Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 Excerpt: ...heavy freight interfering with the passenger schedules. Others have the standard street railway gauge of five feet two inches instead of the standard steam railroad gauge of four feet eight and one half inches, and cannot interchange freight cars. Their value as feeders is in that way seriously reduced. Some are barred from transporting heavy car-load freight by the expense of electric locomotives, and some are unable to establish working relations with the steam railroads. The greater share of the freight shipments on electric railways is noncompetitive. A portion of the less than car load and the express traffic into and out of large cities is taken from the steam railroads, but most of this and practically all the car load and rural business is newly created. As a result many steam railroads do not oppose the freight services of the electrics and some encourage the business, because the electric lines act as feeders. Products carried from the farms to be sold in adjacent markets, and goods transported from the cities to the farms, seldom reduce the traffic of steam railroads; while shipments collected from the farms and smaller towns for delivery in distant markets manifestly increase the traffic of the steam lines. A large part of the success of the electric interurbans in the freight service is directly due to their ability to make traffic arrangements with the steam railroads. Some steam lines have opposed them by refusing to enter into such arrangements and by cutting rates; and, in various western states, laws have been passed to prevent temporary rate wars. But " it is a pleasure to note that the hostile attitude toward electric roads exhibited by some of the steam lines is steadily lessening, and that the freight handling facilities of the fo...
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