At the present time the very high cost of electric locomotives suitable for hauling heavy freight and passenger trains for long distances is making the Milwaukee--today the unquestioned leader in this great progressive policy of electrification--move both slowly and surely. According to the last annual report of the road the most recent lot of twenty engines cost an average of $114,396.30 each--or about four or five times the cost of the largest steam locomotive. Despite the tremendous initial expense of these electric engines, their remarkable performances more than justify their cost. [10] To a very prominent hotel in the White Mountains five years ago, ninety per cent of the patrons came by train; last year ninety-five per cent of the guests arrived in their motor cars. "Talk about getting folks to go to California, or even to the Rocky Mountains," said the veteran passenger traffic manager of one of the greatest of our transcontinental carriers, when he was in Boston a few weeks ago and heard of this, "we can and will advertise, but we are up against two tremendous competitors: The first of these is New York City, which is a tremendous permanent and perpetual attraction to all the rest of America 365 days out of the year. The second is the automobile, the family car, if you please, into which has gone the recreation money which otherwise might have been going into the ticket wickets of our railroads. Think of it, there were 900,000 pleasure cars built and sold in the United States last year, while the experts are placing 1,250,000 as the figure for 1917! More than $1,500,000,000--an almost incredible sum--was spent by Americans last year on automobiles, and all the things which directly pertain to them. What chance has the railroad against such a giant of a competitor?" [11] "The railroad that neglects its branch-line service is playing with fire vastly more than it may suppose," said a distinguished railroad economist only the other day. "It may feel that it has an economic right to neglect branch-line opportunities because of the limited revenue opportunities that these feeders ofttimes present. But it must not overlook one thing--the patent fact that many of the voters, the men and women whose sentiment expressed in their ballots may build or ruin the future of so many of our overland carriers, reside upon these same branch lines. Indeed, one may say that the manufacture of sentiment upon branch-line railroads is a business well worth the attention of a keen traffic-man. For it may be just that very amount of sentiment that might swing the balance for or against a railroad."