222 POWER DISTRIBUTION FOR ELECTRIC RAILROADS. 
expénditures, making in all very nearly $5500 per year as 
the total expense account, irrespective of depreciation and 
interest. 
Roads such as we are considering have the advantage 
of being able to charge relatively more than urban lines, 
and with a tolerable passenger service, express and mail 
service and freight traffic should be able to pick up a very 
satisfactory living. ‘The ten mile line in question must 
show gross earnings of about $9ooo per year to pay a fair 
return on the investment and set aside a tolerable sinking 
fund—practically $24 per day, or $12 per train per day. 
As each of the two trains should make six or eight single 
trips per day it appears that the road would pay on gross 
receipts of $2 per trip, twenty cents per train mile. 
  
  
FIG. FIA. 
It is a lean region indeed that cannot furnish that 
amount of patronage. 
But this is by no means the last word on cheap cross 
country lines. It is quite certain that there are available 
constructions cheaper than the narrow gauge just described. 
At least two existing arrangements are capable of a lower 
minimum cost of construction than that mentioned. Cur- 
iously enough both of them have been zealously exploited 
for heavy high speed railway work for which they are not 
in the least needed, instead of being pushed into a most 
useful field to which they are well adapted and in which 
they have decided advantages. 
One of these is the well known ¢ Boynton Bicycle’’ road 
of which an excellent idea is given by Figs. 114 and 115.