6
The roads named in this table are all those which have been com-pleted less than four years, of which I have been able to procure thetrade and travel, aggregate expenses, and distance run by the loco-motive engines for the year 18 42. In some of these I have beencompelled to deduce the through tonnage from the receipts and prices—the reports giving only the aggregate tonnage ;—in general thethrough travel is given with precision.
The agreement between the actual and calculated results in thistable, is most remarkable, and exhibits a degree of uniformity in theadministration of the lines, which could not have been anticipated.Indeed it is most probably because the roads are so new that the agree-ment is so perfect. When they begin to feel the effects of time and use,they will give way unequally, and exhibit much wider deviations fromthe rule. This fact is exemplified in the following table, which exhibitsthe results of experience on ten important railroads, selected from dif-ferent sections of the country. The roads in this table vary in lengthfrom 14 miles to 136 miles; in grades from 10 ft. per mile, to S3 ft.per mile; in freight from nothing to 94,000 tons; in travel from 7,000 to180,000 passengers ; and in expenses from 30,000 to 225,000 dollarsper annum.
TJ1 BLR exhibiting the actual and computed cost of maintainingroads which have been completed more than four years, calculatedby the formula,
27.5
Too
N +Wo o T
7
1000
P-f 500A.
Name of Road*.
Year.
L’gth
in
miles.
G’de.
in
feet.
Miles
lun.
Thr’gh
tonna’e
Thr’gh
travel.
j Actual'expenses.
Calculat’d
expenses.
1842
42
38
120,000
21,200
117,129 S101,596
$100,897
Baltim’e and VVasbing’n,
1841-2
30 £
91,428
27,369
114,260
73,684
76,166
Petersburg Road,
1842
61
30
131,160
22,000
16,000
96,398
92,489
Nashua and Lowell,
1841
14
10
44,040
28,663
85,737
30,708
33,131
1842
82
82^
299,617
44,477
34,380
220,135
192,925
1842
79
96,000
5,975
7,662
73,345
76,703
1842
26
JO
143,607
93,927
179,819
131,012
119,409
Philadelp’a & Columb a,
1842
82
45
261,844
116,000
112,979
8. Carolina Koad,
1842
136
35
260,324
27,000
24,000
225,743
213,945
1842
444
42
241,319
61,911
165,720
168,509
176,815
1841-2
78
152,764
114,527
154,436
143,542
[Note.— The miles run on the Petersburg Roado.ce, assumed to bethe same as in 1841 ; the tonnage is estimated from the tonnage of1841, with an allowance for the increased receipts. The results on theBaltimore and Ohio Road for 1841 are preferred, because those of1842 are complicated by the. extension of the line to Cumberland.The report of the Philadelphia and Columbia Road contains onlythe expenses of motive power and repairs; the freight and passengersare conveyed by other parties ; we have, therefore, in the formula tomake P=o and T = 0, for this case. The tonnage and travel on theSouth Carolina Road are deduced from the printed reports. Theactual charges on some of the lines will be seen to differ from otherpublished statements; this will be found to arise from the fact that