The Greatest Railway State

Railway Age, Feb, 2005

"The state of Illinois still stands at the head of the list, with a larger mileage of steam railroad track than any other state in the Union," is the opening statement of the Illinois Railroad Commission in its report, just issued, for the year ended on June 30, 1904. At that date, the main lines in the state aggregated 11,529 miles, and the total track, including 7,492 miles of additional main tracks, sidings, yard and industrial tracks, made the grand total of 19,021 miles of steam railroad trackage.

It may here be noted that the main line mileage of Illinois is closely approached by that of Texas, which for the same date claimed 11,503 miles; but the additional tracks in Illinois, which largely indicate the amount of traffic handled, aggregate about 5,000 miles more than those in the vastly greater area of Texas. In respect to capitalization, earnings, expenditures, tonnage and passengers carried, train service, equipment, number of employees, and all other factors, the railway statistics of the two states are very far apart. The figures of the Illinois report are impressive. The most notable, however, is: That in spite of an increase of 300 miles of main line in the state, an increase for all the corporations reporting to the commission of $300,117,000 in capital invested, and an increase of $30,505,000 in gross earnings for the year, there was a decrease in net earnings of $10,874,000. The operating expenses of these companies in and out of the state were larger than in the previous year by the sum of 541,400,000. This explains why, with an increase in tonnage and passenger traffic, the net returns show so large a reduction. The stockholders received much less benefit of the additional $41,000,000 expended for labor, rolling stock, safety appliances and road improvement. In Illinois alone the total income for the year was $139,749,000 and the total expenditure was $122,852,000. The 105,790 employees were paid $70,810,000.