THE RAILWAYS OF THE UNITED STATES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 35, 23 September 1871, Page 15

THE RAILWAYS OF THE UNITED STATES.

According to Mr Henry Y. Poor’s Railroad Manual for 1871-2, now just publisheh, there were in operation, in the United States, on the first day of January, 1871, 53,145 miles of railroad of which 6,145 were opened the past year—a greater number than in any previous year by 2,600 miles. The total earnings of these roads during the past year were 450,000,000 dols. The gross tonnage transported over them equaled 125,000,000 tons, having a value of more than 10,000,000,000 dols. Their cost may be put down, in round numbers, at 2,400,000,000 dols. Their mileage, in ratio to the population of the country, is as 1 to 723. Their earnings equal 11 dols. 75 cents, to each inhabitant. The tonnage transported equaled 3i tons to each ; the value of this tonnage equaled 282 dols. to each. “ All this vast tonnage and commerce,” Mr Poor remarks, “ has been wholly created by the reduction effected in the cost of transportation. The cost, for example, of transporting a ton of Indian corn or wheat over ordinary highways, will equal twenty cents per mile. At such a rate the former will bear transportation only 125 miles to market, where its value is seventyfive cents per bushel; the latter only 250 miles, where its value is 1 dol 50 cents per bushel. With such highways only, the most valuable of our cereals will have no commercial value outside of circles having radii of 125 and 250 miles respectively. Upon railroads, the cost of transploring these articles equals only one and a quarter cents per ton per mile. With these works, consequently, the areas within which corn and wheat will have a commercial value, will be drawn upon the radii of 1,600 and 3,200 miles respectively. The area of a circle having a radius of 125 miles, is 49,087 square miles ; that of a circle drawn on a rad'" 0 of 1,600 miles, is 160 times greater, or square miles. Such difference, enormous as it is, only measures the value of the new agencies employed in transportation, and the result achieved, compared with the old. The rapid growth of this collossal interest is as wonderful as is its present magnitude. In 1851 there were only 8,876 miles of line in actual operation in the United States. Their total earnings that year were 39,466,358 dollars —a sum which equaled only 1 dollar 55 cents per head of population. In 1860 the number of miles in operation were 30,635. Their earnings were 153,175,000, or 4 dollars 98 cents per head. In 1870 their earnings equaled 11 dollars 75 cents per head. The annual increase of earnings from 1850 to 1860 was 11,370,864 ; from 1860 to 1870, 26,682,500, annually, With the the progress of railroads in unoccupied districts, it is probable that from 1870 to 1880 the rate of increase will be, annually 1 dollar per head of our population. Such a rate would give for the present decade an annual increase of, say 43,000,000 dollars, or an aggregate earning of nearly 700,000,000 dollars yearly, at its close.