ITEMS OF INTEREST February 11, 1911 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

At least two hundred and eighty-two railroads throughout the country, representing 208,526 miles of track, have joined in the movement for better compensation for carrying mail. The tendency of the Government has been to reduce this compensation, and these railroads say now, through a committee which has just completed its investigation, that they are carrying the mail at a loss. There are three points in particular that these railroads recommend, namely: That authority be given the postmaster-general to allow compensation for apartment cars; that relief be given for performing messenger service between the railroad station and the post-offices on short-line routes; that adjustments be made annually of the weight of mail carried perday and payments made accordingly.

The executive committees of the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific lines have voted to complete the double-tracking of the lines from the Missouri river to San Francisco. They also voted to double-track the Oregon Short Line from the junction with the Union Pacific main line at Granger, Wyo., to Huntington, Ore.; also the line along Columbia river in Oregon to Portland, a total of sixteen hundred and seventy-three miles. The cost of the double-tracking will aggregate upward of seventy-five million dollars, which will be distributed over a period of five years. In a statement accompanying the announcement of the double-tracking project, President Lovett declared the belief of himself and his associates that present conditions considered unfavorable to the railroads were but temporary.

The movement to conserve the flood waters in the semiarid parts of Texas and to provide a water supply for reclaiming vast tracts of land now comparatively worthless, owing to the lack of natural moisture, has taken definite shape in the Legislature in the form of a proposition to issue fifty million dollars worth of bonds by the state for the purpose of carrying on the conservation and reclamation works. It is purposed that these water storage reservoirs shall in some instances also be available for the use of municipalities. It is conservatively estimated that there are not less than twenty million acres of land in the state which could be embraced in a reclamation service of the kind proposed.

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