rate wars on the western lines - August, 1903 - 100 Years Ago In The Railway Age.Brief Article

Railway Age, August, 2003

A round-trip rate from Minneapolis to Chicago and return of $8, equivalent to 84 100 of a cent a mile for 950 miles, over the road inaugurating it, seems to indicate that combination has not altogether replaced competition among western railways. It may also suggest to heartless legislators that if railways can afford and are eager to carry passengers at less than a cent a mile sometimes, they out to be restricted to two cents a mile all the time.

This would not be logical or true, but it is the way desperate rate wars work on the unsympathetic legislative mind. The $8 one-way rate between the same places that seems to have to stay a while is argument enough for the rate reducers, for it means 1.7 cents a mile by the longest route and only 1.81 cents by the shortest.