Railroad Gazette/Volume 38/Number 5/Passenger Traffic

Increasing the Net Profit of Passenger Traffic.

In view of the tremendous gains of recent years in the economy with which freight is moved, it is noteworthy that in handling passenger traffic the tendency has been the other way. Magnificent terminal stations, luxurious trains and fast schedules, once viewed as extraordinary inducements, have come to be demanded as a matter of course, so that they have less and less of the advertising value which has been claimed for them. This is particularly true in heavy suburban traffic, where congestion at the terminal and extremely low commutation fares leave a very narrow margin of profit over cost; a margin so small that terminal enlargements in great cities, to permit of increased suburban service, are often undertaken rather on account of the building up of the territory, with the resultant long haul traffic, than in the hope of making better net profits from the suburban business itself.

The last meeting of the New York Railroad Club, an account of which was printed in the Railroad Gazette Jan. 27, was devoted to the consideration of two radical methods of increasing the net profits of passenger business, one of these methods, electrification, finding its field where traffic is very dense and the other rail motor cars, where traffic is very light. Electrification has not yet been seriously proposed for any applications outside of suburban traffic or special cases such as the Pennsylvania and New York Central terminal projects, where the use of steam locomotives is out of the question. The conditions of density and traffic distribution which are favorable for electric traction are at present confined to this suburban business. Rail motor cars, on the other hand, are being experimented with on branch lines and certain portions of main lines where the local traffic is light but where the demand for transportation is frequent, or where parallel trolley lines, by reason of lower fares and better service, create sharp competition. It is obvious that between these two extremes there is a vast field, embracing most of the existing mileage in the United States, where steam locomotives are, and will apparently continue to be, the most economical motive power for many years to come.

The electrification of an existing steam road involves many problems entirely outside of the engineering difficulties, and the cost of the electric power-house, transmission line and rolling stock equipment is only a small part of the expense which must be incurred. At the meeting referred to, Mr. W. J. Wilgus estimated it at about a quarter of the total. Assuming that the traffic is dense enough to justify the change from steam to electricity, then if the electric zone be of large enough radius to require through express service from outlying points, a separation of express and local trains on different tracks is absolutely necessary. Grade crossings cannot be allowed to exist, and greater care must be taken along the entire right-of-way to protect the line from trespassers, where an exposed third-rail is used. The interest on the cost of making these changes in the permanent way, when added to the cost of electrical equipment, is a large additional burden, to be offset partly by an increase in net earnings per passenger, due to more efficient operation, and partly by an increase in the number of passengers carried. The electric interurban roads have shown how a frequent and convenient service can create new business.

Rail motor cars, on the other hand, are a far less costly experiment. Practically no changes in the permanent way or terminal and station facilities are necessary, and the cost of three motor cars is but little more than that of an engine and three coaches. One man in the train crew is done away with (if the labor unions can be placated), and there are no men in the power-house or sub-station to compensate for this reduction in the working force. For such lines as rail motor cars are best adapted, no separation of traffic is necessary, and a single track can be operated almost as well as two tracks. On a line, say, 25 miles long, three motor cars can give an hourly service in both directions, whereas a steam train of equivalent seating capacity could give a service of only one train in three hours, and with the frequent stops could make little or no better time than the motor cars. In this country, a very useful field for the rail motor car, apart from branch line working, would be on sections of the trunk lines where important towns are from 25 to 50 miles apart and where the intermediate towns now have a local service of only one or two trains a day each way. The combined through and local passenger and freight traffic does not, and will not for many years to come, justify the electrification of such lines, but a good local train service between the small towns and the important cities should bring about a profitable development of the intervening country.

There are many indications that the time is surely coming when the uses of electrification, especially for passenger service, will be very greatly extended. For the present. it is only being called upon to increase the profits from passenger working where there is great congestion of short haul traffic. The courageous work now being done by the New York Central and the Long Island looks far ahead to the years when greater gross earnings and more efficient working together will be able to take care of the first cost, but there can be scarcely a doubt that that time will come bringing with it great rewards.