The Mail Pay on the Burlington Railroad Part 2

If it had paid such cost in 1909, it would have paid to the C. B. & Q.

approximately a million dollars more than it did pay.

RESULTS ON VARIOUS MAIL ROUTES.

The foregoing are statements of results on the Burlington System as a whole, showing earnings and expenses and facilities furnished to the Government mail service.

It may be of interest, and throw light on the situation, to show results for November upon several separate mail routes in the system, ranging from small routes carrying 200 pounds of mail daily, up, through routes carrying weights, respectively, of 1,300, and 8,000, and 20,000 pounds daily, to the heaviest route carrying 192,000 pounds, covering the fast mail service from Chicago to Omaha.

Weights of express packages are not kept on separate mail routes and statements therefore of express earnings for such separate mail routes are necessarily estimated, but, as given in the following tables, they are approximately correct and corroborate the comparative results for the Burlington system as a whole, which results are based upon exact figures for express as well as for mails and for pa.s.sengers.

I.

Route 157,030, Kenesaw to Kearney (Nebraska), 24.68 miles. Average Daily Weight 216 Pounds.

_Percentage _Percentage _Should Earn _Did of s.p.a.ce of on Basis of Actually Occupied._ Earnings._ s.p.a.ce Used._ Earn._ Pa.s.senger 83.79 88.90 $1,238 $1,314 Mail 9.37 6.02 139 89 Express 6.84 5.08 101 75 ------ $1,478

The mail earnings on this route are $89 per month, or $3.44 daily. The service for the Government is performed in an apartment car fifteen feet long, and closed pouch service, four trains carrying mail daily, except Sunday, giving an actual return to the railroad of three and a half cents per mile run, or about one pa.s.senger fare at three cents per mile although the Government demands the use of a 15-foot car fitted up as a post office in which a postal clerk is carried free, and this car must be lighted, heated and kept in repair, and carried over the route each way daily, except Sunday.

On this branch the actual earnings on pa.s.sengers per pa.s.senger car are 55 cents per car mile.

The post office apartment car equals one-quarter of a pa.s.senger car, and the mail should, on this basis, earn at least 14 cents per mile, but it does earn, for all the mail service, at the rate of 3- cents per mile, less the expense of delivering mail to and from post offices.

During the weighing period the mails are carried on 90 days and weighed on 90 days, but under the Cortelyou order, these aggregate weights are divided by 105 and the result is called the "average" and forms the basis of pay on this route for four years.

This mail service in a traveling post office on an expensive railroad is paid about one-third the rate per mile that the Government pays to a rural route carrier who carries an average of 25 pounds of mail.

II.

Route 157,028. Odell to Concordia, Kansas. 72 Miles. Average Daily Weight, 282 Pounds.

_Per cent _Per cent _Should Earn _Did s.p.a.ce_ Earnings_ on s.p.a.ce_ Earn._ Pa.s.senger 80.82 81.44 $2,482 $2,501 Mail 11.76 9.38 361 288 Express 7.42 9.18 228 282 ------ $3,071

Mail earnings $288 per month (26 days), or $11 per day.

This service demands a twenty-five-foot apartment car each way for which the pay amounts to 7.64 cents per car mile run, or about the fares of two pa.s.sengers at three cents per mile who may occupy one seat.

The service is six days per week, but the aggregate weight carried in the six days is divided by seven to obtain the Cortelyou "average" on which the pay is based.

The payment for a twenty-five-foot traveling post office is a little over half the pay per mile for a rural route carrier.

III.

Route 135,012. Streator to Aurora (Ills.). 60 Miles. Average daily weight, 1,303 pounds.

_Per cent _Per cent _Should Earn _Did s.p.a.ce_ Earnings_ on s.p.a.ce_ Earn._ Pa.s.senger 72.84 85.64 $4,800 $5,643 Mail 17.38 7.51 1,145 495 Express 9.78 6.85 644 451 ------ $6,589

Mail earnings (26 days), $495 per month, or $19 per day.

Four trains on this road carry mail daily, two each way, two in a twenty-five-foot mail apartment and two in a thirty-foot mail apartment, an average earning rate of 7.88 cents per car mile.

The pa.s.senger cars on this branch carry an average of 24 pa.s.sengers each, and earn 48 cents per car mile. The average mail apartment furnished is half a pa.s.senger coach.

These four apartment cars, at the same rate as the pa.s.senger cars (24 cents per mile), would earn $18,029 per year.

The pa.s.senger train earnings on the branch are $79,000 a year. The mails demand 17.38 per cent of the facilities, and on that basis should earn for the company $13,730.

The mail earnings were $5,940, this being the annual compensation after a reduction of nine and one-half per cent through the Cortelyou order, requiring the aggregate of 90 weighings to be divided by 105 to ascertain the "average."

IV.

Route 164,004. Edgemont to Billings (Wyoming). 366 Miles. Average Daily Weight, 8,087 Pounds.

_Per cent _Per cent _Should Earn _Did s.p.a.ce_ Earnings_ on s.p.a.ce_ Earn._ Pa.s.senger 85.79 89.22 $85,476 $88,895 Mail 10.43 6.18 10,392 6,156 Express 3.78 4.60 3,766 4,583 ------- $99,634

Two 60-foot postal cars are run daily each way.

The mail earnings are $6,156 per month, or $205 per day.

The total earnings of the pa.s.senger trains on this road are $1,195,000 a year, and the mails required 10.43 per cent of the pa.s.senger train facilities; on this basis they ought to pay $125,000 a year.

These post office cars are hauled 534,000 miles every year. The Postmaster-General estimates that the actual cost to the railroads of operating a sixty-foot postal car is 18 cents per mile. At this rate the Burlington Company should be paid $96,000 a year for the service of the postal cars only.

It is, in fact, paid for all the mail service on this road $73,872 annually.

V.

Route 135,010. Galesburg to Quincy (Ills.). 99.93 Miles. Average Daily Weight, 19,727 pounds.

_Per cent _Per cent _Should Earn _Did s.p.a.ce_ Earnings_ on s.p.a.ce_ Earn._ Pa.s.senger 69.45 79.44 $28,864 $33,015 Mail 19.70 8.45 8,187 3,511 Express 10.85 12.11 4,509 5,034 ------- $41,560

Mail earnings from all sources $3,511 per month, or $117 per day.

The service is performed in three 60-foot postal cars, two 16-foot apartments and one 27-foot apartment, each way daily; also one 44-foot postal car and one full storage car, daily except Sunday, in addition to some s.p.a.ce furnished for closed pouches in ordinary baggage cars.

The car s.p.a.ce provided for the mails on this route is equivalent to ten full sixty-foot cars daily, over the whole length of the route, or 365,000 car miles a year. At 18 cents per mile the pay would be $65,700, whereas the actual pay is only $42,132. If the Government paid for the service in proportion to the facilities it demands and receives, it would pay $98,244.

VI.

Route 135,007. Chicago to Burlington (205 Miles). Average Daily Weight, 192,540 pounds.

_Per cent _Per cent _Should Earn _Did s.p.a.ce_ Earnings_ on s.p.a.ce_ Earn._ Pa.s.senger 73.14 74.72 $210,134 $214,671 Mail 17.19 13.74 49,387 39,462 Express 9.67 11.54 27,782 33,170 -------- $287,303