WANTED, 50,000 FREIGHT CARS.
News telegrams from one point and another emphasize the fact that the country's most remarkable famine of these days is not in things to eat or to burn, tho it is contributory to local shortages in both fuel and food. This is a famine in freight cars and locomotives. Its effects reach across the whole country, tho they bring the hardest experiences to the west and southwest. Freight cars have increased in number in the last eight years from 1,228,781 to nearly 1,500,000. The increase in carrying capacity is much greater than these figures show, for while the cars of 1894 would rarely take over 20,000 pounds, and never over 30,000, those of 1901 run as high as 100,000 pounds, and among the cars in use to-day those carrying at least 60,000 to 80,000 pounds are the prevailing number. In 1894 there were 36,304 locomotives; now there are about 40,000, and from machines seldom weighing over sixty tons we have come to engines rarely falling below 135 tons. Some monsters weigh 200 tons. But mileage and tonnage in the freight business have more than kept pace with carriage capacity. In 1894 the cars shifted 674,714,474 tons of goods and produce. In 1901 the tonnage was 1,084,066,451. The estimate for 1902 is 1,100,000,000 tons. Traffic at the moment calls for 50,000 more cars than are available, and the demand is increasing. Our national railway system is a giant. But even a giant must lose stride for a bit when prosperity moves in seven-league foot-gear.—Twice-a-week World.