It may not be able to convince them that at the close of the fiscal year 1914--the period upon which we are working--there were upon the roads of the United States 2,325,647 freight cars, a number which, although greatly added to since that date, has not yet been made adequate for the normal traffic demands of the country.[3] And a large proportion of these cars are both obsolete and inadequate. In 1914, out of the 2,325,647 freight cars some 347,000 were of a capacity of but 60,000 pounds or under--a type today considered obsolete by the most efficient operating man. A great majority of this latter number of cars was of all-wood construction. If the financial condition of the railroads had permitted, they doubtless would have been replaced long since with all-steel cars of far greater carrying capacity. This situation in the freight-car equipment is reflected in larger measure in the passenger-car and locomotive situation. There are railroads in the United States that today are compelled by the exigencies of a really serious situation to operate locomotives whose very condition is a menace not only to the men who must ride and operate them but also to the passengers in the trains they haul. The annual number of serious delays that may be charged to "engine failure" is appalling.[4] Now consider "equipment" in its broader sense. Expert railroaders will tell you that save in the case of the larger and more prosperous roads, there has been, in the course of the past seven or eight years, a serious depreciation in the maintenance of the way and structure of the railroad. In the prosperous years from 1901 to 1907 a very great improvement was made in this physical feature of the railroad. In the last of these years the American railroad reached the highest standard of physical perfection that it has ever known. In 1907 came the great panic. It made drastic economies immediately necessary. The railroads in their anxiety to meet, first, their dividends, and second, their interest obligations, pinched maintenance to the extreme limit. This was effective in two ways: In the first place the great preponderance of roads did not have earnings to make ordinary improvements, nor credit to provide the capital charge that would apply for improved rights of way, bridges, stations, freight houses, shops, and the like. Expert track engineers say that the loss in the maintenance of line during these lean years in Egypt that have just passed will average at least $2,000 a mile. Multiplied by a total of 245,000 miles of railroad line in the United States this means that the railroads are "back" in the upkeep of their lines alone some $491,788,000.[5]