distance.
In practice, therefore, the longer the haul in general, the lower is the revenue per ton mile.[495] This is clearly shown by comparison of the two items for given roads, otherwise similarly circumstanced, in the table already discussed on page [415].