The Railway Library, 1909: A Collection of Noteworthy Chapters, Addresses, and Papers Relating to Railways, Mostly Published During the Year
History
The Railway Library, 1909: A Collection of Noteworthy Chapters, Addresses, and Papers Relating to Railways, Mostly Published During the Year
Railroads -- United States -- Periodicals
The transportation charge on the material entering into a pair of
shoes made in a St. Louis factory averages one and one-quarter cents.
The transportation charge required to place that pair of shoes in
the hands of a consumer in any part of the United States averages
between two and three cents. The material entering into an ordinary
bedstead, such as retails in St. Louis for $8, will have paid the
railroad about 40 cents. From ten pounds of nails made in Pittsburg
and retailed in St. Louis the railroad will have obtained a trifle
over two cents, and from ten pounds of wire two and one-half cents.
An axe made in the Pittsburg district that retails in St. Louis for
$1 will have paid the railroads one and one-fourth cents. At Kansas
City that same axe will have paid freight of a fraction over four
cents and at Denver, where the retail price will have advanced to
$1.30, it will have paid 14 cents freight. A padlock retailing in
St. Louis at 50 cents will have paid the railroads a little more
than one-half cent; at Kansas City it will have paid one cent, and
at Denver, where the retail price advances to 75 cents, it will have
paid two cents to the railroads. An eighteen-gallon galvanized iron
tub that retails in St. Louis at 80 cents will have paid the railroad
from place of manufacture two and three-tenths cents; to Kansas City
the freight rate will have been six and one-fourth cents, and to
Denver 15 cents, but here the retail price of that tub is $1. A stove
that weighs two hundred pounds and retails in St. Louis for $18 will,
in carload lots, pay 44 cents to Kansas City or Omaha, and retail
there for $22; $1.48 to Denver, and retail there for $25; $2.50 to
Seattle, and retail there for $30. When a housewife of St. Louis buys
a dozen clothespins she has paid the railroad five ten thousandths of
a cent. If she buys a washboard at 50 cents she has paid the railroad
forty-two one-hundredths of a cent. In Denver she would pay for
that washboard 60 cents, of which the railroad would have received
two cents. The higher rates and prices that have been specified as
applying in Kansas City and Denver may also be taken as applicable to
cities in the interior South and Southwest, such as Oklahoma, Fort
Worth and San Antonio.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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