In a certain Eastern State there is a small railroad of about 130 miles in length which narrowly escapes being known as a real short-line railroad. The fact that the road's annual earnings barely exceed a million dollars just bring it within the Interstate Commerce Commission's classification of Class I railroads. It traverses a rough mountain region. Its business is largely seasonal. In the summer it hardly can secure enough passenger-cars and locomotives to handle its tourist business. In the winter it can hardly find enough passengers to justify the operation of two small trains over the line, while at all times its freight traffic is inconsequential. When first I came to know this property a dozen years or more ago it operated three passenger-trains a day the year round over the entire system--the main line and two branches. But that was before the day of the competitive motor-buses and the improved highways that now parallel almost every mile of its trackage and for which, as a heavy taxpayer, it has contributed rather liberally. Its local fare at that time was fixed at three cents a mile, although a State law compelled it to sell mileage books at the rate of two cents a mile. Both the competitive motor-buses and the competitive privately owned and operated automobile have gradually decreased its passenger earnings, although the resort locality that it serves has grown steadily in prestige and patronage during this last dozen years. It met the competition of the gasolene locomotive upon the highroad, how? By cutting its all-the-year train service to two trains a day and gradually raising its fare to five cents a mile. People who have to go from one end of its main line to the other, about 110 miles, are still likely to patronize it. The motor-bus is hardly more effective in the long haul than is the motor-truck. And in the really bleak days of winter its snug little passenger-cars, well lighted and warmed, have more appeal than the poorly lighted and heated motor-buses that traverse the State highway. Yet that is about all. At all other times it is the motor-bus that has the prestige and the popularity. It reaches into the heart of the towns it serves; the little railroad's passenger-stations are not well located--not in every instance, at any rate. It stops to receive or discharge its passengers at virtually any point along its route. It is clean. And in summer it is not only cleaner but cooler than the steam train. But suppose that this little railroad should devise or find a good gasolene-unit passenger-bus and, fitting it with flanged wheels, operate it five or six times a day, over its main line at least. It might be compelled to retain one steam train a day in each direction because of the milk, the mail, and the express business along the route. The other four trips could easily be made with the gasolene-motor units.