Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 January 1914 — Statistics on Railroads. [ARTICLE]

Statistics on Railroads.

Statistics are usually considered very dry and uninteresting, but the following, are striking and simple enough to have the attention of any citizen proud of his country’s progress. These figures are the latest available and may be depended on. During May of this year the railroads of the United 'States received for their services to the public an average of $8,230,000 a day; it cost to run their trains and for other expenses of operation $5,920,000 a day; their taxes were $341,500 a day; their operating income $1,972,322 a day for the 220,897 miles of line reporting, or at she rate of $8.93 a day for each mile of line. Thus for every six dollars of their earnings which remained available for rentals, interest on bonds, appropriations for betterments, improvements and new construction and for dividends the railroads had to pay more than one dollar in taxes. All these amounts are quite substantially greater than the same returns for May of last year. They include over 96 per cent, of the mileage and earnings of all the railroads of the country.—Popular Electricity.