228 POWER DISTRIBUTION FOR ELECTRIC RAILROADS. 
In the first case experience has already taught the mag- 
nitude of the inroads made on local passenger service by elec- 
tric railroads covering the same district. A striking ex- 
ample of this has recently come to the author’s notice, in 
which a short steam road was actually deprived of more 
than ninety per cent of its traffic by the operation of a 
parallel electric system. Near every large city the effect 
of this competition is severely manifest and is doubly seri- 
ous by reason of the increasing network of electrics that 
serves its territory so effectively as to overbalance the ex- 
tra speed of the railway trains. ' 
That which decides the route of the suburban passen- 
ger, in the absence of any great inequality in fare, is ulti- 
mately the time taken to travel from his home to his place 
of business. Convenient termini offset superior running 
speed, and the electric cars consequently catch the greater 
part of the traffic. Then too, in the time of the journey 
must be included probable delays. 
The net result is that where electric cars and steam 
railways come into competition for suburban or similar 
business, the former gets the lion’s share. To give good 
local service, the cars or trains must be frequent, the run- 
ning time fast and the passengers must be delivered some- 
where near where they wish to go. In most cases steam 
roads cannot meet the latter requirement, consequently 
they must compensate for its lack by fast and frequent 
service. ‘This means short trains run on short headway, 
and right here the locomotive is at a serious disadvantage. 
In the first place the experience of railroads has shown 
that with increasing numbers of trains the cost per 
passenger mile increases. For a given amount of traffic 
carried in a certain territory, doubling the number of 
trains increases the cost per ton mile something like fifty 
per cent; 
That such must be the case is casil‘y to be seen, since 
the number of passengers per train is halved while the 
labor per train remains substantially the same, the power 
per train is not very greatly decreased, and the investment 
      
    
   
  
  
   
   
   
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
    
    
   
    
    
  
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