Show A GREAT LITTLE RAILWAY 1 The New York Evening Post has a I twocolumn article from the pen of J T Odell on Carnegies model railroad It Is a little road called the Bessemer Lake Eric railroad built from Con I I neaut on Lake Erie I lo Bessemer o es2cmcI near PItlsburg a distance of 153 miles for I the exclusive purpose of supplying He Carnegie11 steel works with ore at tile lowest1possible cost The road was un dprtakcn to demonstrate that certain commodities can be carried as cheaply I by rail as by lake steamers The cars curry thirty t tons The l locomotives weigh ninety tons The rails aro 100 pounds to the yard and the article says the study has been to reverse the usual rule on railroads which Is Unit 55 per cent of the weight hauled by locomotives of I freight trains Is dead weights and only 15 per cent paying load that to reverse this Is what Is I causing the present rehabilitation of t railroads The business which this lillle road does is something enormous the tonnage alone raw material and finished product being 10000000 tons last year or aa grout as the combined com-bined tonnage of the Northern Pacific the UnLon Pacific and the JiUssourJ Pa Llfic railways I embracing tis they do monf than lilODO milts of track and running probably 1GOO locomotives nnd I 50000 freight cars Some years ago the steel company became satisfied af ter careful In i I investigation lhat 1C a POI i lion of their tonnage was separalcd j from the general freight of the rnll I I roadH concentrated on a line controlled J con-trolled by their own company and j handled In solid train tho cost of I transportation would be materially re duccd and the reduced rate be remunerative 1 re-munerative to the railroad With this object lu view they aecureda road ojC I their own run from their mills to their own docks at Conneaut I on Lake Erie i The result was they obtained the low r4t rati per Ion per milo thp highest average length of revenue hauled in proportion to its track mileage the greatest density of tonnage In proportion propor-tion to Its freight train mileage the greatest average paying road and tho lowest ton mile cost of any road on tho continent The average paying road last year was 777 tons This year they expect the average road will be 900 tons 01 4 ½ times greater than the present average paying road of the country There are a great many other I details added to It hut the above gives an Idea of what freighting on railroads Is going to be in this country after a few years more of combination and adaptation of means to ends |