Route 135,007. Chicago to Burlington (205 Miles). Average Daily Weight, 192,540 pounds.
_Per cent _Per cent _Should Earn _Did Space_ Earnings_ on Space_ Earn._ Passenger 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
On the basis of space used and facilities provided for the mails, the Burlington road is underpaid $119,000 a year on this route.
Two-thirds of the weight of mail is carried in special trains run at great speed and unusual expense, for which no extra allowance is made. The extension of the route to Omaha is across Iowa, where it is "Land Grant," and subject to land grant deductions.
The Government made a "gift" to the company in 1856 of lands amounting to 358,000 acres and then valued at $1.25 per acre, or $447,500.
The mail pay deductions to June 1, 1910, on account of this Iowa land grant aggregate $1,650,000, and still continue at the rate of $62,000 a year.
Neither in the foregoing six statements of results upon separate mail routes, nor in the general statement of results upon the Burlington Road has any allowance been made for the expense to the company of what is called the "Mail Messenger Service."
At all points where the post office is not over one-fourth of a mile from the railroad station the railroad company must have all the mails carried to and from the post office.
What an important item of expense this amounts to appears in the following extract from the Report of the Wolcott Commission, which states:
"Out of 27,000 stations supplied by messenger service 7,000 are paid for by the Department at a cost of between $1,000,000 and $1,100,000 per annum, leaving the other 20,000 stations to be supplied by and at the expense of the railroads."
Investigation has shown that on mail routes, where the average mail pay of the railroad company is $900 a year, the average cost of this mail messenger service is $400, calculating only $100 as the expense for each station where they are required to perform the service. There are instances where the company pays in cash each year, for delivering the mails between station and post office, considerably more than the Government pays for the entire mail service over its line of road. There is no such feature in the express service.