Page:Hine (1904) Letters from an old railway official.djvu/128

 risks of other losses, rather than run a train. In some cases this is all right, in others it is; all wrong. There is a happy medium which all of us should be allowed to work out for ourselves, to suit our own conditions. The trouble is that we are denied a sliding scale. All roads look alike to the critic, the reviewer and the broker.

Roads of dense traffic with much low-class freight, such as coal, coke, ore, pig iron, etc., to move, found it more economical to have large engines and heavy trains. The nature of the business demands a considerable supply always on hand. This permits waiting for full tonnage for every train. A few cars, more or less, at one end or the other of the line make no great difference to the shipper. These roads usually have more than one track and an old solid roadbed. This good thing of economical transportation was pushed along to us of the prairies. Here traffic is relatively thin, the track with dirt ballast is less solid, hauls are many times longer, and single track is the rule. Moreover, we frequently have merchandise, implements, machinery and other high-class freight in one direction, and such perishable stuff as