Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 April 1910 — PROGRESS OF DUTCH RAILWAYS. [ARTICLE]

PROGRESS OF DUTCH RAILWAYS.

After Fifty Yean’ Strnorale They Pay Only About 4 Per Cent. The railways of Holland seem to have a pretty hardscrabble time of it. Water competition—that of the canals and of the Rhine—has always been their bugbear. Even now, after fifty years of struggle for business, the railways carry only 10 per cent of Dutch freight. From Amsterdam alone there are not less than 150 lines of local steamers that go regularly to every port of the country, providing a daily service—or rather a nightly service—which enables them to deliver freight from almost anywhere in the country every morning. It is only when the canals and rivers freeze up in exceptionally severe winters, says Moody’s Magazine, or when in summer there is unusually lew water that the railroads get for a short time any considerable part of the traffic. Although the country is almost everywhere on a dead level, construction has been rather costly, on account of the great number of bridges required. For example, between Amsterdam and Rotterdam there are no less than eighty bridges, of which eight are swing bridges. Sometimes the bridges required to cross the numerous and intersecting canals are practically viaducts of a mile or two in length, and long stretches Of bridge work like that across Lake Pontchartrain, at New Orleans, or the trestles over Great Salt Lake or the approach to. Galveston are not infrequent. All the lines in the country are now operated by two companies, the Company for the Exploitation of the State Railways and the Dutch Iron Railway Company. The total length of all the lines is less than 1,600 miles, of which the State operates about 900 and the Iron Railway Company about 660, made up of 205 miles belonging to the State, 290 owned by ether companies and 165 miles of its own lines. There is considerable competition between the two companies, which, taken in connection with the sharp competition of the rivers and canals, insures a very good service. Each company pays a rental to the State for the lines belonging thereto which it operates, and each must share with the .State its profits over 5 per cent. The dividends during recent years have varied between 3 per cent and 5 per cent, which in face of the competition, the extremely low rate and the exceptional handicap under which the lines are worked, is highly creditable to the' management. In 1908 dividends were only 3 per cent. ‘ -