Note Return to text — PART II.—The Advantages of National Ownership.

This report also shows that while the country is so rugged that in many cases the gradients are as great as one hundred and thirty feet per mile, and the cost of labor and supplies more than here, the roads are operated at less cost, as measured by the expense per train mile, than in the favored regions of the United States. The Kansas City, Fort Scott, and Memphis Railway is, admittedly, one of the best managed and most economically operated railways in the West, and with an abundance of very cheap coal;[11] low gradients and running more trains than do the Victorian railways should be operated much more cheaply, yet the cost of operating this road, as measured by the cost per train mile,—and this is the best possible criterion of economy in operation,—is one third greater than on the government owned railways of Victoria.