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Show MILLION GO TO THE WEST. Railroads Carrying 3ettlers and Freight Earned $700,000,000. (Omaha Bee.) Final reports of the railroads of the west for 1907 have just been completed complet-ed and give some idea of the rate at which the west Is being populated.- The sross earnings and mileage of the systems sys-tems which are carrying settlers and the" materials for "building ' cities and homes into the west are greater than ever. The gieat roads which either originate origin-ate passenger and freight business- in the states of the middle' west, or form the connecting link which carries the traffic to the new homes of the far west, operate 'more' than .75,000 miles of track, or about 34 per cent of the total in the United States, and their immense business during 1907 may be realised from the fact that their combined com-bined PTOSs earnings were $700,000,000. Railroad men believe that tho number num-ber of passcrgers carried to the west to make up this great total must be more thin 1,C00,C00. The balance is t:ie gros o:' oil tha freight traffic over the many lines. Not All Settlers from E.tst. -Many of those who have gone west during Hie year were from Iowa, Illinois. Illi-nois. Indiana, Missouri and not a few from Nebraska. The northern Hill roads have carried thousands from Wisconsin and Minnesota. Not all the honieseekcrs are from the far east and only a small percentage of them immigrants immi-grants who were unloaded at the Atlantic At-lantic or gulf seaboards. Some idea of the railroads now required re-quired to carry the people and freight into the west may be gained from '..,te mileagle of the western railroads and the earnings just compiled from the reports for t'oe year. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fc railway, essentially a western road, has tracks that aggregate a length of 6,908.98 miles. Its total earnings amount to more than S7S.000.000 a year. The Chicago & Northwestern railway, rail-way, operating more than 7.000 miles of track, has 2,611.12 miles in the west. The Chicago. Burlington & Quincy has 4,276.79 miles west of the Missouri river. The total earnings amount to $63,000,000. The Chicago-Great ' Western, while not distinctively a western railway, is one of the principal connecting links between eastern markets and western productions. It has 1,452 miles of track. Its gross earnings for the year were nearly $8,500,000. Milwaukee's Big Year. The Chicago. Milwaukee A: Stfl Paul railway operates 4,859.30 miles of railway rail-way in the western states. It has more than 1.000 miles under construction. The total earnings amount to more than $55,000,000 annually. Chicago, itock Island & Pacific is another an-other road with branches into many-parts many-parts of the west. Its total mileage is 7.723.3. Its gross earnings a year are 151,000,000. Colorado & Southern railway operates ope-rates 1,055.74 miles of tracks and its gross earnings are nearly $12,000,000. Colorado Midland operates over 336 miles of rails and its gross earnings were $2,000,000. Denver & Rio Grande has tracks that total 1,819.75 miles, and its gross earnings were nearly $20,000,000. This includes the business of the Rio Grande Western. The Frisco system is largely a western west-ern road, although it has lines in Illinois Illi-nois and Indiana. The western trackage track-age foots ur 5,075 miles. Its gross earnings earn-ings were ?32.000,000. Great Northern railroad is 5.957 miles long and its gross earnings are oast the $40,000,000 mark. Houston & Texas railway has 786.7S miles of track. Its earnings are included in-cluded in the Southern Pacific figures. Illinois Central operates 1,000 miles ot track in the western states. International & Great Northern operates ope-rates 1,153.6 miles of track, and its gross earnings foot up more than $6.-500,000. $6.-500,000. Kansas City Southern and the Tex-arkana Tex-arkana & Fort Smith operates 839 miles of tarck. with a gross business of nearly $8,000,000. Missouri, Kansas & Texas operates 3,072 miles of railway, and had gross earnings for the year of $21,000,000. - Missouri Pacific, with 6,333 miles, piled up a gross business of nearly $45,-000,000. $45,-000,000. Northern Pacific, with 5,429 miles, had a gross business of more than $65.-000.000, $65.-000.000, a substantial increase over 1S06. This company also operates a line of trans-Pacific steamers. Oregon Railway & Navigation company, com-pany, also operating steamship lines, is part of the Union Pacjfic system. Its earnings are included in the Union Pacific. Pa-cific. San Antonio & Arkansas Pass railway, rail-way, with 723.7 miles, did a gross business busi-ness of $3,000,000. Southern Pacific operates 8,313 mile of track and did a gross business of more than $98,000,000. St. Joseph & Grand Island, with 313 miles of track, did a gross business of more than $1,500,000. Texas & Pacific, operating principally principal-ly in the southwest, has a total trackage track-age of 1,848 miles, and did a gross business bus-iness of $12,000,000. The total trackage of the Union Pacific Pa-cific is 2,955.45 miles, and its gross business bus-iness amounted to $67,000,000. Several thousand miles of lines have been added since the beginning of last year, the trackage added to the steam transnof-taiion faimioa nt cni-an alone amounting to -more than 200 miles. Of the foregoing 4.000 miles cf steam and electric lines are in operation opera-tion in the Spokane country, there are 1.83S miles under construction and i,125 miles projected. In the Canadian northwest, partly tributary to Spokane, are several projects. Including the Grand Trunk Pacific, the Canadian Pacific Pa-cific and the Canadian Northern, which will add almost 10,000 miles to the trackage of the country, which means that in a few years the gross business will be held beyond the .Sl.OOO.OuO.OOO mark. |