matter of handling snow is one of the most important in the street-railroad economy. In the city of Boston it is a very important matter. It costs us in Chicago in the handling of snow and removing it from the street, and various incidental expenses, frequently sixty to seventy-five thousand dollars in a single winter, and anything that will help us in this matter of handling snow in the cheapest possible way is a great item with us.

Regarding the conditions which are essential to the financial success of the cable, let me tell you what our experience has been for the last seven years; it has not varied a single year. We are operating one hundred miles of horse car track, in the division where the tracks of which I have charge are located, and we are operating thirty-five miles of cable; and thus we have a good chance of comparing the expenses of the two, and what the merits of each are. The average cost to us on our one hundred miles of horse car track is twenty-four and two-thirds cents per mile per day for each car; it makes no difference whether full or empty. It costs us for our cable work to do the same work precisely, with one exception (and that I will touch on in a moment), ten and one-half cents per mile per day for each car. Mr. Wm. Richardson: About ten and one-half cents?

Mr. Holmes: Yes, sir; only there in this difference, that when we started our cable system, we made up our minds that we would do two things. After taking care of a fair return to the stockholders for money which they had put in, we would give the benefit of whatever difference there was in favor of the cable system, first, to the public; and second, to our employees. The result has been that we have increased the number of cars from two hundred and sixty-three to one thousand, while we have increased our number of patrons from nineteen million to fiftyseven million in a single year. You can see from this that we are giving our patrons a larger number of seats than would be possible for us to do under the horse system.

Mr. Wm. Richardson: Did you reduce the fare?

Mr. Holmes: Not exactly; I will touch upon that in a moment. We have the same fare that we had; but we are carrying the people now at double the rate of speed that we did with horses. We were formerly carrying them at the rate of six or seven miles an hour; now we do it at an average of eleven miles an hour. This is a great advantage to our patrons, and it is appreciated.

On the point of reducing the fare, I will say that we give transfers from our horse to our cable lines and vice versa, and whereas we formerly had two fares, one of five cents inside the city and another five cents outside, we now charge a single five cent fare. With our vast network of tracks we are enabled to transport passengers from any single point to any other point in our whole district for five cents. There was one exception that I wished to touch upon in the matter of expense. While it costs ten and one-half cents per mile for each car by cable, we are paying our drivers and conductors on cable cars more than is received by those on our horse cars. On our horse cars we pay the conductors and drivers alike. If the cable cars were operated at the same rate of wages as the horse cars (and this, I believe, is done in San Francisco), then the cost per mile for operating by cable would be a little less than one-third of what it is to operate by horses; where it would cost us twenty-four cents by horses, it would cost us eight cents by cable. I do not know whether I have covered all the points, but it seems to me I have said enough. If there is any question any gentleman would like to ask me, I shall endeavor to answer it.

Mr. Harris, of Cincinnati: I noticed in the reading of the report that the gentleman claims if you take a second hold on the cable with the grip, it is liable to be injurious to the cable. I will refer you to a case in Cincinnati. We take hold of the cable on

the level road; and when we climb a grade of ten or twelve feet, we are obliged to take a tighter hold in order to make the grade. Is that injurious? I do not mean to let go entirely of the cable and take a fresh hold, but simply to tighten up the hold.

Mr. Holmes: My judgment on that matter is that after the car is once in motion, you can tighten up the hold without any injurious effect on the cable. All along the length of the track we have carrying pulleys every thirty-two feet upon which the cable runs, and between these pulleys the cable is apt to sag from two to two and a half inches. When the grip takes a hold on the cable it has the effect of drawing in this slack, which will result, if the hold is tight, in giving the car quite an impetus, and when the cable settles back into its normal condition of two and a half inches of sag it will give the car quite a rush, and if the driver is careless and does not loosen his hold on the cable, it will bring a check on the car when the cable has settled; but if he

loosens his hold sufficiently to allow the grip to slip along the cable it will be all right; but after he has got over that sudden check and the car is passing along with the cable, he ought to take a good strong hold, and allow no more slipping through the grip, which is wearing both to the cable and the grip, and in my judgment it is better to avoid any slipping and consequent wearing, when it can be done without any effect to car or passengers.

Mr. Wm. Richardson: If Mr Holmes will please explain what I have been puzzling my head about I shall be glad. He spoke of the sudden change of power required on the engine when he was speaking of the character of the construction of the engine. Will he please tell us all about that.

Mr. Holmes: That comes in this way: Suppose you are operating two hundred and sixty trains, and it should so happen that two hundred should come to a stop at the same time and start at the same time (that, perhaps, is rather an exaggerated case, and we have no means of knowing the exact number), but we do know that a very large number of trains will sometimes be started at the same instant. Now, where you have that large number, say two hundred trains of four cars each, eight hundred cars in all, take hold of the cable at once and go from a dead standstill to a speed of ten or eleven miles an hour, it is a putting out of force to a great degree instantaneously, and that is what produces the reaction, because the power required to start the cars is much greater than is required afterwards.

Mr. Wm. Richardson: If that can be assumed to take place all at once, it answers the question.

Mr. Holmes: That is an extreme case, but, of course, there is a great deal of that thing done-putting forth a tremendous energy all of a sudden, and from which action, the old-fashioned valve engine cannot recover itself quickly enough. The automatic valve engine, which is very sensitive, recovers itself quickly. We found it necessary to put in larger fly wheels when we introduced our larger engine than we were using before. We had a wheel that was only twelve feet in diameter, and it would not carry the engine over these dead places without a shock to the engine; but now we have put about one hundred and twenty thousand pounds into the fly wheel. There is now enough weight in it to keep its steady motion and carry the force evenly.

Mr. Scullin, of St. Louis: Do you take into consideration the difference in expense?

Mr. Holmes I am not taking into account the cost of construction in either case, either the money invested in the horse line or in the cable line; but we consider only the difference in the saving. The saving in expense of operation is so enormous that it provides for the interest involved in the cable construction, and leaves a very handsome margin after that.

Mr. Scullin: But you do take into consideration the difference in drivers and conductors?

Mr. Holmes Everything connected with the operation, including the wages of the drivers and conductors, all matters except interest and dividends, are counted in the general aggregate of expense.

Mr. Harris I would like to get an answer from Mr. Holmes in reference to the relative strain on the cable in Chicago on a level pulling five, or six, or seven cars in a train and of one car in Cincinnati going up Vine street hill, which has a grade of seven per cent. and over in some places.

Mr. Holmes: I am sorry not to be able to answer your question. I have had no personal experience in operating on grades.

Mr. Harris: I understand that the strain of one car on Vine street hill on the cable is equal to seven or eight cars in Chicago on the level.

Mr. Holmes: If you pull your cars up that grade with big loads, how many cars in a train make the ascent at a time? Mr. Harris: We have pulled up two cars and had two hundred passengers on the cars at the time.

Mr. Lawless, of Kansas City: Drawing a car on a nine per cent. grade, I understand, would be equivalent to three or four cars on a level.

Mr. Holmes then took the chair and said: Are there any other gentlemen who wish to give us the benefit of their experience in opera ing cable roads?

REMARKS OF MR. EDWARD J. LAWLESS ON THE

CABLE POWER.

Mr. Lawless: Mr. President and gentlemen: I regret to say that we have not the travel and have not the population that Mr. Holmes is favored with in Chicago. We have a number of miles of cable line in our town; fifty miles of cable for a population of one hundred and seventy-five thousand people, and consequently

we have to be economical in the operation of our lines; but notwithstanding the proportion of miles of cable to the number of population, all our cable roads pay. There is no question but that in Winter a cable line is most desirable for handling snow and hauling cars on a heavy track. I will give you an idea of what the cable can do. We experienced one Winter a very severe storm. When going up a grade of fifteen and one half feet to the hundred with a heavy snow-sweeper, weighing about 10,000 pounds, the snow was so deep that it clogged the brushes and we never turned a wheel. The sweeper just slid all the way up the track, the snow being forced to one side.

As regards construction of new lines, one of the most important elements to consider is the slot; as the closing of this slot, of course, means a very serious impediment. From my observation, I have found that those slot rails laid with a rod fastened to the yoke have not given so much trouble as other designs For those gentlemen who wish to have any idea of the cost of construction of these lines, I think it would be well to provide for an outlay of about fifty-five or sixty thousand dollars a mile of single track, not including equipment and power house; I think that would be pretty near the figures required for a first-class broad gauge road. In constructing the power house it is necessary to provide for future contingencies, and not simply calculate upon the travel that you expect the first year. I do not think there has been a cable line laid anywhere that the travel did not increase at least fifty per cent. the first year. It is very desirable, in order to give steady motion to the engines, to have a heavy flywheel, and in order to overcome any difficulty that may be experienced in stopping the cable, by having this heavy fly-wheel, it would be desirable to have a clutch by which the drums around which the cables wind could be disconnected, so that the cable might be stopped in a much shorter time than by shutting down the engines.

The splicing of the cable is very important. We have tried several devices. Having a good many grades to contend with, we had to be very particular, as the strain in starting our trains was very severe. The principal trouble with the cable is in the splice. That is the general experience, unless some unusual accident happens. When a train is starting on the line, should the spliced portion of the cable happen to pass through the grip