For it must be understood that railroads everywhere are striving ceaselessly to arrange their time-cards to meet the needs of the public and to secure the greatest possible economy of operation. It is foolish for a road to run two trains when one will do, but while the number of trains is cut to a minimum, they must be run at such hours as will be convenient to the public which they serve, otherwise they won’t get the traffic. A certain number of people, of course, have to travel every day, whether the trains run at convenient hours or not; but with a much greater number travel is a matter of pleasure, of choice, and with them convenience has great weight—much greater than one would suppose. Thus, in the vicinity of a great city, there must be locals going in in the morning and coming out in the afternoon, so that “commuters” may get back and forth to work, and shoppers may be accommodated. These trains must be sufficient in number to meet the demand, and must be run at such hours as will suit the different classes of people they serve. If the train-service is bad, the “commuters” will move, if they can, to a place where it is better—where they can get to and from work more cheaply and easily. Rents will go down in the district which is badly served, real estate will decrease in value, an undesirable class of people will move into it, and the traffic from it will drop away to little or nothing. So the road, by carelessness at the beginning, brings its own punishment surely at the end. Further, it is immaterial as to the time that the through trains pass these points, since they gather practically no traffic from them. A through train considers only its terminals—when is the best time for it to leave New York and arrive at Cincinnati. Can such a train be arranged to leave New York after business hours and arrive at Pittsburgh before them? Two great roads are at the present time running trains between New York and Chicago with the boast that one can go from one city to the other without losing an hour of the business day. So with through trains, the most important object is to shorten the running time as much as possible. The “locals” can take care of the short-haul traffic, and their hours can be accommodated to it; but the through trains must get from terminus to terminus, with regard only to the time of leaving and arriving. In consequence, time-cards are constantly changing. Perhaps a curve has been straightened, or a tunnel completed that saves a long detour; perhaps a grade has been lowered, an old bridge replaced with a new one—such changes as these every road is constantly making. And time-cards change with them.