The Condition of American Railroads

Archive Report

Traffic Records Broken

American railroads in 1923 handled more traffic than ever before in their history. The record of 413,562,000,000 net ton miles for Class I railroads (excluding terminal and switching companies) during 1923 was an increase of 22 per cent over the traffic for 1922 (339,285,000,000 ton-miles) and an increase of .7 per cent over the traffic for 1920 (410,306,000,000 ton miles) the previous peak year.

The car loadings for 1923 were likewise the largest ever recorded. Car loadings since 1918 are shown in the accompanying table. Cars were loaded more heavily than ever “before and the average mileage per car per day (28 miles) exceeded that of any year for which such records have been kept.

Record Car Loadings

Car Loadings
191844,592,089
191941,856,910
192045,118,472
192139,323,158
192243,207,551
192349,814,972

Decreased Agricultural Loadings

There were large increases ...

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