Carolina Watchman

THE RAILROADS WAKE UP
For nearly ten years railroad passenger traffic has been slipping from its high peak of 1926, when more than 850,000,000 persons paid the railroads more than $1,000,000,000 for their tickets. This year more people are riding on railroads than at any time in the past ten years. At the present rate of increase in railroad travel, the 1936 figures will show nearly 600,000,000 passengers paying close to half a billion dollars for their rides. Neither the volume of traffic nor the receipts of the railroads will reach the figures of ten years ago, but the trend is definitely upwards.
There are three major reasons for this increase. One is that more people have money to spend. Another is the inauguration of the two-cent-a-mile rate, which took effect on the 1st of June this year. The big reason, however, is that the railroads have at last waked up to the increasing competition of the motor highway travel and airplanes, and are trying to give the traveling public more for its money both in speed and in comfort.
For a good many years the safest way to travel has been by railroad. The railroads of the United States went through the entire year of 1935 without a single fatal accident to a passenger. But now, in addition to the factor of safety, they are offering speeds which far exceed anything that the automobile can accomplish and comfort which neither the airplane nor motor vehicle can provide.
There is no important railroad which is not providing some air-conditioned trains in which travel can be enjoyed with complete freedom from all the old discomforts of smoke and cinders, too much heat in Summer and not enough in Winter. All of the large railroad lines are putting into service new types of locomotives capable of far greater speed between stops than safe railroad practice permitted under former conditions. The electrification of major main lines in the East is being pushed to limits undreamed of a few years ago.
A new spirit, also, toward their passengers has come over most of the railroad managements. Passengers are no longer looked upon as a necessary evil. They now get respectful attention which very few railroads accorded them a few years ago.
In short, the railroads have waked up.