Mr. CHAPIN, president of the Boston and Albany Railroad Company, examined.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Question. Will you please state your connection with the New York Central Railroad Company?

Answer. We have a through arrangement with them; we are jointly interested with them in three lines of through-cars, the Red, White, and Blue Lines. We have also business arrangements as to passengers and freights; freights to and from the line of their road. Freights from beyond their road to the sea-board and over our road or east of us are mainly governed by the rules governing the other lines.

Q. Have you ever made any estimate as to the cost per ton per mile over your road?

A. Yes, sir; I have made a good many figures in that connection. Q. What do you make it?

A. Our whole cost, taking passengers and freight, is a little more than a cent and a half a mile.

Q. I meant to include in my question only freight.

A. I suppose it would not vary much from a cent and a quarter.
Q. Of the actual cost?

A. The actual cost.

Q. Yours is a road of high grade?

A. Yes, sir; we have 80-foot grades, and our fuel costs us a good deal more than the western routes. We formerly had cheap wood in our mountain divisions, but coal has become a substitute for it, and now our coal costs us over $8.

Mr. SHERMAN. It costs the Pennsylvania Central only $2.

By the CHAIRMAN :

Q. What are your average charges per ton per mile on freight?
A. Our freight average last year I think was 2 cents or 2.

Q. What is your judgment as to the relative capacity of canals conducted as the Erie Canal, or I should say, rather, of the size and dimensions of the Erie Canal, and railroads, economically considered? Which is the cheapest?

Q. I think there are so many questions to come into that, that hardly any answer would be satisfactory. That a canal could move pig-iron or iron-ores in large quantities something less than a railroad can I have not any doubt; but when you come to the question of grain, the time and the better condition that the grain is delivered in is an element, and I have no doubt there is true economy in carrying it in the cars, even for export, because I believe grain can be put aboard of a vessel here for Liverpool in as good condition from cars as it can be taken aboard of a canal-boat at Buffalo from a vessel, to come from there here, and there are ten or twelve days at certain seasons of the year that grain is likely to heat.

Q. Is there any difference in the price of grain brought by water, the Erie Canal, and by railroad to New York?

A. That I do not know. We consider it very much better from the cars. A car load is 400 bushels. It is surrounded by fresh air and not by water.

Q. What proportion of the grain passing over your road to the East comes by canal and what proportion by rail?

A. Next to nothing comes by canal now. We have an elevator at Albany, but it is out of use almost the entire time.

Q. All of the grain that you transport to Boston or the New England towns comes through on these freight-lines?

A. Almost wholly, sir.

Q. Is your grain that you receive usually shipped from Chicago or from some of these further western points?

A. Chicago is the largest point, I think, and a large amount from Toledo; but there is a great deal taken from the interior, all over Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. Cars are loaded at small stations.

By Mr. SHERMAN :

Q. How much is charged from Toledo to Boston on wheat per bushel? A. I cannot give you the exact price, sir. Not far from thirty cents.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. We have a statement here from Mr. Gray, at Chicago, that adding 5 cents to the New York rates would give us the Boston rates; is that as you understand?

A. Yes, sir; 5 cents a hundred pounds, not 5 cents a bushel.

By Mr. SHERMAN:

Q. Is your purchase of wheat generally in flour or wheat?

A. We carry some wheat in the barrel, but mostly flour. We carry corn and oats more largely than any other grain.

Q. Where is the flour made, in the Toledo market?

A. It is made in the interior, all over. There is a good deal of flour brought from Saint Louis, manufactured there.

Q. How much cheaper is it to carry a barrel of flour than five bushels of wheat? Do you carry it at the same rate per pound?

A. No, sir; the flour is carried at a little less rate. There is one advantage in carrying it in the grain, that the shorts, the bran, is worth more East. We carry a great deal of that separate.

By Mr. DAVIS:

Q. Then the barrel is worth more East than it is West?

A. No, sir; I do not think the barrel is worth any more than it costs there, but it is in convenient form for handling. The barrel would hardly sell for as much as it cost, but it would come pretty near it if it was taken care of, and could be used for putting up various things.

By the CHAIRMAN:

Q. I understood Mr. Hayes to say that a cargo or car-load of wheat put upon one of these freight-lines or freight-cars belonging to the freight-line in the interior, Iowa for instance, passing through to Boston, has no charge upon it whatever, except freight charge, until it reaches Boston?

A. Yes, sit; there is no intermediate charge.

Q. The farmer, for instance, in Des Moines, puts his wheat upon one of your cars; it passes through to Boston with nothing but freight charge? A. Nothing but freight.

Q. A car-load of grain starting from Des Moines pays from Des Moines to Chicago only the pro rata rate?

A. I am not able to answer that question.

The CHAIRMAN (to Mr. Potts.) Suppose you start upon your line a car loaded with wheat at one of the interior points, say Des Moines or Omaha, does it not pay more from Omaha to Chicago per mile than from Chicago to New York?

Mr. POTTS. It pays just the same, and it pays rather less per mile than freight originating in Chicago would pay.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that true upon all the roads that your cars run over?

Mr. POTTS. All of them. We bring freight also from Saint Paul in the same manner.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand you to say that wherever your freightlines are used, it is no more expensive transporting west of Chicago to Chicago than it is this side of Chicago?

Mr. POTTS. Not from a competitive point, but the charge from a local station up to the nearest competitive point is another matter.

The CHAIRMAN. That is not true, then, of all the points along the line you run on, but only at competitive points?

Mr. POTTS. Yes, sir.

Mr. DAVIS (to Mr. Cassatt.) We want to get at the capacity, among other things, of a double-track road, and, as you are the manager of one of the leading double-track roads of the country, I would like to ask you how many freight-trains, in your judgment, can pass safely over a double-track road, any given point, for 24 hours?

Mr. CASSATT. We run from Columbia East frequently sixty trains a day in each direction, they being of twenty-two cars each. The grades are heavy, 40 feet to the mile. I think you could move one hundred trains a day in each direction on a double-track road. You might exceed this at times, but I should consider it good work to move that number as an average.

Mr. DAVIS. How many minutes apart would you run the trains, and would you run them in convoys?

Mr. CASSATT. I would run them in convoys or schedules, as we call them, running the different trains on one schedule five minutes apart, and then leave as much time as possible between the schedules to repair the track.

Mr. DAVIS. Is your rule five minutes now?

Mr. CASSATT. Five minutes, yes, sir; freight-trains, running on the same schedule are allowed to follow each other five minutes apart. On motion of Mr. Conkling, the committee adjourned to meet at 10 o'clock to-morrow morning.

NEW YORK, September 12, 1873.

The committee met at 10 a. m., pursuant to adjournment.

Maj. ROBERT TAYLOR: I did not know but what it might be a matter of interest to this committee to learn how the locks of our present canals could be very largely lengthened; that is, their chamber without the necessity of lengthening the side-walls, and in case of any new canals that should be made whereby the same improvement could be used that would save the necessity of making the side-walls of a lock some hundred feet longer than there was any necessity for, by using the proper style of gates. This may not be a matter at all within the province of this committee.

The CHAIRMAN. It is a matter of engineering, perhaps, technically. Mr. TAYLOR. I thought I would call here and mention this circumstance.

Mr. SHERMAN. That would be a subject probably for the consideration of the committee of the legislature of New York.