1902-31910
Traffic density—Percentage of tonnage— Traffic density
Agric'l productsProducts of mines Manu­factures
Rock Island Company.428,116252914581,000
C. M. & St. P.605,139232417709,000
Great Northern657,102———814,700
N. Y., N. H. & H.802,954———1,057,000
Wabash885,208243291,322,000
Baltimore & Ohio2,181,51866282,711,000
New York Central2,163,0001644122,548,000
Lake Shore ('05)3,355,209———3,911,000
Penn'a Railroad ('05)6,337,625———5,139,000

The first of these companies operates in a sparsely settled agricultural territory. The St. Paul system lies nearer Chicago, but is still largely dependent upon a local and rural constituency. The Great Northern—a great transcontinental trunk line—despite its sparsely settled western area, exchanges a large volume of through freight for the Pacific Coast for lumber and other bulky products carried east. The New Haven serves perhaps the most densely settled area in the United States, but much of its traffic is on branch lines and is of a retail character. The Wabash lies in well settled territory and hauls a heavy tonnage of low-grade freight. The last two are not only great trunk lines to the seaboard, but also tap the coal and iron fields. Much of their tonnage is consequently of low grade. The Pennsylvania enjoys a still further advantage, super-adding a rich local traffic in manufactures and merchandise. As compared with its rival trunk line, the New York Central, it hauls relatively little grain; but, on the other hand, the New York Central has a much smaller coal and iron business. Some one has aptly characterized the difference between the two roads, describing the New York Central as "operating between good points, but not through a good country" so far as local business is concerned. On the one, through traffic is supplementary to local business, while on the other it is the reverse. The high density of trunk line traffic is such that about two-thirds of all the tonnage of the United States is transported east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio river.

Traffic density has enormously increased during the last two decades, as a result of the filling up of the country and the relative cessation of new construction. This is manifested by the growth since 1890. In that year the density was less than 500,000 ton miles per mile of line, and during the depression of 1893 it fell well below that figure. The total of 1,053,000 reported for 1911 represents, therefore, more than a doubling of the density in twenty years. This growth during 1898 and 1905-'06 was notable. The latter period, especially, was a time when congestion upon all the roads of the country occasioned much distress. The fact is evident that the country has well grown up to the measure of its existing transportation facilities.

The second measure of effective operation for the production of increasing returns, is concentration in the trainload. This is regarded by many as the supreme test of efficiency in management. Great progress has been made during the past years in this regard in the United States—an improvement which has largely enabled the carriers to bear up under an increasing burden of expenditure. The trainload is generally adopted today as the unit of operation, measuring the cost of service.[60] It is a fact that, within certain limits, the cost of handling a train does not vary greatly with its capacity. Since the first application of air-brakes to freight trains in 1887, a train crew sufficient to handle fifteen cars can care for thirty about as well in long haul wholesale business. Fuel cost, also, as has been shown, lags well behind the rate of increase of the load. Eaton in his Railroad Operations, concludes that from thirty to fifty per cent. of cost is independent of the trainload. The effect is that any increment in the paying load very materially decreases the cost of operation per ton.

Progress in the United States in increasing the average train load is shown by the lowest curve on the diagram on page [97]. The scale applicable is along the left hand side of the chart. From 175 tons per train in 1890 to an average figure of 383.10 in 1911 is certainly a remarkable showing. The most rapid increase seems to have occurred after 1897, with the first resumption of general prosperity. As for individual roads, the following table of average train loads is suggestive, as showing the gradation between roads of different type, as well as progress from year to year:

Average Number of Tons of Freight Per Train (Tons per Train Mile)

Road (Fiscal Years)190119051910
Pennsylvania Railroad (East of Pittsburg)478498649
Pennsylvania Company (West of Pittsburg)382420511
Pennsylvania System (Both)454476607
Chesapeake & Ohio511557701
Great Northern347541520
Erie Railroad379416497
New York Central & Hudson River365381413
Northern Pacific324367429
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe238265298
Chicago & Northwestern255259261
New Haven208222293
Southern190194237

The great coal and iron roads, the trunk lines and the transcontinental lines all concentrate their business; while the granger roads, like the Atchison and North Western, the roads with much local business like the New Haven or the Southern, operating in sparsely settled regions, all have of necessity smaller trainloads. But all alike betray remarkable progress in this regard. In 1870 the average for the best roads was little above 100 tons,—such as 103 tons reported for the New York Central and 137 tons on the Lake Shore. From this level to results of 400 or 500 tons on the average represents a notable achievement. The Lake Shore for 1911 reports a revenue train load of 635 tons. It should be observed, however, that such results come from longer trains, not, apparently, so much from larger cars. To raise the average trainload on the Wabash from 196 tons in 1890 to 386 tons in 1908 is also worthy of note. The significance of these recent figures can be realized from the fact that the London & North Western, one of the leading railroads in Great Britain, reports recently an average freight train load of only 68 tons. This represents probably a fair average for European railroads as a whole, although in England the general practice of privately owned cars, of light locomotives, short freight sidings, etc., may reduce the figure slightly below the continental average. Statistics not only show the notable improvement in recent years; they at the same time show how the trainload performance is affected by trade conditions. For nearly every road the trainloads for 1904 were distinctly lower than in the preceding years. This was a year of acute business depression. The movement of great staple commodities, such as iron ore, coal, steel and iron and lumber, was greatly curtailed. All business was conducted on a narrower basis. Smaller trainloads were an almost inevitable consequence. The revival in the following year, however, immediately improved the conditions of operation, as the figures indicate.

It will be noted that the figures for the American roads above given represent averages. These are compounded from local and through traffic taken together. It is apparent at once that local trains must average far lighter loads than are customary upon long hauls without breaking bulk. Thus New England railroads report for 1906 an average trainload of only 220 tons, while other parts of the country, such as the North Central group, report 426 tons of paying load. Only by separation of local from through business can we adequately appreciate the enormous advances which have taken place in railroad operation in the United States, with corresponding reductions in the cost of transportation. While the New York Central at one time reported an average trainload of 322 tons, the average load of its through trains on the main line rose as high as 750 tons. More than twice this figure is attained upon the Pittsburg, Bessemer & Lake Erie road in hauling ore from the lakes to the furnaces at Pittsburg. The Illinois Central, for its low grade and long haul to the Gulf, has recently built locomotives capable of hauling 2,000 tons of net paying load. A standard grain train on the Lake Shore in 1903 consisted of fifty cars holding forty tons each. Even this figure has recently been surpassed by the New York Central, which, with its monster new "mogul" engines, hauls eighty loaded 30-ton cars, giving 2,400 tons of revenue freight. The Mallet locomotives with a tractive effort of 100,000 lbs., at present seem to have reached the limit of size and weight. Seventy-five grain cars holding 1,000 bushels apiece are equivalent to the production of twenty bushels per acre of an area of six square miles. This is an ordinary trainload. It is not infrequent to transport a fifth more than this. Eighty and even one hundred cars in a train since 1900 often bring the load up to 3,600 and even 4,000 tons of freight. Such a train is over four-fifths of a mile long. From these figures it certainly appears that trainloads for long haul are standardized at not less than 2,000 tons, a figure which would have seemed absolutely impossible to railroad managers of fifteen or twenty years ago. The maximum trainload in Germany on coal traffic, which, of course, greatly exceeds any general average for trains of all classes, is about five hundred tons. It has been regarded as a notable achievement that this represents an increase of about one hundred tons in the last decade.

On the other hand, the extravagant promises of economy from large trainloads have been considerably abated of late. It has been effectively demonstrated that there is a limit to such growth. Only low-grade and long haul carload traffic can profitably be concentrated. In 1903, for instance, a general decrease in trainloads followed a reduction in the relative amounts of low as compared with high grade tonnage. Less iron, coal, and raw materials and more merchandise and manufactures offered for carriage, necessitated a positive reduction in the trainloads as already mentioned. Nor can local business in less than carload lots profitably be concentrated beyond a certain point. Grades must be uniform to attain such economy. The trainload must not exceed the traction power on the heaviest inclines, or else expensive pusher engines or breaking up of trains will offset all other savings. Moreover, too great trainloads even on the best roadbeds involve slower speeds. Not only is other traffic thus impeded, but the economy in wages vanishes after a certain point with such slower movement. The fashion had been set by James J. Hill, the master mind in the transcontinental field. His notable results, due to a careful working out of every detail, led to a frenzied imitation on all sides. Many roads then discovered to their loss that while they had provided rolling stock for heavy loading, ampler terminals, longer sidings and heavier bridges also were a necessary accompaniment. Part of the congestion of traffic in 1906-1907, already mentioned, and a portion of the financial embarrassments of recent years, were undoubtedly due to too great haste in seeking economies of this sort in rolling stock, without at the same time making provisions for enlargement of other portions of the plant. A more discriminating policy has consequently resulted of late. Traffic is being sorted according to its availability for concentration. The best utilization of the rails and terminals is being more considered. Business demands for quick delivery also enter into the calculation. Instead of a few huge slow-moving leviathans blocking other trains, the line may perhaps better be kept full of many smaller trains moving more nearly together. Such are certain of the details now being worked out. None of them, however, weaken the main proposition that a discriminating concentration of traffic conduces very greatly to economy of operation.