Modern business geography

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1830562916

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-217337

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Huntington, Ellsworth http://d-nb.info/gnd/117070092; Cushing, Sumner W.

Title:: Modern business geography

Place of publication:: New York [usw.]

Publisher:: World Book Company

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: VIII, 352 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part two. The field of transportation

Collection:: Economics Books

Railroads 188 “plocked.” At present many railroads are substituting electric power for steam, and far more would do this if the change were less costly. On many roads the cost of operation would be diminished if electric power were used, but the expense of buying electric locomotives to replace steam locomotives and of installing wires and power stations makes the roads hesitate to change. Why the United States has the greatest railroad mileage. The world has about 720,000 miles of railroads. The United States has about 37 per cent of this great length, Russia and Siberia 7, Germany 6, Canada 5, India 5, France 4, Australia 4, Great Britain 3, Argentina 3, Brazil 3, Mexico 2, Hungary 2, Italy 2, and South Africa, Sweden, Spain, Czecho-Slovakia, Japan, China, Chile, Belgium, Egypt, Austria, and Switzerland about one per cent each. Although the United States is about three fourths the size of Eu- rope, its railroads are about 50,000 miles longer. There are four chief reasons for this fact: (1) The United States is favored with great natural wealth. Rich mines, fertile fields, and valuable forests as well as active manu- facturing industries furnish such abundant products that the in- ternal commerce of the United States is estimated to be greater than the total international commerce of the world. (2) While Europe has but one intensely active region, — the western part, — the United States has two, — the eastern half and the Pacific states. These two distant regions are con- nected by numerous long railroads. The coast of the United States is not so deeply indented as that of Europe, and is only about one fourth as long. Hence much of the commerce that would be carried by water in Europe must depend on railroads here. (3) (4) Europe has more than a hundred thousand miles of navigable rivers and canals to help carry her freight, while the United States has scarcely a tenth as much. Why the railroads of Europe differ from those in the United States. A traveler from the United States is impressed by the small size of the European railway cars. Few of them have the size of our great coaches, pullmans, and dining cars. Instead of being arranged with the seats on the two sides of a corridor which extends from end to end, the European cars are divided into many little compartments entered by doors on the sides. Half of the passengers face forward and half backward. Often it is not possible to walk from end to end of the train except on an outside step which runs the whole length of each car.

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