These statements are not made idly. This particular one is made upon the authority of the president of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul railway, which has successfully undertaken the longest and most scientific electrification yet introduced in the United States. His name is H. E. Byram, and the main line of his road is to-day completely equipped for electric operation for 649 miles--from Harlowton, Montana, to Avery, Idaho, 438 miles (or about the same mileage as the New York Central's between New York and Buffalo or the Pennsylvania's between New York and Pittsburg) and again from Othello to Tacoma, Washington, 211 miles. "We regularly run our electric locomotive the entire 438 miles between Harlowton and Avery on the same passenger-train," says Mr. Byram, "and if the track were electrified for that distance could just as well run it four thousand miles. In fact, counting in attendance, wear and tear, shop capacity, and the like, we figure that one of our electric locomotives is equal to three of the heaviest steam type." The forty-five electric locomotives now in service on the Harlowton-Avery section--the first to be installed--actually have replaced the 120 steam locomotives that formerly were needed for it. The power for this section, crossing the high ranges of the Rockies, as well as for the newer section further to the west, which crosses the Cascades, is supplied entirely by water. The fuel saving in 650 miles of just an ordinary busy single-tracked main-line railroad in a twelvemonth--259,000 tons of coal and 31,700,000 gallons of fuel-oil, according to its careful estimates for a single typical year--is considerable. When you come to project these to the busy double-tracked and triple-tracked and four-tracked railroads of our Eastern territory you begin to have the great savings which I outlined toward the beginning of this chapter. And these were only predicated upon the use of coal in the power-houses which becomes quite naturally part and parcel of any scheme of electrification.