Page:The truth about the railroads (IA truthaboutrailro00elli).pdf/37

Rh just passed, the same average freight rates as in 1870, he would have paid $2,691,473,751.36 more than he did pay; if he had paid the same average rates per passenger-mile as in 1888, the additional payment would have been $147,260,000, the two amounts being greater than the entire earnings of all the United States railways in the last year.

But the railway-owner is now put to it to maintain and operate his property on the basis of present rates, present wages, present prices for material, present taxes, present rigid government restrictions, and the growing demand of a prosperous people for more and better service.

Railways are using rails of 90 and 100 pounds weight to the yard; freight-cars carrying 50 and 60 tons of freight; passenger-cars weighing 50 and 70 tons often carrying only a dozen people, or five tons of dead weight for one passenger, and locomotives weighing 300,000 to 600,000 pounds, with 58,000 pounds on a single axle. The railway-owner can go no further in using larger tools in his plant and Rh