There are now in the United States about 37,000 railway stations where freight and passengers are received for transportation. Now, from the nature of the case, not more than ten per cent. of these are or can be at the junction of two or more lines of railway. (By actual count, on January 1, 1887, eight per cent. of existing stations were junction points.) Therefore the shippers and buyers of goods at nine-tenths of the shipping points of the country must always be dependent on the facilities and rates offered by a single railway. Such rates of transportation as are fixed, be they high or low, must be paid, if business is carried on at all. And when we consider the ten per cent. of railway stations which are, or may be, junction points, we find that at least three-fourths of them are merely the junction of two lines owned by the same company. Consolidation of railway lines has gone on very rapidly within the past few years and is undoubtedly destined to go much further. Of the 158,000 miles of railway in the country, about eighty per cent. is included in systems 500 miles or more in extent; and a dozen corporations control nearly half of the total mileage. The benefits which the public receive from this consolidation are so vast and so necessary that no one who is familiar with railway affairs would dream of making the suggestion that further consolidations be stopped or that past ones be undone.
There is a great tendency on the part of the public, however, to look with fear and disfavor on further railway consolidation. And because this is so, it is greatly to be desired that the beneficial effects of consolidation should be better understood. The most important benefits are included under one head, the saving in expense and the avoidance of waste, and this is effected in very many different ways. Suppose a great system like the Pennsylvania or the Chicago & Northwestern were cut up into fifty or sixty independent roads, each with its own complete staff of officers. Each road would have to pay its president, directors, and heads of operating departments, would have to maintain its own repair-shops, general offices, etc., and conduct in general all the business necessary to