======================================================================== | 1902-3 | 1910 |--------------------------------------+--------- | |--Percentage of tonnage-- | | |--------------------------| | Traffic | Agric'l|Products| Manu- | Traffic | density |products|of mines|factures| density ---------------------+-----------+--------+--------+--------+--------- Rock Island Company. | 428,116 | 25 | 29 | 14 | 581,000 C. M. & St. P. | 605,139 | 23 | 24 | 17 | 709,000 Great Northern | 657,102 | -- | -- | -- | 814,700 N. Y., N. H. & H. | 802,954 | -- | -- | -- |1,057,000 Wabash | 885,208 | 24 | 32 | 9 |1,322,000 Baltimore & Ohio | 2,181,518 | 6 | 62 | 8 |2,711,000 New York Central | 2,163,000 | 16 | 44 | 12 |2,548,000 Lake Shore ('05) | 3,355,209 | -- | -- | -- |3,911,000 Penn'a Railroad ('05)| 6,337,625 | -- | -- | -- |5,139,000 ====================================================================== The first of these companies operates in a sparsely settled agricultural territory. The St. Paul system lies nearer Chicago, but is still largely dependent upon a local and rural constituency. The Great Northern--a great transcontinental trunk line--despite its sparsely settled western area, exchanges a large volume of through freight for the Pacific Coast for lumber and other bulky products carried east. The New Haven serves perhaps the most densely settled area in the United States, but much of its traffic is on branch lines and is of a retail character. The Wabash lies in well settled territory and hauls a heavy tonnage of low-grade freight. The last two are not only great trunk lines to the seaboard, but also tap the coal and iron fields. Much of their tonnage is consequently of low grade. The Pennsylvania enjoys a still further advantage, super-adding a rich local traffic in manufactures and merchandise. As compared with its rival trunk line, the New York Central, it hauls relatively little grain; but, on the other hand, the New York Central has a much smaller coal and iron business. Some one has aptly characterized the difference between the two roads, describing the New York Central as "operating between good points, but not through a good country" so far as local business is concerned. On the one, through traffic is supplementary to local business, while on the other it is the reverse. The high density of trunk line traffic is such that about two-thirds of all the tonnage of the United States is transported east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio river.