The average haul for freight in the United States is about 140 miles, and it follows that much of. the freight has to be transferred to some other railway system, and sometimes to several systems before reaching its destination. Where shipments are large, shippers hire entire cars, and the goods are loaded and go in that car to the destination, no matter how many lines it travels over. The railways charge each other for the use of such cars when detained under certain conditions. The smaller freight is subject to transfer and handling when going to other systems.
Freight Handling.— Shipments of freight may be divided into four classes: (1) Bulk articles, which subdivide into (a) free-flowing articles, as oil, grain, sand, coal, ore and broken stone, that can be run through a chute or pipe, or handled by dumping; and (b) articles re quiring mechanical handling, as coke, brick, pig iron, lumber, steel beams, etc. (2) Live stock, requiring special cars, food and attendance. (3) Package freight, Including boxes, barrels, crates, wrapped goods and machinery. (4) Perishable freight, as meats, vegetables, fruit, etc., much of which requires refrigeration. These classes of freight require for economical handling different methods and different cars for transportation. For handling grain, the elevator, with spout delivering right into the cars or vessel, has been highly developed. For oil transportation by rail the tank-car was de vised and proves both safe and cheap. For sand, coal, ore, etc., the gondola and various types of dump-cars have been developed, han dling this class of freight by the simple process of having it slid on by gravity and dumped out by the same force.
At terminals or points where railway and water traffic meet, a variety of freight-handling machinery is always to be found, suited to the local conditions. Great steel bridges, for con veying overhead cars and lifting heavy freight bodily back and forth between the cars on the railway tracks and the vessels at the docks, are common. In many of them a man rides with the car and conducts its operations. Others are operated on the principle of cableways, and still others are essentially cranes or gantries. The Hulett unloaders have achieved great popu larity at terminals on the Great Lakes. The old method of handling a lot of freight between car and vessel by crews of men with wheel barrows is abandoned wherever possible. Ma chinery has caused a vast reduction in freight handling costs. Figuring roughly, it used to cost $2 to $3 a ton to shift a miscellaneous cargo; now it is usually accomplished at a cost of less than 25 cents a ton. A record of
costs at a large freight terminal, where all sorts of freight are continually transferred from cars to steamships and from ships to cars, showed these figures: Hand trucking 200 feet, 8 cents a ton; loading on box cars, 12 cents a ton; un loading from box cars, 11 cents a ton; loading off-shore ships with package freight, 23 cents a ton; unloading or discharging same, 20 cents a ton. In a modern terminal the vessels run into slips alongside great piers that parallel the en tire length, giving close access to every hatch way. There are cranes on the ship and on the pier for hoisting and shifting the cargo. On the piers are lines of bins for separating the freight or for brief storage, while nearby are large storage warehouses for freight that has to wait. Every up-to-date mechanism that makes for easy transshipment is at hand. Portable con veyors are supplied for running bags and pack ages aboard or off board with a minimum of handling. Electric trucks are becoming as com mon as hand trucks. The heaviest articles are handled with ease, large machines being shipped all put together in one crate. Every sort of mechanical assistance for freight handling seems to have been thought of and provided, just as in a modern factory.
Statistics.— There are 2,400,000 freight cars employed on United States railways, double the number in 1894, and of three times the total capacity; in other words the cars are one-half larger than they used to be. The average haul of a consignment of freight is 140 miles— less in the Eastern but more in the Western States. The annual mileage of these freight cars is 20,000,000,000, or the equivalent of more than a hundred round trips to the sun, or 40,000 tours around the earth. The ton mileage, that is the number of tons carried one mile, is 264,000, 000,000, or the equivalent of 1,400 trips to the sun and back. The average receipts per ton mile are three-fourths of a cent. A horse will draw a ton a mile in 15 minutes, at a cost of 50 cents for hauling and another 50 cents for loading and unloading; a man can carry a ton in 50-pound parcels a mile in 20 working hours, or two and a half days, yet the railway handles this freight for three-fourths of a cent. As the railway's average haul is about 140 miles, it is apparent that its average charge for a ton of freight is $1. Valuable freight, however, commands much higher figures.