Moreover from Chicago to the group of cities a night's ride distant from it in several directions the plethora of superb trains moved in competitive squadrons. By that I mean, even though there were on four railroads between that city and St. Louis before the coming of the war fifteen fast through trains in each direction, there were to all practical purposes but three or four. For competition so bunched the trains that there was an important group of through expresses leaving Chicago at noon and another important group at midnight, with two or three less important slower expresses at nine in the morning and again at nine in the evening. An intelligent centralized management would seemingly have found it possible so to distribute fifteen through trains that there would have been a through train from Chicago to St. Louis--or the reverse--almost each workaday hour. The through service between New York and Washington and between New York and Boston is so distributed.
Even under centralized control, however, such an even distribution of passenger-trains between midland cities of the United States is not entirely possible. For even in the case which we have before us, there are important connections to be reckoned with, both at Chicago and at St. Louis. These trains must be met, and if the best through passenger-trains for the Southwest leave the St. Louis Union Station at about nine o'clock in the evening, the resident of Decatur, which is on the main line of the Wabash, and of Springfield, which is on the main line of the Chicago and Alton, should in all fairness have an equal chance at them.
Yet, despite this hindering factor, the McAdoo centralized authority succeeded in cutting the fifteen through trains in each direction down to nine and in slightly spreading the leaving times. The result apparently worked little hardship to the through traveler of war-time days between Chicago and St. Louis. The train on which he rode might be a little longer and a little better filled than usual, but its running-time and its equipment, save for the probable elimination of the observation-car, were virtually unchanged. And 15,706 train-miles and 9,538 tons of coal were being saved in Chicago-St. Louis passenger service each month.