22
TABLE.
Yeai.
Miles run.
Wages totrain hands.
iVages
per
mile.
Remarks.
Reading Road,
1841
83,717
$ 5,785
7.0
With moderate trains.
Reading Road,
1842
198,055
17,752
9.0
With heavier trains.
1842
132,229
10,799
8.0
Medium trains.
1843
509,765
31,161
6.1
' Light trains and[ heavy grades.
1842
184,127
14,774
8.0
The trains on both
Georgia Road,
1842
152,873
12,666
8.3
> these roads are mod-derate.
1 The Petersburg road
Petersburgh Road,
1841
131,160
14,558
11.0
was worked at dis-advantage in 1840
1842
24,564
2,814
11.5
and’41. The freighttrains on the N. Y.
sually large.
The average value of wages, excepting for roads on which thetrains are excessively large, may be safely and justly assumed at 8cents per mile run.
Oil and Tallow for Engines .—The expense of oil is certainly avery small matter, when compared with the aggregate yearly chargesagainst a railroad company; but it is a very important matter forevery company to know exactly what this, and every other item ofexpense really is, and ought to be, in order to judge of the possibleameliorations of their management. On the Georgia Road, in 1840,the mere greasing of the engines amounted to more than 4 per cent,of the aggregate charges of the company. In 1842, this item was re-duced down to less than 1$ per cent.
As another example of the effect of the same sort of economy in thedetail—in small matters—may be adduced the curious fact, that thesum paid for oil by the Philadelphia and Baltimore Railroad Com-pany, in 1841, amounted to 86,131, and 1842 it was reduced down to82,151. In the year 1842 it amounted to 3J cents per mile run, andin 1842 it scarcely exceeded lj cents per mile run by the trains.
The expense of oil is generally included under the head, “ fuel,oil, salaries, general and incidental expenses, &c.;” “fuel, oil, salaries,wages, loading merchandize,and miscellaneous expenses“wages,fuel, oil, &c.” This method of condensing accounts is so general,that out of the reports of more than thirty railroad companies for theyear 1842, now on my table, I am able to select but the three follow-ing, from which the cost of the oil consumed by the engines, can beobtained separate from other items.