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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 31, 1910)
THE BEE: OMAHA, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1910. SSW - 1 Public Utilities f Y'V. ' 2 -. na&wi'-.v.-. , .-:. l:" it S1REET RAILWAY EXPANSION Many New Sections Reached by the Trolley Linei. WHAT THE COMPANY IS DOING Monrr Comes In Nickel at Tlaaa ad fJoes Out In I.irgi Sams for Iloanlnic Eprnui and I in pro Yemeni. A very typical public service corporation ! a street railway company. It uvea tip a large part of the city's streets and all have to make use of what it has to offer. Very few people have anything more than a very vague and uncertain Idea of liuw bin a company the Omaha and Coun cil Bluff Street Railway company really Is. If everyone ride !n a street car once a day, rides back from his destination, It can truthfully be said that half of Omaha carries on a business transaction with the street car company once a day. There are 125.000 to lnO.ooo rides taken every day and at least 40 per cent of these passengers take transfers end ride a second time. It Is probable that not a person In Omaha who Is not bedridden goes through a year without riding a good many times on the trolley cars, and most of us must ride two or four times every day. No other company catera to such a wide variety of patrons and no other company reaches so thoroughly all classes and con ditions of men. The street cars are so necessary and noticeable a phase of iur dally existence that we are apt to think of them as a part of the public streets B. L. Baldwin . Co., General Insurance Agents 1221 Farnam Street. We write all kinds of insurance on every kind of prop erty anywhere. All losses are promptly adjusted and paid without discount or delay. We want your busi ness and will come for it if you will phone us. No better companies represented. No companies better represented. F. C. HOLLINGER. Manager LOGAN & BRYAN 313 South Sixteenth Street. rxoiraawarn. a. mu km, soug&a ssoa. omasa, ma. Members New Tork and Chicago Stock Exchanges, New Tork Coffee and Cotton Exchangee, New Tork Produce Exchange, New Orleans Cotton Ex change, Chicago Board of Trade. jLnn.n.nririrr - -- -- - - - ."--.." mmm . and the affair of the tax payer and not of the Investor of capital. For this reason no other company gets si much advice as to how the business ought to be run. As an official of the company recently remarked. "Anybody thinks he can run a street rail way system. Just as anybody thinks he can run a newspaper or a republican govern ment." But when one realizes that the company has 1.100 employes scattered through all parts of the city and that the public comes Into closer personal contact with nearly every one of them it Is a matter of wonder that there is not much more reason for complaint than even a criticising public does succeed In finding. First Street Railway. In 1867 when the first public spirited group of enthusiasts who believed that the strag gly, unkempt little town on the banks of the Missouri would some day amount to enough to make public transportation some thing of a problem, the Idea of a street railway was agitated and resulted In the formation of the Omaha Horse Hallway company. This enterprise was doomed to hiavy vicissitudes 'of fortune, to defeat and discouragement and disappointment and It seemed for many years that it was pre mature and useless to the town but It started the business and that was the Im portant thing. It was supported by local capital entirely. Omaha had a population of no more than 15,000 and outside capital would have found absolutely nothing attractive about the i proposition. Among the men who were brave enough to push It and stand behind It wre A. J. Hanscom, Augustus Kountxe and Ezra Millard, aome of Omaha oldest and ! most steadfast boosters. O. W. Frost was the first president. , Construction began at Ninth and Farnam and the line ran westward and northward ending finally at 21st and Cuming street. Delegates to the capltol, which stood where the old high school building Is now, and ' the stockholders were about the only people who took the trouble to use It In those days. The equipment to start with was four cars and about thirty horses. One other car was bought In Chicago, the first one ever brought to Omaha to be used on a street railway, but It proved to be worth less. It was second hand omnibus and had to be discarded. It Is still In the poses slon of the company. The service was once every fourteent minutes and the cars made a little better than four miles an hour. Fare was 10 cents, and was collected by the driver. The conductor being dispensed with as a useless encumbrance. The receipts of the company were about $30 a day. Now they are nearly 16,000. Cable System. By 1S3 the business was fairly prosperous, but cable tramways were beginning to find favor In othrr cities and a company was organized and entered the field to carry passengers by cable power. Flvo years later electricity was a second newcomer and the Omaha Motor company was formed to boost trolleys. Omaha now had three companies. They had parts of their tracks all on the same streets, they quarrelled continually with one another and passengers had to pay double fares unices some single line could carry them their whole Journey. This condition could not last very long and after buying up the cable company the original company started In to run electric cars. This brought the motor company to time and In the same year, 18S9, that com pany was also made a part of the single system. Since then, with the natural growth of the city and with the efforts of the street railway company to give efficient service has come the growth which makes the en terprise so Important today. The outlay of money to keep such a com pany going la enormous, especially when It Is figured In nickel fares. Running along the streets of Omaha, South Omaha, Coun cil Bluffs, Benson, Dundee and Florence there are 150 miles of street railway track. Disregarding the coBt of laying this net work of steel the coBt of keeping It going after It is once started Is big enough to use up a large share of the profits. As the average life of a piece of steel track under trolley car wear is about ten years at least fifteen miles of the track must be relaid every year. This does not represent the total track expense by a large sum. however, as new extensions are ! In the process of building all the time. Many Improvements. In the down-town districts alone the com-, puny spent $125,000 for construction In the I first seven months of the present year, and this figure does not include the now ' power houses and oar barns that are being ; raised. The general manager of the road Is practically a constructing engineer and he has on. his hands fifty or more big un dertakings all the time. Tracks, building, and rolling stock all need constant im provement. During the last few months the gang were at work rebuilding tracks over the following parts of Omaha's prin cipal streets" Cuming from Sixteenth to Twenty-fifth avenue; Dodge, Tenth to Six teenth; Twelfth, Douglas to Howard; Four teenth, Davenport to Howard; Fortieth, Farnam to Dodge; Seventeenth, Webster to Cuming; and Harney, Tenth to Fifteenth streets. All summer ler.g a gang of about 400 men Is on the pay roll, and, in the eight years since the present company was organized, under its present name and management, practically every building, every stretch of track, and every piece of the rolllrg stock has been remodelled or replaced with something more up-to-date. The cars of the Omaha company travel at the average rate of nine miles an hour. The energy for their work Is gereratd from 100 tons of coal. The engine rooms of tho company consume 5.000 tons a month, and the coal bill amounts to about 230,OuO a year. The pay roll amounts to,at least $1.000 000 a year, or 20.000,000 nickel fares. Resides this, the company pays out $J00.0n0 a year In city, state, and county taxes, and several hundred thousand dollars for operating expenses. Improvements have cost $250,000 thus far In 1910. Total Duslneas Enormon. These figures give some Idea of the enrrmous business that the street railways and the people carry on with each other. The size of the traffic is emphasized when one realizes that all the Income Is from small transactions at 5 cents each. Tho total receipts amount to a little more than $150,000 a month for lines within tho c:ty of Omaha alone. Two new and elaborate structures are now under way which will greatly Improve the Omaha system. One is the power sta tion at Fifth and Jackson and the other the car house at Tenth and Pierce. The power house will represent an outlay of about $HOO,000 before It can bu u. ji a... This will Include a building that v III house enough machinery to run Omaha slreet cars for many years to come and enough ma chinery to meet the needs for a short time. One unit of J. 000 kilowatt capacity will be put In at first. Then, when the capacity must be extended, which will be almost as soon as tho plant Is completed, two mora units of 5.000, or possibly 5,000. kilowatts each will be put In, and the total Invest ment will amount to n.ore than $1,000,000. The Byron Reed Company Will Remove Sept. 1, 1910 to 212 S. 17th Street GROUND FLOOR , Brandeis Theater Building German-American Life Insurance Co. OMAHA Ve Write the Kind of Life Insurance It Pays to Buy Wc have paid a larger percentage of dividends to policy hold ers based upon Cash Surrender Value of policies, during the history of the company, than any competitor. - Wc led the world on gross volume of Legal Reserve Life in surance gained in Nebraska in hc years 1908 and 1909. CI O O OMAHA O O Wonderful Industrial Opportunity m the Great Gateway of the W est Vith its 175,000 Population, Invites New Industries and Offers to all New Comers Tax Rate For All Purposes of li Per Cent. Adequate Supply of Labor. Nine National Banks, Deposits $60,000,000. Cheap Industrial Electric Power. Thirteen Lines of Railway Covering 21,700 Miles. OMAHA MA Area of 24 Square Miles. Annual Bank Clearings, $750,000,000. Annual Grain Receipts, 50,000,000 Bushels. Annual Live Stock Receipts, 5,000,000 Head. Annual Packing House Output, $140,000,000. Annuak Factory and Jobbing Output, $400,000,000. Sixty-one Grade Schools and Two Universities. The Largest Freight Depot in the World. The Greatest Butter Factory in the World. The Second Largest Corn Market. The Third Largest Packing Center. A Central Power Station. That is furnishing cheap electric power to practically all industries doing a flourishing business, and has a reserve capacity ot groat promise, that is capable of supplying power for any and all purposes to all now comers, at a rate that is right. Ooialhia Electric and Power Co
