The payment for a twenty-five-foot traveling post office is a little over half the pay per mile for a rural route carrier. III. Route 135,012. Streator to Aurora (Ills.). 60 Miles. Average daily weight, 1,303 pounds. _Per cent _Per cent _Should Earn _Did Space_ Earnings_ on Space_ Earn._ Passenger 72.84 85.64 $4,800 $5,643 Mail 17.38 7.51 1,145 495 Express 9.78 6.85 644 451 ------ $6,589 Mail earnings (26 days), $495 per month, or $19 per day. Four trains on this road carry mail daily, two each way, two in a twenty-five-foot mail apartment and two in a thirty-foot mail apartment, an average earning rate of 7.88 cents per car mile. The passenger cars on this branch carry an average of 24 passengers each, and earn 48 cents per car mile. The average mail apartment furnished is half a passenger coach. These four apartment cars, at the same rate as the passenger cars (24 cents per mile), would earn $18,029 per year. The passenger train earnings on the branch are $79,000 a year. The mails demand 17.38 per cent of the facilities, and on that basis should earn for the company $13,730. The mail earnings were $5,940, this being the annual compensation after a reduction of nine and one-half per cent through the Cortelyou order, requiring the aggregate of 90 weighings to be divided by 105 to ascertain the "average." IV. Route 164,004. Edgemont to Billings (Wyoming). 366 Miles. Average Daily Weight, 8,087 Pounds. _Per cent _Per cent _Should Earn _Did Space_ Earnings_ on Space_ Earn._ Passenger 85.79 89.22 $85,476 $88,895 Mail 10.43 6.18 10,392 6,156 Express 3.78 4.60 3,766 4,583 ------- $99,634 Two 60-foot postal cars are run daily each way. The mail earnings are $6,156 per month, or $205 per day. The total earnings of the passenger trains on this road are $1,195,000 a year, and the mails required 10.43 per cent of the passenger train facilities; on this basis they ought to pay $125,000 a year. These post office cars are hauled 534,000 miles every year. The Postmaster-General estimates that the actual cost to the railroads of operating a sixty-foot postal car is 18 cents per mile. At this rate the Burlington Company should be paid $96,000 a year for the service of the postal cars only. It is, in fact, paid for all the mail service on this road $73,872 annually. V. Route 135,010. Galesburg to Quincy (Ills.). 99.93 Miles. Average Daily Weight, 19,727 pounds.