TRAIN LOSSES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 103, 3 May 1930, Page 11

TRAIN LOSSES.

STRIKING AMERICAN FIGURES LONGr iJISTANCE GAINS. ADVERTISING AND LUXURIOUS SERVICE. (By QUENTIN POPE.) In 1920, the Interstate Commerce Commission appointed by the Harding administration set down 5 J per cent as a fair return on railroad investments in the United States. In the following seven years railroad stock failed to return that amount to investors by considerably more than one billion dollars. The average profit of the railways in the United States over the six-year period 1921-0 was a fraction over 3 per cent, and there is no indication that this rate will increase during the next few years, or indeed for many years to come. This condition of affairs has arisen through continuous and marked decreases in the volume of passenger traffic throughout the States. In 1920 the railways handled more passengers than ever before; since that year the number carried has decreased from 15 per cent in the Great Lakes districts to almost 70 per cent in the south-west region. The thickly populated eastern district has suffered least; the decline has been 22 per cent. In the southern territories, however, it has topped 40 per cent, and in the west was almost 50 per cent. Passenger Losses. These figures have caused the railroads to take unprecedented pains in the effort to recapture the passenger traffic which has been plundered from them by the road. What the decrease means to individual companies can be gathered from the figures which F. A. Wadleigh, passenger traffic manager of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad Corporation laid before the Interstate Commerce Commission • after five years of decline. He showed that in that period his company's passenger traffic in Colorado had fallen from 987,000 to 459,000, and that passenger revenue had decreased from 3,140,000 dollars to 1,732,000 dollars. During the same period, the population of the State increased by 72,000. Most of this decline has been attributed to the increasing competition of private cars and public motor buses, and it was estimated recently that owing to the force of this competition some 30,000 miles of railroad track will shortly have to be scrapped. In 1925 the railway mileage in the United States totalled 250,000, and had already been. exceeded by motor bus mileage, which reliable* figures placed at 270,000. The full force of competition thus was being felt by 'he railways, with the possibility of increasing motor bus mileage making the position increasingly desperate. Too Many Trains. However, the pressure of the road is not alone to blame for the fail iu dividends which railroad stockholders have witnessed. Sections of the more thickly populated States Lave been over-rail-roaded and over-served by expensive trains. The St. Paul Railroad, which recently went through the receiver's hands, maintained 14 .daily trains between Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, on a route exceptionally well catered for by competing lines. At the moment there are five different companies operating 38 daily trains between Chicago and Omaha, while between Chicago and Mirmeapolis-St. Paul (twin cities) there are seven companies operating 20 daily passenger trains. Between Chicago and St. Louis four corporations run 38 daily trains, of which about ten are unnecessary. The Chicago and Alton Corporation, which is also in the receiver's hands, has been operating 16 trains over routes where eight would have been enough. Advertising and Improvements. To remedy this state of affairs is, of course, beyond the powers of any authority in the United States, but the economic pressure of the road rivalry is certain to force reconstruction of many hitherto powerful railroads and drastic alterations in traffic volume. As a •specific for the malady which has descended upon them, the railroad corporations have determined to place their faith in two things —advertising and the improvement of railway facilities. The advertising campaign, devised by the American Association of Passenger Traffic Officers, and inaugurated at the annual conference at Hot Springs in 1920, directs the public mind towards "saving to travel." The other main line of effort, the making of travel more speedy and comfortable, has produced liberal spending, intensified competition, and, by encouraging further spending, has produced a dangerous tendency, which may result in further damage to the roads themselves. The chief discovery which lies at the back of both movements, advertising and improved equipment, is the fact that while shortdistance travel shows a downward curve on the railways' passenger chart, the tendency of long-distance travel is more slowly but surely upward. In 1921 the railways obtained about 31 per cent of their total passenger earnings from travellers in sleeping cars and parlour cars, about 69 per cent coming from the coach traffic, much of it from commutation. Fiv e years 'later, almost 44 per cent of the traffic was from the longdistance people, and the coach figures had fallen to 5G per cent. It is the endeavour to exploit this change in traffic conditions that is leading each road to try to gain for itself a bigger proportion of the sleeping car traffic. "Refinement" of Service. This " refinement of the service " has led to extraordinary extravagance in design, upholstering, and furnishing of the de luxe trains which each railroad maintains. In 1926 over £5,000,000 was spent on refurbishing the extremely expensive passenger trains which the companies maintain, and large sums have been spent in advertising them. Not alone have they panelled, coaches with rare woods from Persia, . Egypt, and India, but they have filled them with expensive furniture, rugs, and pictures, installed radios, and even provided gymnasium and dancing floors. Some trains carry tailors, barbers, and maids, besides the secretary-stenographer, who is now quite an ordinary event. Dining cars are operated at a heavy loss, cars and engines are painted in gay colours, and trains are given special names. The Crescent Limited, the Chief, the Panorama Special, the Pine Tree Limited, the Red Bird, the Golden State Limited, and the Flamingo are some of the names that adorn principal de luxe trains to the west and south. Speeding up the service has resulted in»a new and ingenious scheme of surcharges by the companies on top of the Pullman charges, which complicate railway fares in the United

States. Standard times have been laid down for various runs, and specific charges are made for each, hour saved. The basic time from New York to Chicago is 28 hours, and for each hour saved the passenger is charged one dollar 20 cents. Between Chicago and the Pacific Coast, where the standard time is - OS hours, two dollars is charged for each hour saved. The railroads are now collecting six million dollars per year in these fares. In addition, the roads are endeavouring to make commutation more luxurious, are experimenting with gas-electric rail cars, and constructing and operating buses. In 1920 there were over 50 railroad companies operating buses of similar design to those of their competitors, the bus companies. Their mileage in that year was 7700, and the New England Company, a subsidiary of the New Haven, had 190 of them. This seems the ultimate admission that the day of short distance railway travel in the United States is rapidly passing.