To attempt it only involves a destruction account of
fearful magnitude. Under our present system, we are _perpetually
rebuilding_ our roads, not realizing the _life_ of our works, and thereby
running capital to waste."
"With good earthwork, thoroughly drained, well-ballasted tracks, rails of
good iron, correct form, not exceeding 60 pounds per yard, and properly
supported at the joints, the ties properly preserved, and the whole
maintained by a judicious system of repairs, the average working expenses
might unquestionably be reduced by as much as 18 cents per mile run."
The mileage of the Massachusetts railways for 1859 was 5,949,761 miles run,
and the expenses of operating $0.93, being a saving of 15 cents over those
of 1856, amounting to $892,464. If, by a judicious expenditure of $5,000
per mile, a still further saving of 18 cents per mile run could be made, it
would amount, on the present mileage, to $1,070,956 per annum, which, the
receipts being equal, would return eight per cent. on the increased capital
of sixty-eight and a half millions of dollars.
* * * * *
We have thus shown the combined effects of financial mismanagement and
imperfect construction upon our railway property. But there is a third evil
to be cured before it can become productive.
Under the present system of railway management, everybody is busy getting
rich at the expense of the stockholders. Railway men are as honest as the
average of mankind, but there is no reason why they should be more so; and
if their temptations are greater, a certain percentage of them will
inevitably yield to those temptations,--just as statistical tables show
that the average number of arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct
is greater on Sundays and holidays than on working-days.
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