THE BEE: OMAHA, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1910.
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Public Utilities
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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.
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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
