stand you, to the need of time in discharging the trains at the terminus?

A. Yes, sir, and the necessary stoppage time.

Q. Then I ask you, suppose at the terminus you had switches and turn-outs running to different store-houses, elevators, barges, wharves, and so on, enabling you to unload different sections of the trains simultaneously; that would diminish, would it not, of course, the time of discharging trains?

A. That would, provided you had in each train its particular class of freight already separated to go upon those tracks; but if you have a mixed train, as a car of grain, next a car of lumber, and the next a car of flour, there you would have to make two switches in order to place that in a proper train to take its proper track for unloading.

Q. But the live-stock cars would not have to wait for the lumber-cars to unload?

A. Not if they came down in a live-stock train, and nothing else in that train.

Q. Suppose they did not, suppose they came in a mixed train, five cars of live stock, and five of lumber, and five of grain, could not you break up your train so as to run your five lumber-cars to the lumberyard, and your live-stock cars to the cattle-yard, and your grain-cars to the elevator?

A. You would have to take time then to break it up. You have got to have time to put each proportion of the train on the proper track. Q. There would be no difficulty in making up the train and putting these three sets of cars next each other when you started?

A. But you take it from different points, and take it on as you go along.

Q. Would it take any more time to take out with the engine besides its tender, say three cars, and run back and have the car taken on midway of the train, than to cut the engine off alone, and put it in advance of the other car?

A. It would take no more time; it would take very much more power, and would not be so easily coupled.

Q. That is a pretty small quantity, though, is it not, considering the short distance?

A. Yes, sir; but this separation of trains would have to be made outside of the terminus, at some point, for instance, like Albany. When the property comes down over the New York Central Road it matters not to them whether that property is going to Boston, or to Saratoga, or New York, or whether it is Albany proper; they hitch on to it; it goes over their entire road. But when it gets to Albany it will not do for them to haul the Boston freight down here. It has to be separated from the train so that the Boston and Albany Road can take it on. And when you get to Springfield you have the same difficulty again. All the property going up the Connecticut River Road, or down the Hartford Road, would have to be separated from the freight going on beyond. Therefore they would have to have tracks and room and time allotted to them to separate this freight again, to take its proper road for its proper destination. Then when you come into New York, the cattle.yard here in one place, elevator in another, flour, storage at another point, and that has to be separated again, all of which takes time, even if you have the track room to separate, unless the trains are made up with each particular kind of property before you reach the city.

Then, in handling grain, there would be the same difficulty. It would be utterly impossible to handle the grain in that manner with the speed

of which we have been talking, unless that grain was inspected, so that the grade of each could go into a bin by itself, and the cars so arranged that they could be discharged at once, and the receiver of the property would take his receipt, for instance, for so many bushels of No. 2 Chicago wheat. When he sent his receipt there he would receive his No. 2 Chicago wheat without any regard to whether that was the identical wheat that started for him or not. If you have to give him the identical wheat, it would be utterly impossible to do that. It is that system of inspection that is involved. Then you bring in a train here with, may be, all No. 2 Chicago wheat, and all inspected No. 2, and a full train-load goes into warehouses, that could be unloaded without any difficulty at all. But suppose you have twenty cars No. 2 spring-wheat on the train, and next No. 1 white Michigan wheat, and the next is amber, there are two switches to be made in order to place those cars in position to be discharged at all into their proper receptacle for each grade of grain. That takes time. Therefore, to make these switches to get property so separated that it can be discharged, a half hour would be as little as possible.

Q. Therefore, with any kind of facilities that you know of, you could move trains faster than you could discharge them?

A. Yes, sir; we can always do that.

Q. Is not that practically so, with the exception of New York, that they have an arrangement for sorting these trains, say Philadelphia and Baltimore, and by a well-conducted system of railroad in New York ought they not to sort all these trains some distance from New York?

A. But it makes no difference where; you have to take time.
Q. But with sufficient side-tracking?

A. You cannot make a switch, if you have a hundred side-tracks, but in a certain time. If these were so distributed, you might take a train of twenty-five cars and so distribute the freight through that it could not be switched in an hour.

Q. But are you not aware that both in Philadelphia and Baltimore they not only let trains in five minutes apart, but sort them and arrange them before they get in?

A. That is only where they are simply starting out or coming in. You take twelve miles an hour, and you run trains within fifteen minutes of each other and the wheel breaks. Before that train can be stopped, even supposing it does not go off the track, occupies the time of the train's men-the conductor, brakesmen, and everybody else. There the first thing is to stop that train to prevent disaster. Suppose that ecoupies three minutes. Next they should go back a distance of not less than three hundred yards with their signals to stop the approaching train. Take the three minutes allowed to stop a train and get their danger-signals, flag or light, supposing it is perfectly handy, they have to go from the train and brakes back three hundred yards, and by the time they get back, and the men have time to set the brakes on the approaching train, the whole fifteen minutes are exhausted, or nearly sonear enough for safety.

Q. When you speak of trains you mean each engine, whether they are in sections or in trains?

A. Yes, sir; sometimes heavy trains will have two locomotives.
Q. But they sometimes go out convoys; you call each one a train?
A. Yes, sir; and each one has a set of men.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. What do you estimate the present capacity of your road for moving trains east ward? How many trains can you move a day eastward over the New York Central double track; I mean under the present system, including passenger-trains. What is the ultimate capacity of the road for moving trains eastward?

A. I think they move trains about every three-quarters of an hour; I am not positive about that.

Q. About what proportion of the time are those freight-trains standing on the side tracks waiting the passage of express, or other trains? A. That point requires, perhaps, some little explanation. You know that on all roads, within certain distances, the wheels, axles, and cars have to be inspected to see that there are no cracked wheels, no loose bolts, &c., which are liable to get out and cause disaster. These trains will go in upon side tracks, perhaps at Rochester; while this inspection is going on the passenger-trains are passing, and the inspection will occupy as much time, perhaps, as the passenger-trains occupy in passing them. Therefore, where there is, apparently, some delay for the passenger-trains to go by, it is no longer a delay than would have to be had on any road entirely for freight to do this inspection, provided the passenger-trains are so arranged that they can pass while these inspections are going on.

Q. You think that a freight-road, built exclusively for freight-purposes, would have very little greater capacity than the present system? A. They would have to occupy nearly as much time to inspect the cars, wheels, axles, and running-gear of cars if it was exclusively for freight as would be occupied in the passenger-trains passing them, provided the time-table could be so arranged that the passenger-trains could pass while this inspection was going on.

Q. Is it so arranged now on the road?

A. I think it is; I am not positive. The inspection takes place at Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and West Albany. There are four sets of inspection between Albany and Buffalo, and one at Buffalo, making five during those three hundred miles, and I think that they are so arranged that when they stand upon the side track and the passengertrains have passed them, going west, then the freight-trains follow. Well, when they follow, they keep, perhaps, within five minutes of each other, or even closer, until they pass the limits of the city, and then the head train keeps increasing its speed until they are a proper distance apart. Then, before the next passenger-train gets up to cover them, they have got to the next inspection-point.

Q. How many trains a day in the busy season of the year do you move eastward over your road; what is the maximum number?

A. That I do not know; I have not the time-table with me at present, I think the amount was somewhere near 4,000,000 of tons for the year 1872, but I am not positive about that.

Q. Do you charge any higher rate for carrying fourth-class freights over your lines than through other cars?

A. No, sir.

Q. The same freight?

A. Yes sir; that is the point that I forget to mention. The line cars are simply for the purpose of facilitating the business at the same rates charged in cars-without the handling at each terminal point.

Q. If a car loaded in Iowa or Minuesota passes to New York, does not the shipper save the Chicago expense?

A. Yes, sir; if loaded with grain the car goes to his warehouse, receives the property, goes clear of Chicago elevators entirely, and goes to any farmer or dealer that he sees fit to send it to in New England, if he chooses to do it..

Q. Who pays for loading and unloading your lines, the company or the shipper?

A. The company. There are some points in the West where parties own their warehouses and handle their own property; but there is nothing allowed them for doing it.

Q. In speaking of the freight-lines, did you include any except those over which you have control-the "Blue Line"?

A. When I speak of those lines I speak of all co-operative freightlines that run over the New York Central Road; and those are the only lines I have personally a knowledge of.

Q. Those co-operative lines you say are owned by the stockholders of the company, or by the company itself?

A. By the company itself.

Q. There is no distinction in any way between the ownership of these lines and the ownership of the other property of the road?

A. None at all.

Q. What do you mean by co-operative, as distinguished from other freight-lines?

A. For instance, when the property is loaded into the New York Central car to go through to Chicago, in what we call a common car, it would go to Suspension Bridge, and there be handled and go into a Great Western car, requiring two sets of check-clerks, and the handling from the one car into the warehouse, and from the warehouse over to the other company's car, and the same at Detroit.

Q. I did not make myself understood.

There are several kinds of freight lines the co-operative and, as I understand it, the non-co-operative; is that the proper term?

A. I do not know of the non-co-operative.

Q. Not upon your road?

A. No, sir.

Q. There are no freight lines on your road except the co-operative, which you have described?

A. No, sir; none that I am aware of-that is, on the eastward bound. The "Merchants' Dispatch" is about the same thing. They are a cooperative line, in effect, although different from the "Blue Line."

Q. Is the "Merchants' Dispatch Line" owned entirely by the New York Central Company, or are there other outside parties interested in it ?

A. That I do not know; I know nothing of their present organization beyond the fact that they went once a month to audit accounts with the roads over which they run.

Q. Do all of those roads furnish cars in proportion to the length of the road?

A. They are supposed to furnish cars in proportion to the mileage. and the length of time they are occupied to do the business upon their roads. You will see at once that the New York Central Road, being a middle line, where all the roads branching from it through to the Western States would go down and come up on, that their mileage, per mile of road, would be, perhaps, four or five times the mileage on the same length of road upon a road that branches out from them; and sometimes fifteen times as much time is required to make one mile on short

hanls, to load a car from teams, and get it back to the main line, ready for New York Central to haul it over their road.

Q. Do all of those lines hire cars from companies that furnish cars for hire-any of the roads in your line?

A. I think not, as a line. Roads may hire their quota of cars for lineservice, or get them in any way that suits them.

Q. There are certain companies, you know, who manufacture cars and hire them to certain people?

A. Yes, sir; but we are not supposed to know how the roads in the line get their quota of cars.

Q. I asked you that question with a view of asking what they paid a mile for the use of those cars.

A. The mileage-balances, as I explained to you before, are settled upon the clearing-house principle, at the rate of a cent and a half for a mile for the balance; but if one road makes a mile and another road makes a mile with its car over each other's roads there is no balance; but if one company's car makes three and another company's car two miles, there is a cent and a half going from one company to the other for the use of the car upon that balance. The one mile balances the the other mile; but if he has anything beyond that, then it is a cent and a half for each surplus mile.

Q. You say the price of freights is fixed at Chicago; who appoints the men who fix the freights?

A. Each company has a general freight agent, and they, by consultation, make a freight tariff from Chicago to all competing points East. Q. The railroads of the West appoint agents, then, for the freight bound eastward?

A. Each company has a general freight agent.

Q. And those agents meet together and fix the freights?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Have they absolute power over that?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Do they consult the companies with reference to fixing that freight, or is that whole matter referred to them without consultation?

A. The general freight agents have the matter in charge and they get together and find what competition they have to work against and tix the tariff according to circumstances.

Q. And the same thing is true at the East. Each company appoints its agents?

A. Yes, sir. That is, each company centering in Chicago. The point I called your attention to before was the companies centering in Chicago. They make that rate while the New York Central, Boston and Albany, or the Great Western have no voice in it whatever.

Q. How does it happen, then, that you sometimes fall out and run each other on freights? Is it because those agents cannot agree?" Sometimes the roads cut each other on freight.

A. Each set of roads is anxious to do all the business that they can. Q. Then at such times there is no agreement among those agents? A. There is an agreement and a tariff rate is issued. When they are doing business at a less rate, then they are doing it without authority at all, and the roads are not bound to accept their proportion of a cut rate unless they see fit to do so, But a published tariff that is made without consultation of eastern roads at all, that published tariff is carried out without consulting the eastern roads upon the subject.

Q. You made a statement a while ago with reference to the capacity