Fifteen thousand to twenty thousand dollars per annum for envelopes alone is spent on some roads, and twice as much more perhaps for time-tables. Passage-tickets, including all varieties of regular and special tickets, such as mileage books or coupons, family trip-books, and school-tickets are also an item of large expense, the annual consumption covering many tons, which once used are of no value save as waste paper; yet they are absolutely indispensable in the operation of the road. Yearly contracts for these are made, and while the actual cost of a single ticket may not exceed _one mill_, the aggregate on a road carrying fifteen millions to twenty millions or more passengers per annum is considerable. To induce the public to travel, and encourage shippers to send their freight to market over any road, attention must first be paid to the condition of the track and rolling stock. It is not economy to allow anything to be out of repair, on the supposition that it is less expensive than it would be to spend comparatively little from day to day to keep it up. The day of reckoning will come in the end, and the sacrifice will be considerable. As the track is the fundamental feature, the cross-ties or sleepers and rails should be the best. Iron rails are practically out of date, and it is fair to assume that the time is approaching when wooden ties will be things of the past. Where the traffic is light, heavy steel rails may not be necessary; but it has been generally found economical to put in use rails which do not weigh less than sixty-seven or seventy pounds to the yard; an even greater weight than this is not ill-advised--they require fewer cross-ties to the mile, and in consequence the force of men required to keep the track in condition is less. Light rails are soon worn and battered out on a road over which heavy engines are run and large trains are hauled. The powerful locomotives now built require a well-kept track and a solid and substantial road-bed. Heavier and faster trains have tended to reduce the average life of rails, even though the weight of the rails has also been steadily increasing. Circumstances vary on the different roads, but it is safe to say that eight to ten per cent. of all rails in the track must be renewed every year. This brings the average life of the steel rails down to about twelve years, under ordinary conditions. On some divisions, however, where the traffic is frequent, and in yards where a good deal of switching is done, and the rails are under pressure constantly, the average is, of course, very much less--even as low as two or three years.