!lllllitllliilil!li ■ -HE 55 f 1)75 €0rttpU Utttnf ratty 2Itbrar^ BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE FISKE ENDOWMENT FUND THE BEQUEST OF LIBRARIAN OF THE UNIVERSITY 1868-1883 1905 B .3;$-5IQ^ \fe\>7lli b. Cornell University Library HE554.B75 CSS The port of Boston: The DC J olin 3 1924 030 111 193 DATE DUE ''*^^"^^^9fl8Np| ^ ^JMiM APR L^mp/ ^^^ ^QIQTr =m^ i 107C a Q GAYLORD PRINTED IN U S.A. Published on the Foundation Established in Memory of HENRY WELDON BARNES OF THE Class of 1882, Yale College THE PORT OF BOSTON A STUDY AND A SOLUTION OF THE TRAFFIC AND OPERATING PROBLEMS OF BOSTON, AND ITS PLACE IN THE COMPETITION OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC SEAPORTS By EDWIN J. CLAPP Professor of Economics, New York University NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS MDCCCCXVI /\-3S%lO^ Copyright, 1916 By Yale University Press First printed, April, 1916 To My Friend Joseph French Johnson OF New York Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030111193 PREFACE This book is the outgrowth of a private report, made to the Directors of the Port of Boston, on the traflfic situation in Boston. With the permission of the Directors, I have used in my book the material of that report. It will be found that more than the traffic problem is here covered. The book deals also with a number of difficulties of Operation; that is, the arrangement for interchange of traffic between land and water car- riers. Operation is closely allied to traffic. Upon the cost and smoothness of terminal operations depend the terminal charges and service which traffic can reasonably expect. No one person can draw a complete physical or commercial plan for the future of a great seaport. This is my contribution towards such a plan, which will evolve from the meeting of many minds. I believe I have stated clearly the problems of the port and indicated the main lines that must be followed in their solution. "The Port of Boston" is not written for Boston alone. Much attention is given throughout to the theory of port charges and operations, and the prac- tices of other Atlantic ports are generally cited with regard to such matters as belt lines, lighterage, elevator charges and port industries. The whole discussion of the competition for export and import traffic of the American Middle West could as well appear in a book on New Orleans or Montreal. viii PREFACE Among the many who have aided me in my work, I must mention particularly my friend, General Hugh Bancroft, formerly Chairman of the Directors of the Port of Boston. My report was completed in July, 1914. In August, 1914, the European War broke out and introduced into our foreign trade abnormal conditions which will disappear after the war. For example, the closure of the Dardanelles and German control of the Baltic locked up the Eussian wheat supply and, in conjunc- tion with a large American crop in 1914, led to an enormous American wheat export at high prices. In the same way there has been a temporary revival of our shipments of provisions, beef and live horses. But when the war is over, we shall go back to sub- stantially the conditions here portrayed, at least so far as the business of Boston is concerned. The war has caught and held in suspension the situation which I describe and this situation will be precipitated after the war. Edwin J. Clapp. University Heights, New York City, Autumn, 1915. CONTENTS PART I. TRAFFIC PAGE Chapter I. On the Meaning of Port Development . 3 A. The Terminal Problem Chapter II. Origin of the Present Situation in Ter- minal Charges ...... 19 Chapter III. Terminal Charges (Continued). Prac- tices in Other Ports ..... 38 Chapter IV. Terminal Charges (Concluded). The Cost of Handling Cotton and Grain ... 66 B. Inland Rates Chapter V. The DifiPerential Cases. Firing of Rates between the West and Atlantic Ports . . 85 Chapter VI. Effect of Differential Rates . . 102 Chapter VII. Passenger Traffic via Boston as an Offset to the Differentials .... 127 Chapter VIII. Stronger Boston Solicitation in the West 143 C. A Solution op the Traffic Problem Chapter IX. Canadian Grain Products . . . 163 Chapter X. Canadian Grain .... 177 Chapter XI. Canadian Grain (Concluded) . . 194 D. The Coastwise Traffic Situation Chapter XII. A Line to the Pacific Coast . . 213 Chapter XIII. A Line to Galveston ... 228 X CONTENTS PAET II. OPERATION PAGE A. CO-OEDINATIKG RaIL AND OVERSEA CARRIERS Chapter XIV. A Belt Line and Terminal Opera- tions in Boston ...... 251 Chapter XV. Interchange by Carfloat Routes . 267 Chapter XVI. Incidental Industrial Development of Boston 281 Chapter XVII. Commonwealth Pier as a Joint Pas- senger Termiaal ...... 297 B. Co-ordinating Rail and Coastvtise Carriers Chapter XVIII. The Coastwise "Waterfront at Boston 311 Chapter XIX. New Coastwise Piers on Atlantic Avenue. Lighterage Operations . . . 324 Chapter XX. A Union Lighterage System . . 338 Chapter XXI. Railroad Pier Stations in Boston . 360 LIST OF PLANS AND MAPS PAGE Diagram map of Boston terminal situation opposite 30 Export terminals at East Boston . . opposite 30 Export terminals at Charlestown . . opposite 36 Railroad terminals and piers at South Boston opposite 36 Diagrams illustrating import rates . . . 105-106 Diagram illustrating export rates . . . 117-118-119 Plan "A" Ideal layout of railroad terminals of a seaport ....... 253 Plan"B" Sections which Boston possesses of ideal layout of Plan "A" 256 Plan"C" Proposed car-floating, supplementing Plan "B" of actual Boston layout ... 268 Plan "CI" Proposed B. & M. and B. & A. freight stations in South Boston 282 Plan " D " Present situation on Atlantic Avenue waterfront ..... opposite 319 Plan " E " Comparison of equal sections of New York and Boston waterfronts .... 321 Plan"F" Plan of two proposed 1000-foot coastwise piers on Atlantic Avenue .... 327 Plan"G" Four new coastwise piers superimposed on present Atlantic Avenue piers . . . 331 Plan"H" Proposed Union Lighterage Station at South Boston. Afternoon set-up . . . 340 Plan "I" Diagram showing service rendered by Union Lighterage Station .... 355 Plan " Jl" Unit of layout for handling coarse light- ered freight at South Boston .... 356 xii LIST OF PLANS AND MAPS PAGE Plan"K" Method of using pier as a local railroad freight station ...... 363 Plan"L" A 1000-foot pier used as a local freight station by two railroads ..... 364 Plan"M" Key map of proposed improvements in Boston terminal operations . . opposite 358 Map I. Kailroads in vicinity of Boston . . 379 Map II. Eailroad lines of New England . . 380 Map III. Railroad lines of the U. S. . . . 381 PART I TEAFFIC CHAPTER I ON THE MEANING OF PORT DEVELOPMENT Engineering and operating problem. One side of the work of port development consists in the building of piers for the steamship lines. One element is in. facilitating the interchange of carload freight between railroad lines and terminals where water lines are berthed. These elements constitute the engineering and operating problems, which are probably not the largest part of the whole. So far as Boston is con- cerned, improved interchange of the sort mentioned will better in important details railroad service to and from some piers. This improved railroad service will hardly attract an additional steamship line. Nor can new lines be attracted simply by constructing fine piers for them, though they be offered the piers free of rental. Traffic problem. Port development means, first of all, more frequent and diversified steamship services. Steamship lines serve Boston for the purpose of carrying freight and passengers to or from the port and earning money therefor. It is important to see that these lines ar^ supplied with commodious and convenient berths and sheds where they may handle their inbound and outbound freight. It is important to perfect any faulty present methods of getting this freight between the steamers and the freight trains of Boston railroads. But the most important thing 4 THE PORT OP BOSTON is to discover and remove hindrances to the free flow of oversea or coastwise traffic through this gateway. A port is not the origin or destination of the bulk of traffic carried by its water lines. It is a concentration point or gateway, in severe competition with other gateways for the business of a common hinterland. What the steamship lines are interested in is the status of Boston as a concentration point. If there are dis- criminating factors such as inland rates or terminal charges, which prevent the flow of competitive traffic through Boston, their discovery and removal is the vital need of the port. All ports hut New York have traffic problem. This is the traffic problem of the port of Boston. No one who studies the North Atlantic seaports, from Boston to Norfolk, can miss the conclusion that all but New York have essentially a traffic problem before them. Only New York is so embarrassed by the freight that seeks its port that it is confronted with engineering and operating difficulties of the most serious nature. Its effort to accommodate on the lower West Side Manhattan waterfront all the railroads, coastwise and oversea carriers, will, if successful, demonstrate the possibility of two bodies occupying the same space at the same time. But Boston, Baltimore and Phila- delphia are confronted with no such problem in physical expansion. Their effort will have to be directed towards getting business; there will be no great difficulty about accommodating it in choice locations. Nature of seaport. A great seaport is a clearing house for the exchange of freight between inland and ocean carriers. Here the railways and inland water- ways, where there are such, exchange with the coast- MEANING OF PORT DEVELOPMENT 5 wise and oversea carriers. Here the coastwise and oversea carriers exchange with each other. Here one set of coastwise lines interchanges with another; as in Boston the lines running only north of Boston exchange with those running only south. Here the "short-sea traders" in the foreign trade exchange with the long-distance oversea carriers ; as the Boston lines from the Maritime Provinces exchange with the transatlantic steamers. Here the "short-sea traders" exchange with the coastwise lines ; as the Boston lines from the Maritime Provinces exchange with the coast- wise lines running south from this port. A great port is a focus of these lines of communication. Port development consists in increasing these lines in number and frequency, and facilitating their inter- change. Community value of a port. The community located at this focus enjoys peculiar incidental advantages. In the first place, the water carriers make in the community large outlays in connection with their terminal operations. They pay heavily for coal to Boston dealers; they pay lon^hor^men for handling their cargoes^ in and out ; they buy provisions, stores and dunnage from Boston merchants 7 they pay Boston pilots for taking them in and out, and Boston towing companies for berthing them. The actual expenditure of an oversea steamer bringing miscellaneous cargo to Boston and taking similar cargo out, varies in par- ticular according to whether the vessel coals here or not. She may expend $4,000 per trip and she may 1 The cost of handling cargo at Boston ranges about 40^ per ton. On 5,000 tons inward and 5,000 tons outward, the stevedoring charges alone would be $4,000. 6 THE PORT OP BOSTON expend $35,000. The average is not less than $7,500/ In 1913, 448 vessels in the foreign trade carried cargo both in and out, expending $3,360,000. Reckoned at $3,750 each, the 102 oversea steamers that came in with cargo but went out light spent $380,000, in round numbers. This makes a total of about $3,740,000 for all oversea steamers. The more than 1,500 round trips of the boats of the regular coastwise steamer lines, including those to the Maritime Provinces, cannot have had port expenses of less than $1,000 per trip, or $1,500,000 in all. This makes $5,240,000 expended in the port simply for handling the vessels in and out, or about $17,500 per day, for foreign and coastwise vessels together. Handling ships a large industry. Thus the business of handling ships is the equivalent, in community expenditures, of a factory employing 8,000 male hands and (reckoning three dependants to each male) sup- porting 32,000 people. Such an estimate can of course only be approximate, but it is certainly not too high. It indicates what a valuable industry is represented 1 The following is a statement of the average port disbursements of the steamers of five regular lines serving Boston. The lines are purposely chosen to include all types of steamer from the small freighter to the large steamer primarily interested in the passenger trade. The average port disbursements of these steamers, for each Boston sailing, were as follows: Average Port Disbursements per Sailing, 1913 Line I $8,019.00 II 5,464.00 in 9,586.00 IV. 7,139.00 V. 33,571.00 Line V coals and provisions in Boston for her round trip. MEANING OF PORT DEVELOPMENT 7 by the mere coming and going of steamers. This estimate takes no account of the smn spent by vessels docking and repairing in Boston. It does not consider the value to the community of the ships' crews and their families who are domiciled here, or the clerical forces, employed on the piers and in the local freight and passenger offices; nor does it include the taxes on real property which is owned by the lines in question, or leased and given value by steamship use. Nor does the estimate consider the hundreds of barges and sailing craft which supply Boston with coal and lumber ; nor the lighters, those draymen of coarse car- load freight, which are employed to tranship between the land and water carriers; nor the cartage firms, which so transfer package freight. Warehousing and hanJcing. Before the goods enter the ship, or after they land, they may be warehoused, as in the case of apples stored awaiting export at Boston, or wool imported from London, or Egyptian cotton from Liverpool or tea from Ceylon. The sea- port banker earns commissions by financing export shipments, discounting drafts drawn on foreign buyers. Importers use bankers to remit funds for purchases abroad. Passengers purchase letters of credit for foreign travel. Immigrants use the foreign and native bankers of Boston to remit their savings to their families at home. Cargoes and ships are insured at Boston. Passengers traveling through the port spend money at hotels, shops, theaters and in visits to near-by pleasure resorts. Railroad earnings on water freight. Apart from the steamship passengers whom the rail lines carry, the railroads earn large sums of money in freight charges on cargoes to or from water carriers. The 8 THE PORT OP BOSTON rail freight charges on the export and import cargo of a single transatlantic sailing amount to from $30,000 to $50,000. To manage the interchange of traffic with water carriers the railroads maintain and pay taxes on extensive terminals, which give employ- ment to large forces for labor, clerical services and superintendence. The especial value of the import trade in furnishing freight for the otherwise empty westbound cars of Boston railroads will be referred to in another connection. The seaport merchant. The seaport is the ideal location for the manufacturer who uses raw materials that come oversea or coastwise or who ships his product to those destinations. The seaport manu- facturer's market for labor of the less skilled type is improved by the landing at the port of tens of thou- sands of foreigners looking for work. The merchant at the port sits at the focus of a network of commu- nications, with all markets to draw from and all markets to ship to. The world-wide ocean services of New York, particularly its non-European lines, are responsible for the heavy concentration there of the merchandising in American exports, and for the less marked concentration of merchants dealing in imports for the whole country. Boston the gateway of New England. The port, even if it Avished, could not monopolize the whole or the greater part of the advantages of its situation on the sea. Every interior New England point with lower freight rates to Boston than to New York saves just that difference on every shipment sent or received through the Boston gateway, ocean rates being in general the same for both Boston and New York. This means increased value for all New England MEANING OF PORT DEVELOPMENT 9 nearer Boston than New York, and the larger part of New England is nearer, and cheaper, to Boston. The western farm becomes more valuable when a distant is replaced by a near-by railway shipping point and grain elevator. The farm again increases in value when the railway arranges to extend its lines or connections and reach new markets for the farmer's grain. The parallel is obvious. New York is the far- away water shipping point. Boston is the near one. It costs less to haul to Boston than to New York. All eastern and northern New England, interested in oversea or coastwise shipments, has value and power added to it by the proximity of the Boston water terminals. Every extension of Boston's water ser- vices gives added value and opportunity for expansion to every point in the territory it serves. The thou- sands of immigrants discharged here are a broad stream from which the New England manufacturer may draw, before it flows west. The port as servant of the interior. Interior New England sends or receives three tons of freight through the Boston gateway for every ton there tran- shipped for the port itself, and so gets three-fourths . of the direct advantage of every Boston steamship service for every one-fourth that Boston retains. This indicates the true relationship between the sea- port and its hinterland. The port is the servant of , the interior; it represents the interior in its dealings with lands oversea and all along the domestic coast line. The port provides the smoothest mechanical and commercial apparatus for the movement of inland freight to and on the water. It calls into life new water lines and betters the service of old lines. Its merchants find new markets for inland products. 10 THE PORT OF BOSTON New England's dependence on long-distance trans- portation. Some are beginning to realize that New England has, in general, come to the point where it must stand as a united district or yield its industrial supremacy. New England is to an exceptional degree dependent ' upon transportation. It does not produce food to support its people; it produces few of the raw materials that it manufactures, none of its coal for - fuel; and it must find, all through the land, markets for its manufactured products. New England pro- duces no wool, yet makes most of the woolen fabrics of the country and sells them in sheep-raising states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. New England produces no cotton, yet sells fine cotton goods in the southern mill towns. It produces no leather, yet sells boots and shoes in Texas. In every region where these raw materials are pro- duced, a constant effort is being made to supplant the New England manufacturers, such as is being made by the boot and shoe factories of St. Louis and the cotton mills in the southeastern states. They claim the advantage of greater nearness to the raw material, cheaper labor and fuel, cheaper rail rates and quicker rail service for distribution of their manufactures to interior markets. Skilled labor as an asset. What holds industries \ in New England is its skilled labor and the skilled direction of that labor. This will continue to hold here the finer type of industries so long as low inward rates are provided for raw materials and fuel, and reasonable outward rates with quick and sure service for manufactured products. To be assured of this truth it is only necessary to look at the example of MEANING OF PORT DEVELOPMENT 11 old England. Raw materials are brought there from every country, and England supphes with finished goods most of that part of the world that does not put up a tariff wall high enough to keep its products out. It is the EngUsh workman, employer and merchant who perpetuate the so-called "artificial" concentration of manufacturing in Great Britain. Example of England. England is enabled to do this by the network of steamship lines to all ports, lines which safeguard transportation rates and ser- vice to and from markets. The persistent pressure which England applied to have its ships passing through the Panama Canal put on the same basis as even the American vessels in the coastwise trade, is a good illustration of the emphasis which that country puts upon the protection of its water lines of commu- nication. These New England states are so situated that they are not dependent upon water transportation alone; they have a continent of protected markets reached by railroads. But it will be disastrous to neglect to take advantage of a situation on the sea, to increase the range of New England's transportation services there. Responsibility of seaboard location. The necessity for this, with respect to coastwise lines, can be simply illustrated. Draw a circle of 500 miles radius around a seaport and a circle of the same size around an inland city. Each area so enclosed represents rela- tively the area tributary to each center. Half of the seaport's zone of influence is barren water; the consuming land area which can be reached by 500- mile railroad rates is only half as large as that of the inland competitor. But so cheap is long-distance water transportation that the seaport, expending in 12 THE PORT OF BOSTON water rates the equivalent of the 500-mile railroad rate, reaches a great number of domestic ports along the seaboard and, by transhipment at these ports, a wide strip of territory all up and down the coast. The extension of this tributary coastwise strip far beyond the 500-mile zone compensates the seaport for its loss in being half surrounded by water. It makes its land area, reached by the 500-mile rail rate or its water rate equivalent, greater than that of the inland com- petitor.^ The extent to which these coastwise water services are used to turn a seaboard situation into an advantage, measures the degree to which a seaport realizes its opportunities, so far as domestic trade is concerned. Need of foreign markets. With regard to foreign trade, the competitor in the interior of the country is penalized by the exact amount of his freight charges to the seaboard, and by the time it takes his goods to get there. The seaport and its neighborhood have an inherent advantage of rates and service in trade with overseas. American agricultural exports, except for cotton, are fast vanishing. The American balance of trade is going to be maintained by exports of the products of industry, from industrial districts. New England, at the seaboard, is well situated for manu- facture for the foreign trade. It needs above all else carriers to the export markets and needs them at its own water shipping point, Boston, rather than at a more distant one. Railroad lines finished. Water lines still to he huilt. Except for branch lines and for railroads in the state 1 An instance of the manner in which water lines annihilate distance is the fact that water-and-rail rates to Atlanta are the same from Philadelphia, New York and Boston. MEANING OF PORT DEVELOPMENT 13 of Maine, New England railroad building is nearly- finished. The main lines of the railroad net in this country are laid ; only the mesh work will be filled in. New England, situated at the eastern extremity of the United States, is of all industrial districts farthest away from the present center of population and consumption in the Middle West, and from the rapidly developing markets in the South, Southwest and West. To reach these regions by rail, cars must traverse the most congested transportation area in the country: New England, the Middle Atlantic and Middle Western states. Rates cannot be low for such service, nor transportation always rapid and sure. Consider railroad centers like Philadelphia, New York, Montreal, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis. For the local manufacturers they are shipping points and mean expedition. For New England freight they are intermediate terminals, or "gateways," and mean frequent delay. What coastwise lines do for New England. Coast- ' wise lines offer relief. The Merchants & Miners Transportation Company ferries New England goods, at a reduced rate, past the congested area to Balti- more, for transhipment to the main line of the Baltimore & Ohio ; to Norfolk and Newport News, for transhipment to the main lines of the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Norfolk & Western, the Atlantic Coast Line, the Southern, the Seaboard Air Line and the Norfolk & Southern. In the same way the Ocean Steamship Company of Savannah and the Clyde Line ferry New England goods to the railroads terminating at Savannah, Charleston and Jacksonville, for delivery all through the Southeast. New coastwise services. A new line to Galveston, 14 THE PORT OP BOSTON should one become necessary, would avoid the whole congestion and ferry freight down to the gateway of the Southwest and the rail lines that radiate there- from. A new Une to the Pacific Coast will be like a New England transcontinental and will give rates and service which no transcontinental could meet. The Middle West has been displacing New England manu- factures in the Southwest and on the Pacific Coast, less because of its lower rates to these sections than because of its quicker, more dependable rail service; because of the delays suffered in getting cars through the congested terminals of that same Middle West, after getting them beyond the New England gateways. If New England's natural situation is properly util- ized, its freight can be floated past congestion, to the heart of the markets sought, and at the low rates of water transportation. New foreign lines needed. So much for water connections with domestic markets. The building of foreign lines has just begun. Vital needs for New England are direct lines to Antwerp, Rotterdam and Bremen, a line to Havre, more frequent services to the Mediterranean, lines to the east and west coast of South America, to South Africa, to Australia, to India, to the Far East. The limitations and difficulties to be overcome before these lines are built cannot be briefly or simply summarized. They are the main subject of this report. Port authorities are builders of water lines. This, then, is the business of developing the port of Boston : \ it means the building of water lines for New England. It means facilitating at Boston the physical inter- change with connecting carriers which will make the desired lines practical. It means the removal of MEANING OP PORT DEVELOPMENT 15 barriers to this free interchange, interposed by unjust rates and practices. It means active co-operation with the desired lines in getting business to make their ships profitable. The authorities of the port of Boston are to attract, encourage, engage and aid the builders of these new transportation routes. The large stake played for is industrial and commercial expansion and supremacy. "When won, it will be found divided and diffused through all this section of the country. New England's future lies largely on the free level highways which nature has built to its doors. Need of co-operation of New England railroads. In any plans for the development of the port of Boston, one fact must be constantly held in mind. ^The Boston railroads have done more than any other factor to make this port what it is. They are the physical agents which concentrate here that tranship- ment of freight between inland and ocean carriers, which is the essence of the port. The interest and co-operation of New England railroads must be enlisted in any further attempt to better the water services of Boston. That means, it must be made worth while for the roads to aid in this attempt. They must be given credit for what they have done and are doing. They should not be called upon to make sacrifices in their carrying or terminal revenues except to correct real — not theoretical — discrimi- nations against the port in its struggle for competitive trafi&c. A THE TERMINAL PROBLEM CHAPTBE II OEIGIN OF THE PEESENT SITUATION IN TERMINAL CHARGES Boston's near-by territory. The essence of a great seaport is the nuinber and frequency of its water connections, particularly its oversea lines. The traffic that feeds these lines consists of exports and imports for an extensive hinterland; the port is merely a gate through which this traffic passes. Greater Boston has a population of 1,500,000; within 50 miles dwell and work 3,000,000 people, more than the population of either Norway or Denmark. Southeastern New Eng- land is an industrial region; it uses great quantities of imported raw materials and produces a greater value of manufactures for export than any other equal area of the country, with the exception of the New York industrial district. The 3,000,000 people who live here have the money and taste for ocean travel. The industries demand a constant influx of immigrants from abroad. The West must be drawn on. Even if Boston could count on all the export and import traffic and passen- ger travel of this local hinterland, or even of all New England, it would not be a first-class port. For one thing, its exports, though high in value, are small in bulk and do not fill the ships which have brought here the imports for New England industries. To fill these ships are needed the grain and grain products, pro- 20 THE PORT OF BOSTON visions, tobacco, cotton and agricultural implements of the West, the South and Canada. This is no longer territory local to Boston. Its exports and imports are keenly competed for by the ocean and rail lines meet- ing at Montreal, Halifax, St. John, Portland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk and New- port News, New Orleans, Galveston. The success with which Boston can meet the competition in this wide field, and obtain its fair share of this competitive traffic, will determine its future growth. Seaboard competition for the West. The old idea of a seaport was that it was simply a harbor. That was largely true of the days before there were rail- roads. The only lines of communication were by water; most of the civilized population lived on the coast. The seaport was an entrepot, where long- distance water carriers interchanged with coastwise vessels. With the invention of the railroad and the opening up of continents, this transhipment business became insignificant compared with the through ship- ments to and from the interior, for which the various seaports were only competing gateways. This compe- tition of ocean gateways is best exemplified by two groups of ports: Northwest European ports from Antwerp to Hamburg inclusive, which are competing for the oversea trade of western Germany; and the American North Atlantic ports from Montreal to Norfolk inclusive, which are competing for the over- sea trade of the American interior. "Natural" conditions determined the location of these American ports, and to a certain degree influence their competition still. But being merely rival foci where traffic is concentrated or distributed by inland PEESENT TERMINAL CHAEGES 21 carriers, they are rather commercial than natural phenomena today. Boston's "natural" advantages. Ocean distances. Boston, as a member of this American North Atlantic group, has strong natural advantages. In the first place, it is nearer European ports than its principal rivals. The distances from these rival ports to Liver- pool are shown in the following table. Boston has a similar advantage with respect to ocean mileage to other European ports. OCEAN DISTANCES Distance Boston's to Liverpool advantag (nautical (nautical miles) miles) Boston . 2,862 Montreal . 2,972 110 New York . 3,056 194 PhUadelphia . 3,199 337 Baltimore . 3,355 493 The result of this situation is that the operating expenses of an ocean trip to and from Boston are less than to and from any of the other ports. With the operating expenses necessary to make 14 runs to or from New York, 15 runs could be made to or from Boston. With five ordinary freight steamers a weekly service could be maintained between Boston and Liverpool; it would take six to maintain a weekly service between Liverpool and Baltimore. The shorter ocean trip from Boston can safely be counted on to attract steamship travelers. The harbor. Boston's harbor is close to the open sea. Boston Light is only an hour from the steamship 22 THE PORT OF BOSTON piers. This compares with two hours from the New York piers to Sandy Hook. Boston's advantage is far more striking compared with Philadelphia, 90 miles up the Delaware Eiver; Baltimore, a day's sail up Chesapeake Bay; and Montreal, 1,000 miles up the St. Lawrence. This element of nearness to the sea offers the steamship companies greater safety and expedition in their voyages. In spite of being almost on the open sea, all of Boston harbor is perfectly protected by the islands of the lower bay, so disposed as to form natural breakwaters. Channel. From the sea the Government has prac- tically completed a channel of 35 feet depth at low water, with a minimum width of 1,200 feet. This compares with a 40-foot channel at "New York, and a 30-foot channel at Baltimore, Philadelphia, Portland and Montreal. This means that larger vessels can be employed in the Boston trade^ and, as is well known, the economy of transportation increases with the size of the carrying unit. Port equipment. Once a ship is in Boston harbor, it finds all facilities for handling and sheltering its cargo, inbound and outbound. There are large covered piers with railroad tracks on them so that cars can come alongside the vessel. The port is overstocked with warehouses of every type. They are conveniently located with respect to oversea terminals and their rates are kept low by reason of their competition. In Boston are grain elevators of modern construction, with a total capacity of 2,500,000 bushels. The charges 1 This advantage of Boston 's is partially neutralized by the extreme care that must be exercised in navigating the roek-bottomed channel here. In Baltimore, for example, the channel is soft-bottomed. PRESENT TERMINAL CHARGES 23 for their use are low compared with those in force at other ports. New England and Canada as Boston territory. In addition to the supposedly "local" 3,000,000 popula- tion, tributary to Boston, it is the "natural" port for most of the rest of New England. It is the rational port of overflow for the surplus of Canadian grain and grain products which Montreal cannot wholly handle in the summer, and which the Canadian winter ports of Halifax, St. John and Portland can still less handle when the St. Lawrence is frozen. Boston has counted on getting this overflow because the Canadian roads haul their export freight further, and earn more on it, when they send it to Boston for export, than when they hand it over earlier to the carriers running to New York and ports further south. Natural advantages not sufficient. The "natural" conditions for the creation of a great seaport seem to be present. If only natural conditions needed to be considered, such statements could be relied upon to interest new steamship lines ; the experience of such advantages would be sufficient to induce present lines to expand their services. If this is not occurring to the degree expected, then it is apparent that there are, under the surface, influences at work which diminish the volume of traffic which might be expected to con- centrate at Boston, and which spoil the earnings promised to steamship lines by this advantageous location. Other ports in Boston's territory. Any one who studies the situation finds that Boston's pier accom- modations care for all shipping seeking them. Boston's warehouses are not kept filled. Much of the capacity of its grain elevators stands continually 24 THE PORT OF BOSTON empty. Southeastern New England imports consider- ably, and exports still more largely, via New York. The passenger list of every large liner out of New York contains scores of travelers from Boston itself. Canadian exports, grain and grain products, are over- flowing more and more through Buffalo to New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. With western exports the case is worse. Every two weeks a Eed Star liner from Antwerp, after discharging in Boston imports for distribution in New England, sails 300 miles further to Philadelphia to load exports from the West and grain from Buffalo. Every two weeks a Holland- American liner from Rotterdam does the same thing. Differential rail rates afforded to Philadelphia and Baltimore so affect ocean rates as to neutralize the advantage of Boston's nearness to Europe. There is a wide spread between the volume of traffic that might geographically be expected to move via Boston, and the volume that actually so moves. Natural conditions not controlling. The deter- mining factor is not nearness to European ports, but inland rates, speed and frequency of railroad service from the interior to the seaboard, inter-railroad alliances and feuds, the relative strength and zeal of soliciting forces in the interior, deep-rooted prejudices on the part of shippers, rates of ocean carriers, relative frequency of ocean service, coastwise services feeding ocean lines, and other such factors. Passenger traffic seeking a port requires speedier, more frequent ocean service than freight traffic alone, and this improved ocean service attracts more high-class freight. Cer- tain charges and practices at the seaboard, on the part of rail carriers, have an influence on traffic moving via the port they serve. Such matters are more intangible PRESENT TERMINAL CHARGES 25 than geographical location and lie beneath the surface of things. No suppression of port by Boston railroads. There is a somewhat general impression that Boston's diffi- culties lie chiefly in the fact that its steamship piers are not owned by the public but by the railroads, and that the railroads, by their switching charges and other terminal practices, are hampering the develop- ment of the port. This is not true. The port of Boston has been built up largely by the Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany roads. In a port whose oversea lines have been fostered as extensions of its rail carriers, traffic conditions must be expected to reflect that situation. Many of the supposed disad- vantages to Boston from the close and exclusive relations between its individual rail and ocean hues prove upon examination to be chimerical or theoretical. A few are real and can be remedied. New Yorh's early predominance. The first thing to do is to have in mind how Boston came to grow up as a railroad port. In that respect it is not different from Philadelphia and Baltimore, Norfolk and New- port News, Portland and St. John. There are two sorts of seaport along the Atlantic Coast : New York and all others. Traffic has natur- ally sought New York ever since the completion of the Erie Canal, which established it as the port of the country back of the AUeghanies for decades before railroads were built into that territory from the sea- board. Even when the railroads were built, they did not break New York's predominance; they rather had to accommodate themselves to it and reach New York themselves. Today all trunk lines enter New York; 26 THE PORT OF BOSTON each other port must be content with one or two or three. Norfolk is served by the Norfolk & Western, New- port News by the Chesapeake & Ohio. Both the Norfolk & Western and the Chesapeake & Ohio enter New York by means of the Old Dominion Steamboat Company, in which they are part owners. Baltimore is the home port of the Baltimore & Ohio, but is also served by the Pennsylvania and by the Western Maryland, now part of the New York Central system. The Baltimore & Ohio runs on to Phila- delphia, and continues to New York over the Reading and Jersey Central. Philadelphia is the home port of the Pennsylvania; Philadelphia is also served by the Baltimore & Ohio and by the Reading, which, by its many western connections, has become a through route of impor- tance in the last ten years. The Pennsylvania reaches New York over its own rails, the Reading over a subsidiary line, the Jersey Central. All roads led to New York. New York, besides being served by the home roads of its competitors, has three through routes of its own to Chicago: the Erie and the two lines of the New York Central. In addi- tion, New York has two strong roads to Buffalo, the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, and the Lehigh Valley. In Buffalo they connect with the numerous lines from there to the West, such as the Grank Trunk, the Wabash and the Michigan Central. Boston has no lines west of the Hudson River. It has been dependent upon western traffic handed over to it at New York, Campbell Hall, Albany, Rotterdam Junc- tion, Mechanicsville, Chatham, Bellows Falls, White PRESENT TERMINAL CHARGES 27 Eiver Junction and Newport, Vt/ — dependent upon trafi&c there handed over to Boston lines by carriers whose first interest was to take it to their home ports. Efforts of railroads to huild up their ports. This concentration of trunk lines at New York and the competition ensuing between them tended to perpet- uate in New York a monopoly of the western export trade, inaugurated by the Erie Canal. The railroads at other ports have had to make extraordinary efforts to establish European steamship lines and so to have an opportunity to haul export and import traffic for the interior. In some cases the railroad line estab- lished steamship services of its own, not being successful in inducing independent carriers to come in. For example, the present Johnston Line, Baltimore- Liverpool, was originally a Baltimore & Ohio Eailroad line. The Canadian Pacific Eailroad in 1903 bought 15 steamers from Elder Dempster and laid the foundations for what is now one of the largest steam- ship companies in the world. Sometimes the "out- port'" railroad line participated in the cost of steamers built for the new service, or guaranteed a minimum cargo for the sailings proposed, or made an exclusive contract with the steamship line to give it all cargo collectible for the foreign port served. Sometimes there was merely an understanding that railroad and steamship line were to work together for their mutual interests. Li all cases the steamship line was supplied with a pier free of charge, while in New York it would have to pay from $50,000 to $80,000 per year for the same sort of accommodation. Steamship lines brought to Boston. This last type 1 See Map II, following text. 2 AU ports but New York are called ' ' outports. ' ' 28 THE PORT OF BOSTON of contract, free piers and a general agreement to work for each other's interest, is the type under which the Boston railroads attracted steamship lines to Boston. That is what built up this port. There was nobody except the railroad companies who stood ready to supply free piers, for no one else could have the compensation they had for so doing; namely, the rail haul on import and export freight of lines so brought to Boston. No one else could promise the steamship companies cargo such as the railroads were able to concentrate here. The railroad's control over a certain volume of cargo sometimes compelled a steam- ship line to give a Boston service, lest the railroad offer that cargo to a competitor. Mr. Gottheil, of Funch, Edye & Company, testified in the recent (1913) Hearings on the So-called Ship- ping Trust, before the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, Vol. 1, pp. 367, 368 : The situation at present is that all along the coast the rail- roads do what they can to develop the port to which they are running. I think that the railroads have forced more than one steamship company to give them a service, though perhaps the conditions did not really warrant it. I know that the Boston roads have forced the steamship companies to go into Boston and take rates which they can just as well get at New York. Contracts. There is much similarity in the various contracts between Boston railroads and steamship lines. The Boston & Albany-Cunard contract states: It is desired that relations in the nature of a close traffic alliance shall be maintained between the steamship company and the railroad company. PRESENT TERMINAL CHARGES 29 The steamship company generally obligates itself to discharge and take all cargo at the railroad's pier and nowhere else. In contracting for export freight from inland the steamship company agrees to give the preference to, and use its influence in favor of, the railroad and its connections. The steamship company will deliver to the railroad, so far as lies within its power, all import freight destined to points reached by the railroad or its connections. The usual criticism of this situation is, that instead of having all Boston railroads working for every steamship line, each line is tied up to a single road and its connections. The contract serves notice upon other raU carriers that the steamship line is, in the matter of competitive traffic, a preferred connection of the single Boston road which supplies it with its pier. The advantage of the three railroad systems converging upon Boston is modified when each steam- ship is preferentially bound to a single one. The exclusive relations established. The Boston railroad, having supplied a pier free to the steamship line, looks upon the line as an extension of the railroad and tries to keep for itself all possible traffic moving over that extension. This is a natural development of railroad practice. The water carrier is regarded as an industry settled on the railroad's tracks. The appropriation of the steamship line as an exclusive and favored connection expresses itself not only in provisions of the contract with the steamship company, but also in the system of switching charges applying to competitive freight, and in each railroad's practice of eliminating switching charges on New England freight moving over its own pier but not on freight moving over the piers of other railroads. 30 THE PORT OF BOSTON Switching charges. The terminal situation at Boston. To grasp the situation with regard to switch- ing charges, it is necessary to glance at the physical layout of lines and terminals at Boston. Plan B, opposite, shows the main features of this layout. Plan B is a diagram, not a map, showing the entrance and terminals of each of the railroads serving Boston, and the connections existing between the lines. New Raven. The various divisions of the New Haven road unite before entering the South Boston terminal yard, adjacent to which are the New Haven's piers, as well as Commonwealth Pier 5 and the new Fish Pier. The two latter are now operated as part of the New Haven terminal. Boston & Albany. The single line of the Boston & Albany branches at Beacon Park. Its oversea freight is carried around the city by the Grand Junction Eail- road, owned by the Boston & Albany, to the East Boston yards and piers of the railroad. Boston S Maine. The various divisions of the Boston & Maine unite at the main yard at East Somerville, from which can be reached the two groups of Charlestown piers of the Boston & Maine, known as Hoosac and Mystic Docks. The three sets of piers mentioned (at East Boston, Charlestown and South Boston) are where the ocean-going steamers of the port have long been handled. Boston S Maine and Boston & Albany well co- ordinated. It is observed that the Grand Junction Railroad, by cutting the Boston & Maine yards at East Somerville, provides adequately for interchange of export and import trafiSc between Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany. At SomerviUe the Boston & Albany freight trains serving East Boston drop „ "V" ... \.«== oinconcjcT 't -. / "'-■"■^ ■T;^f=?r= ^^'^''^*'**=*%>^ ■"■"■;;^' \ ';..,. \ \/ /y \ *\ " "^r S """/\ V— :J^ j/^^^ 3.*0 \ tAw«,„ \ 4r/ ^o BtAcoi, PA«3f ""'" •'"ijaa .'.„ \ ""■■^'*««^ \ .,.,,„A,/x...!r':.'r\ \ ^^-~-, .,,.___^\ ****%:^\. ••••^■-^1 MARBOB \ \ ^"**-ia*'-"^ si. ^^^^^-"■■■•■■"■■"■^ -^-^ ^r:; .... , ""J^"^ '•"'""""< /\ fLAN-B- -i,.,.,- ,..„ ■'•-=-)< f !ew England popxdation. The westbound mer- chandise manufactured by this population is high in value and pays high rates, but is small in bulk and fills few cars. For instance, in the last Differential Case it was testified that in December, 1912, 68.7%^ of the westbound box car movement of the Boston & Albany consisted of empties. This was described as the typical monthly percentage for the Boston & Albany. It may also be considered to be about the average of the other New England roads. Under these circumstances every ton of imports is something to put in a car that will otherwise go west empty; and an additional handicap to the carrying of western imports by the Boston roads becomes a matter of the most vital concern to them. From the viewpoint of car loading, hindrances to the movement of western exports via Boston mean merely preventing the Boston roads from bringing here, at low competitive rates, more cars to be hauled back empty. The port needs exports. With the port of Boston, the case is different. The same New England indus- trial population which brings into New England cars for which it is difficult to find return loads, also briugs to Boston, carrying imports, boats for which it is hard to find enough outward cargo. The port can trust to the development of New England to fill the ships inbound and is heavily dependent upon the West only for export cargo. Steady growth of imports here. The growth of imports at Boston during the last ten years has 1 Not including stock cars or refrigerator cars. (Letter of H. M. Biscoe, Traffic Manager, Boston & Albany Bailroad, p. 2605 of Hearings.) EFFECT OF DIFFERENTIAL RATES 109 reflected the steady industrial expansion of New England. This growth has been more marked than that of Boston's leading outport competitors. The comparative figures follow: Imports at Leading Atlantic and Gulp Poets. Calendar Years 1903-1913 Inclusive In Millions of Dollars^ New Year Montreal Boston Phila. Balto. Orleans New York 1913 . 154 135 92 36 83 1,012 1912 . 149 151 93 28 83 1,068 1911 . 130 116 81 28 68 895 1910 . 114 121 90 32 61 919 1909 . 97 127 78 27 54 892 1908 . 80 89 57 24 41 650 1907 . 106 123 81 36 44 830 1906 . 89 110 72 35 45 780 1905 . 80 106 68 25 22 713 1904 . 76 86 54 19 36 631 1903 . 79 83 56 25 30 698 Canadian and in-bond imports. The foregoing figures do not iaclude the imports at Boston for Canada, in-transit, nor imports at Boston forwarded to the American interior, for appraisal. During the last five years this through business, unrecorded above, averaged $23,000,000^ at Boston, about equally divided between imports for Canada and shipments in bond to the U. S. interior. Leading Boston imports. The leading items of Boston's import trade indicate clearly their New 1 U. S. Customs figures, reprinted in annual report of Boston Chamber of Commerce. Montreal figures from Board of Trade Report. 2 1913 Eeport of Directors of the Port of Boston, p. 95. no THE PORT OF BOSTON England destination. These leading items, during the last six years, have been as follows : Peincipal Commodities of Impoet at Boston foe Six Yeabsi 1913 1912 1911 Fibres and vegetable grasses and products . 23,400,000 18,100,000 13,700,000 Wool . 20,000,000 22,500,000 12,200,000 Hides and skins . . 19,800,000 27,100,000 17,500,000 Cotton and cotton mfres. . 16,700,000 20,300,000 19,500,000 Sugar . 8,100,000 10,700,000 8,500,000 Chemicals, drugs and dyes . 5,000,000 5,400,000 5,300,000 Wood and wood mfres. . 5,000,000 4,000,000 3,600,000 1910 1909 1908 Fibres and vegetable grasse s and products . 14,500,000 14,600,000 13,700,000 Wool . 20,100,000 33,100,000 13,600,000 Hides and skins . . 14,300,000 15,400,000 8,400,000 Cotton and cotton mfres. . 15,100,000 13,800,000 12,000,000 Sugar . 9,500,000 7,000,000 8,000,000 Chemicals, drugs and dyes . 6,200,000 6,300,000 3,900,000 Wood and wood mfres. . 3,200,000 3,000,000 2,600,000 These imports are for New England. The hides and skins are for Massachusetts tanneries, later the boot and shoe factories of Lynn, Brockton and Haver- hill. Wool is for Lawrence. "Cotton and cotton manufactures" consist largely of Egyptian cotton, via Liverpool, for New Bedford and Fall Eiver. "Fibres and vegetable grasses" are jute for the bag- ging factories at Ludlow, hemp for the Unen thread mills at Webster, sisal for the cordage works at Plymouth. Sugar is for the refineries in Boston harbor; "chemicals, drugs and dyes" are largely raw materials for Boston's chemical and fertilizer works. New England's demand grows steadily. New Eng- land's industrial growth has been so constant that it ' From annual reports of Boston Chamber of Commerce. EFFECT OF DIFFERENTIAL RATES 111 can be relied on in the future to demand ships full of imports. That industrial growth is measured by the last three industrial censuses : in 1899, 1904 and 1909. Industrial Growth of New England States,i 1899, 1904, 1909 Tear 1909 1904 1899 No. of Plants 23,351 22,279 22,576 Capital Employed $2,503,854,000 1,870,995,000 1,507,630,000 Workmen Employed 1,101,290 940,752 Kaw Material Used $1,476,297,000 1,116,273,000 994,037,000 Value of Product $2,670,650,000 2,025,999,000 1,660,348,000 Percentage of imports destined west. In 1904, 75% of Boston's imports were for New England, 25% for the competitive West.^ For the year ending June 30, 1911, the situation was that a still smaller percentage of Boston imports was destined to competitive terri- tory. The import tonnage hauled by the railroads during that year had the following distribution :' Distribution op Eailroad Import Tonnage via Boston, Teak Ending June 30, 1911 To Points West To Buffalo* and Beads of Buffalo Points East Tota % % % B. & A. . . 21.4 78.6 100 B. & M. . 22.1 77.9 100 Average . . 21.9 78.1 100 Except burlaps, western tonnage small. The per- centage of western imports to all imports landed at 1 Bulletin of Census Bureau on Manufactures in United States, 1910. 2 Testimony of Mr. Preston of Boston, p. 2684 of Hearings in 1905 Differential Case. 8 Import Exhibit 8 of Boston Chamber of Commerce in 1912 Differ- ential Cases. * Bates from all ports to Buffalo are the same. 112 THE PORT OF BOSTON Boston would be still smaller, for the percentages given refer only to imports hauled by rail; they do not regard the import tonnage teamed away from Boston piers, nor the very considerable tonnage handled by lighter to chemical works and fertilizer works in the harbor. Moreover, one item, burlaps, constituted 55%^ of the imports for the West forwarded from Boston in the years 1908, 1909, 1910, 1911 (six months). In 1913 burlaps with 73,983 tons furnished 51% of the 144,743 tons of imports forwarded west from Boston.^ Bur- laps are brought from Calcutta by a single line of steamers, which are attracted to Boston by imports of jute for the bagging factory at Ludlow. The typical British and European liners send west a smaller percentage than 21.9% of the tonnage landed at Boston. For instance, the 16 steamers of the Holland-American Line in 1910 had their cargo distributed as follows : Distribution or Imports op Holland-Ameeican Line Through Boston, 19103 Local Weetem States Canada Total Tons . . 15,703 2,179 1,310* 18,562 Percentage 80 12 8 100 That is, Boston's imports now are only to a slight degree destined to the West, and the port cannot suffer heavily even if the facility of reaching the West with iFrom tnmk line statistics; the totals of Boston imports for the West being published in Import Exhibit 3 of Boston Chamber of Commerce, in the 1912 Cases. 2 p. 148 of 1913 Eeport of Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. 8 Import Exhibit 15 of Boston Chamber of Commerce, 1912 Differ- ential Cases. 4 Including 1,000 tons of sugar on one ship. EFFECT OF DIFFERENTIAL RATES 113 imports is impaired by the unexpected decision in tlie Import Differential Case. The market for Boston imports has long been New England; and it is a market that can be confidently counted on for the future. New England exports insufficient. The manufac- tures of New England, to be shipped east by steamer as well as to be shipped west by rail, are high in value, but small in bulk. Boots and shoes, rubber goods, machine tools, leather, electrical and shoe machinery do not fill ships. New England's only two bulky exports are apples in the fall and early winter; and cotton waste and rags in bales from the cotton mills, which move fairly constantly throughout the year. Western exports needed. To fill ships are required the grain, grain products, provisions, agricultural machinery, cotton and tobacco of the West. In the 1905 Differential Case it was testified (Hearings, p. 2685) that 80-85% of Boston's exports came from competitive territory. More detailed figures are avail- able for a later date, the year 1911. Peecentagi Division op Domestic Export Tonnage via Boston, Teab Ending June 30, 1911i Boads B. & A. B. & M. From New England ' J? >^ ^/ ■\ I f // ^fc.\ 2g !V I. ^ \ »>' I ,♦ *-^ y>" "^--i^ o o s I o «) 4- ^ ■s o = a _i 1 t o 1. a. c o X HI c ti CO u ■1- 75 r _ (1 o n n DC 1. _i +- I. H < lU o j_ a <- X U i 1^ 9/ - ■« y -s-^. c o ^ -^ \* ■ o * 5 S (f ■''*a »* .'^ •" s ii/1^..^5fe -P^-%£ J'^'' < a c z o c o II 111 I o 3 120 THE PORT OF BOSTON is generally chartered for one voyage by a single shipper who is able to accumulate a full cargo of one such commodity. For the same charter rate, a tramp vessel will come to any of the ports from Hampton Eoads to New York inclusive, often Boston^ as well, in order to take on export cargo. The leading items of American exports moving in cargo lots are cotton and grain; the latter moves largely from the North Atlantic ports. Insurance rates are the same on the hulls of the same class of vessels using any or all of these American ports. Through rates lower via differential ports. With the charter, or ocean, rate the same from North Atlantic ports, and with the inland rates lower to Baltimore and Philadelphia, it is apparent that the through rate from American interior to foreign destination is lower via Baltimore and Philadelphia, and as a rule full cargoes will move through these ports up to the capacity of their elevators to handle the grain. This is illustrated by a statement of the number of full cargoes of grain moving through North Atlantic ports during the last six years. Full Oabgoes of Grain Shipped from Specified Poets 1908-1913 Inclusive 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 Baltimore . . 1 5 9 18 66 130 Philadelphia . 19 12 1 16 34 34 New York . . 5 4 26 45 Boston ..00001 6 How New York gets cargoes. Boston gets only a rare overflow cargo. Philadelphia is at present behind 1 As a rule it costs 1.5d to 3d per quarter (8 bushels) of wheat more to charter a vessel to carry from Boston than from the other ports. EFFECT OF DIFFERENTIAL RATES 121 Baltimore because of a lack of elevator capacity at Philadelphia, to be remedied by the recently opened new Girard Point elevator of the Pennsylvania Rail- road. New York's renaissance is largely due to the tariff of an Erie Railroad elevator,^ which for an elevation charge of 0.5^ per bushel delivers grain to tramps. This 0.5^ corresponds to 0.75^ for elevation at Philadelphia and Baltimore, and about equalizes the 0.3^ differential on ex-Lake grain in cargo lots. Manufactures in full cargoes. Upon occasions manufactures also move in full cargo lots. This is particularly true of agricultural implements. For instance, the International Harvester Company ex- ports a large number of full cargoes to points like the Black Sea, to which there is no adequate liner con- nection from this country, and to destinations in South America and even northern Europe, which have not liner space for the International's heavy seasonal shipments. As this company can charter a vessel as cheaply to carry the cargo from Baltimore as from Boston, it is in a position to save for itself, by using Baltimore, the entire differential of 60^ per ton, $12.00 per car. The Harvester Company exports 15,000 cars of agricultural implements per year. Between September 1 and November 15, 1912, the International Harvester Company chartered ten tramp steamers, all from Baltimore. That is, in the case of full-cargo shipments the differential acts as a subsidy to the shipper to use the differential port. Lack of outward cargoes affects inward rates at Boston. Every year scores of tramp steamers come I The New Tork Central has also applied this tariff to grain taken by steamers direct from elevators. 122 THE PORT OF BOSTON to Boston with cargoes of clay and other raw products. The differential makes it impossible to load these steamers with grain from Boston; they must proceed to another port to get out-cargo. The prospect of having to make this extra move makes charter rates on cargoes inward to Boston higher than to Phila- delphia or Baltimore, and by so much handicaps the New England manufacturer to whom the inward cargo is brought. The impossibility of loading tramps out of Boston is a very serious handicap to the port. What tramps have meant to Baltimore. What the ability to load tramps may mean is well illustrated by the case of Baltimore. The Pennsylvania Steel Company established its present plant at Sparrows Point, a suburb of Baltimore, because of Baltimore's full-cargo wheat trade. When the plant was first established it got its ore largely from the Mediter- ranean. The presence of outward wheat cargoes at Baltimore was counted on to cheapen the inward rates on tramp steamers bringing ore. Later Cuba came to preponderate as a source of ore supply. Then boats bringing ore forced a heavy export of coal from Baltimore to Cuba. This coal tonnage outbound is now heavier than the ore tonnage inbound at Balti- more, and more cargo is being sought at Cuba. It is likely that this will be sugar and will result in the establishment of a refinery at Baltimore. Liners carry the most grain. However, the traffic between Europe and the United States North Atlantic ports is so heavy and regular that it moves largely on line vessels, which sail regularly throughout the year. Each vessel is used by hundreds of shippers and carries, in addition to coarse freight like grain, high-class merchandise and often passengers as well. EFFECT OF DIFFERENTIAL RATES 123 Because of the high earnings from these two latter sources and because the liners uniformly have freight in both directions, they almost invariably offer lower ocean rates than tramps can be chartered for. Tramps in this North Atlantic trade are as a rule chartered only when the liner space from all Atlantic ports to a given foreign destination is full ; or when cargo ship- ments of grain and other coarse freight are destined to European ports to which no liners run, such as Cardiff or Calais. Boston liners have to equalize inland differential. Because of the higher inland rail rate to Boston, the regular steamship line operating out of this port must, if it is to get Western cargo, take an ocean rate lower than that applying from Philadelphia or Baltimore, in order to keep the through rate via Boston the same as via the differential ports. This was illustrated by the rates given on page 58, applying on flour to Ham- burg, Liverpool and London from the ports of Boston to Baltimore inclusive. With few exceptions, steamers sailing from this port to European destinations are owned by lines running steamers to the same desti- nations from differential ports. The difference in the operating cost of a freight steamer making a round trip from Europe to Boston, rather than Baltimore, is not great. Therefore it pays the steamship lines to take western cargo at Baltimore or Philadelphia. The practice of the Hamburg-American Line illus- trates this effect of the differential ; it has services to Hamburg from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Newport News. The following table shows the effect on through rates brought about by the company's ocean rates. 124 THE PORT OF BOSTON Table Illustrating Lowee Through Export Eates from U. Interior via Differential Poets to Hamburg. Cents per 100 lbs.i I Rail rate favor of Commodity Baltimore II Ocean rate Baltimore m Ocean rate Boston IV Ocean rate favor of Boston V Through rate favor of Baltimore (I minus rV) Flour 2 13 11 2 Hominy feed Provisions 3 3 13 30 11 29 2 1 1 2 Hardwood lumber 3 26 25 1 2 Clover seed 3 30 29 1 2 Compressed cotton Kentucky tobacco Measurement goods 3 3 3 25 30 122 25 30 122 3 3 3 Hamburg-American equalises only partially. Ocean grain rates fluctuate from hour to Biour and cannot be compared. Boston averages about 0.5^ per busbel under Baltimore, more than enough to absorb the 0.3(^ ex-Lake differential; but, until Baltimore liners are filled up, not enough to attract all-rail grain against the Baltimore differential of 1.5^ per 100 pounds, %^ per bushel of wheat. But it will be observed that as to the major articles of export freight besides grain, which are noted above, the inland differential is equalized — the through rates via both ports made the same — only in the case of flour. On hominy feed, the Hamburg-American Line takes 2^ of the differential and leaves 1^ to the shipper who uses Baltimore. On provisions, hardwood lumber and clover seed, the steamship company takes 1^ and allows the shipper 2^. On cotton, tobacco and measurement goods 1 Ocean rates from April, 1914, Bate Sheets. 2 12^ per cubic foot. EFFECT OF DIFFERENTIAL RATES 125 (manufactures) the shipper is allowed the whole 3^ differential. London line equalizes more fully. The English lines equalize on a larger proportion of their cargo. For instance, the International Mercantile Marine Company's lines to London have the following ocean rates : Bates peom U. 8. Interior to London via Boston and Baltimore. Cents per 100 lbs.i I Bail rate favor of Commodity Baltimore n Ocean rate Baltimore ni Ocean rate Boston IV V Through Ocean rate rate favor of favor of Baltimore Boston (I minus IV) Flour . . .2 14 12 2 Oatmeal and oil cake . 3 14 12 2 1 Provisions . . 3 24.49 22.78 1.69 1.31 Hardwood lumber . 3 30 27 3 Tobacco . . 3 38 35 3 In the case of tramp steamers carrying full cargoes, the differential acts as a subsidy to the shipper to avoid this port. In the case of liners, the differential acts as a subsidy to the steamship company to take export cargo at another port than Boston. Indirect outbound services of liners. Some lines do not run services from Boston, but, after bringing to Boston imports for New England, proceed to a differential port to take on western cargo, because they can earn more thereby. Such lines are the Red Star, which proceeds to Philadelphia to load for Antwerp ; and the Holland-American which proceeds to Phila- delphia to load for Rotterdam. Until June, 1913, the Hamburg-American Line, after discharging cargo at Boston, proceeded to Baltimore to load for Hamburg. 1 Ocean rates from Bate Sheets of April, 1914. 126 THE PORT OF BOSTON Once an indirect outward service from Boston is established, it acts to keep away from Boston exports from territory naturally tributary to this port, because of the slow time made by boats sailing from Boston to a differential port before proceeding to Europe. For instance, a linseed oil cake manufacturer in Buffalo exports 100,000 tons of oil cake per year, equally divided between Antwerp and Rotterdam. The rail rate on all Buffalo traffic (except ex-Lake grain) is the same to all ports, oil cake being 8.5^ per 100 pounds. Therefore the steamship lines can earn no more on this traffic out of Philadelphia or Baltimore than out of Boston. At the present time the ocean rate on oil cake is 19(iS out of both Boston and Philadelphia via Red Star Line. But for con- venience in handling, the Red Star Line prefers to have this traffic at Philadelphia, to be loaded with the heavy western exports. The Buffalo man can ship his cake three or four days later to Philadelphia, from which the boat sails last. So Boston gets none of this traffic. Similarly, New England shoe manufacturers ship via Boston their shoes for England, as Boston has direct lines there ; they have been shipping shoes for the Continent via New York, because of Boston's indirect lines to North European ports.^ 1 The mdirect outward sailings of tramps and liners, taking outward cargo elsewhere than at Boston, explains the growing discrepancy of entrances and clearances at Boston. Net Eegisteb Tonnage of Vessels at Boston IN THE FOEEIQN TeADE 1908 1913 Entered .... 2,864,912 3,039,312 aeared .... 2,075,743 1,903,891 Excess of entrances . . 789,169 1,135,421 CHAPTER VII PASSENGER TRAFFIC VIA BOSTON AS AN OFFSET TO THE DIFFERENTIALS Passenger business changes indirect sailings. One of the inducements that may change into direct sail- ings the indirect services from Boston to Bremen, Rotterdam and Antwerp is indicated by the consid- eration which led the Hamburg-American Line to change its old indirect freight service from Boston to Hamburg via Baltimore, to a direct service Boston to Hamburg. The new direct first-class passenger service was instituted in 1913 by the "Cleveland" and "Cincinnati," which were to be joined in 1914 by the "Amerika," in 1915 by the "Kaiserin Auguste Vic- toria." These boats were put on in the expectation of developing a passenger business via Boston. For freight reasons Boston would never have had a direct service to Hamburg. Passengers as an offset against differentials. It is the passenger business that pays in the North Atlantic trade. Some lines earn seven-eighths of their net from passengers alone. The main reason for this is that the comparatively few liners built to carry passengers are not subject to the competition of tramp steamers, which are called in if freight liners put up their rates high, and whose search for employment, in dull times, forces ocean freight rates very low. 128 THE PORT OP BOSTON The passenger carriers combine and, year in and year out, maintain passenger rates at remunerative levels. The profitable carrier in the North Atlantic trade is the large combination freight-and-passenger steamer, which makes money from passenger travel in the summer when freights are scarce, and from freight traffic in the winter when passengers are not moving. If Boston can demonstrate its ability to supply passengers for combination freight-and-pas- senger liners, it will show itself capable of supporting the most profitable type of vessel. Such a vessel, sup- plied with passenger earnings, can afford to take lower ocean rates and so absorb the inland differential. The furthering of the "Sail from Boston" movement is more than a sentimental matter. It is a practical attempt to meet the difficulties created by the differ- ential situation. Passengers can be made a partial offset against the lower inland freight rates of the southern ports. Inland fares on passengers. With respect to pas- senger travel, Boston has a considerable advantage over Philadelphia and Baltimore. Boston is a day's sail nearer to Europe. It is located directly upon the open sea, not 90 to 150 miles up the Delaware Eiver or the Chesapeake Bay. The inland rail rates for steamship travelers via the leading Atlantic ports are shown in the following table. Chicago may be taken as typical of competitive western points. PASSENGER TRAFFIC VIA BOSTON 129 Passenger Bail Bates Between Chicago and Atlantic Poets fob Steamship Travelers Between Chicago and Montreal Quebec Halifax St. John Portland Boston New York Philadelphia Baltimore Eastbonnd Westbound I Class n Class I Class Immigrant $17,501 $15,001 $17,001 $13,501 17.501 15.001 17.001 13.501 17.501 15.001 17.001 13.501 17.501 15.001 17.001 13.501 17.501 15.001 17.001 13.501 20.001, -^ 17.001, -' I 22.005 II 19.155 14.001 20.003 17.003 20.008 15.001 18.25* 15.50* 18.257 13.751 17.50 15.00 17.00 13.451 Eastbound fares. It will be noted that, as to rates from Chicago for steamship ticket holders, Boston is equalized with New York rates and that, using the New York, Philadelphia and Boston differential routes, the rates to North Atlantic ports are practically equal. Boston has an excellent differential service, for instance over the West Shore-Boston & Maine. These inland rail rates, eastbound, published in the 1 These rates are lower than the corresponding rates for persons not holding steamship tickets. 2 This is via standard route (New Tork Central-Boston & Albany). Via differential routes (all others) the rates are: First class, $18.00; second class, $16.00. 3 This is via standard routes. Via differential routes the rates are: First class, $18.00; second class, $16.00. * This is via standard routes. Via differential routes the rates are : First class, $18.00; second class, $15.50. B This is via standard route (Boston & Albany -New Tork Central). Via differential routes the rates are: I II Boston & Maine-West Shore . $20.65 $19.15 Boston & Maine-Brie . . . 19.00 18.15 Boston & Maine-Montreal . . 18.00 17.15 6 This is via standard routes. Via differential routes, $18.00. 7 This is via standard routes. Via differential routes, $17.00. 130 THE PORT OF BOSTON passenger rate cards of the steamship companies, are via the differential routes for New York, Philadelphia and Boston, and Ada standard routes for Baltimore and Montreal. These rates read as follows : Bastbound Rail Bates foe Steamship Teavelbks Chicago to I Class II aass Montreal $17.50 $15.00 Boston 18.00 16.00 New York 18.00 16.00 PhUadelphia 18.00 15.50 Baltimore 17.50 15.00 Practically equal eastbnund fares, all ports. That is, there is practically no eastbound passenger differ- ential. Once the passenger reaches Boston, he finds a wide range of types of transatlantic steamer. To Queenstown, Liverpool and Glasgow he may sail by so-called one-cabin steamers, carrying only second- and third-class passengers. These one-cabin steamers are probably the most popular of innovations in ocean transportation. For the payment of moderate rates the traveler gets a second-class ticket which entitles him to the best accommodations on the boat, for it carries no first class.^ If he prefers all the luxury of ocean travel, he may have it on the large first-class liners sailing from Boston to Queenstown, Liverpool, Plymouth, Cherbourg and Hamburg. No other port but New York has such passenger service as is now being rendered in Boston by the Cunard Line's "Carmania," "Caronia," "Franconia" and "Laconia"; and by the Hamburg- American Line's "Cleveland," "Cincinnati" and "Amerika." 1 As is well known, the American Line has made one-class (second class) steamers of the St. Paul, St. Louis, Philadelphia and New York, sailing from New York. PASSENGER TRAFFIC VIA BOSTON 131 Ocean passenger fares. It is difficult to compare the ocean passenger rates at various ports, for the rates vary almost with each boat and there are no two boats exactly alike. The Atlantic Conference is an asso- ciation comprising practically all North Atlantic lines carrying passengers. One of the functions of the Conference has been to fix and maintain minimum first- and second-class passenger rates, which are kept in relation to the size, speed and age of the boats so rated. When a new boat comes out, it has been the practice for a committee of the Conference to fix its first- and second-cabin rates. As a rule these rates, for the same sort of boat, are made the same for all the ports except New York, which is higher. For instance, when the ' ' Franconia ' ' and "Laconia" were built, they were given one set of rates to apply to them when operating in the service Boston-Liverpool, and another set for the service New York-Liverpool. The Boston-Liverpool rates were $5.00 less than the New York rates, both for first and second class. This indicates the generally recog- nized principle that the outports need a passenger rate differential under New York in order to attract passengers in competition with that port. Boston alone of the United States North Atlantic ports, other than New York, carries first-class passengers, to any extent. The Conference Eeports of transatlantic passengers handled via various ports show this : FmsT-CLASs Passengers Handled via Other North Atlantic Poets than New York 1912 and 1913 Via Boston Via PhUa. Via Balto. 1912 1913 1912 1913 1912 1913 9,300 10,072 114 95 3 132 THE PORT OF BOSTON Boston's attractions for 'passengers. Therefore, so far as both inland and ocean passenger rates are concerned, Boston is as well situated as the other United States ontports, and better situated than New York. Boston's shorter ocean distance to foreign ports gives it a controlling advantage over other outports. Another advantage is the possibility of combining with an ocean voyage from Boston a visit to the historical and literary shrines in this vicinity, in which the average westerner has a keen interest because of heredity and education. The parks, shops and hotels of Boston and the near-by mountain and shore resorts, and the automobile roads of New Eng- land, are added attractions to bring leisurely travelers this way. Need of publicity in West. The "Sail from Boston" movement has hardly penetrated beyond the confines of New England. Few westerners know of the recent development of Boston into a port of first-class liners like the "Carmania" and the "Amerika." They do not know that the ocean rates on vessels of this type from Boston are lower than those from New York and that the inland rates for steamship ticket holders are the same as those of New York from such important centers as Chicago. They often do not know that the best accommodations on such vessels as the "Arabic" and "Cymric" out of Boston are available at second-class rates. They do not realize the shorter ocean voyage from this port. As they plan their sailings, the attractions of Boston and its neighborhood do not occur to their mind. As a rule New York is looked upon as part of the tour. Advertising of English Port Authorities. To PASSENGER TRAFFIC VIA BOSTON 133 change this, nothing will be effective except a general campaign of education in the West, and that means advertising. It may seem a radical departure for a port to advertise for passengers. It is not for Port Authorities to advertise for freight. The English commercial and shipping publications are never with- out pages of advertisements of the Manchester Ship Canal Company, the London Port Authority, the Mersey Docks and Harbor Board (Liverpool), the London and Southwestern Railway (Southampton Docks), and the new port of Immingham. Manchester is the largest advertiser. It is purely a freight port and has no expectation of seeing passengers carried past Liverpool and taken thirty-five miles up a lock canal. Boston's future is very closely tied up with the success of the passenger services from this port. A Boston publicity fund for the West. The Boston Port Authorities could afford to contribute to a "Sail from Boston" publicity fund to be used in the West. There is perhaps no service that would be so valuable to the steamship lines operating out of Boston as a successful campaign to remove the western ignorance of Boston as a port, and to break New York's monopoly on the traveling mind. This campaign would be simplified by the fact that there are six or seven western centers where the great majority of western travelers either originate or buy their tickets, or whose newspapers are the source of traveling information for these persons. Therefore the campaign could be a local one. It need extend only over the first six months of the year, for practically all bookings are made then. Such advertising would include all Boston lines. 134 THE PORT OF BOSTON Consolidated Boston advertising. At present Boston is ineffectively advertised by the individual steamship companies. As a rule, the Boston sailings appear under the New York sailings, the latter usually in heavy type; and the various Boston sailings and services are scattered over the steamship pages, hidden among the displays of the different lines. The proposed advertising would concentrate the Boston appeal and present together the alternative lines and sailings from Boston. The precise form which the advertising should take is a matter of detail. It should include the preparation of a booklet giving the pro- spective passenger detailed information such as news- paper advertising can give him only in broad outline. With an initial fund of $25,000 an experiment Lri ' ' Sail from Boston" advertising could be made for one year. As beneficiaries of such publicity, the Boston steam- ship and railroad lines could appropriately be called upon to add to the "Sail from Boston" fund: $15,000 by the steamship lines and $5,000 by the railroads, prorated among them in proportion to the number of passengers carried. The advertising campaign would then be under the joint direction of all three contributors. Rail rates westbound, for steamship passengers. This publicity would also affect the first- and second- class steamship traffic, westbound, of American trav- elers, who make up the bulk of this traffic. But there should be an adjustment of the passenger rail rates, westbound, first class, putting Boston upon a more favorable basis than at present. The westbound rates corresponding to those already given for eastbound passengers are as follows: PASSENGER TRAFFIC VIA BOSTON 135 Westbound Rail Bates foe Steamship Travelbrsi To Chicago from I Class II Class Immigrant Montreal .... $17.00 $13.50 Boston (B. & M.-West Shore) 20.65 $19.15 14.00 Boston (B. & M.-Erie) 19.00 18.15 14.00 New York 18.00 15.00 Philadelphia 17.00 13.75 Baltimore 17.00 13.45 Need of adjustment of Boston rates. The Boston standard route west (Boston & Albany-New York Central) is $2.00 more than the New York standard routes, $22.00 as against $20.00. Boston's cheapest American differential route (Boston & Maine-Erie) is $1.00 more than New York's differential routes. It would be only just to equalize Boston with New York on westbound fares for steamship travelers, as on eastbound. These Boston reductions — to $20.00 standard route and $18.00 differential routes to Chicago — would apply only to rail tickets sold abroad by railroad representatives or steamship agents, or sold on the Boston pier to bona fide steamship travelers. Canadian efforts for United States cabin business. This rate adjustment would better enable Boston to meet the competition of Montreal and Quebec on the north, which have a $17.00 rate to Chicago for cabin passengers. In the detailed passenger rail rate table, given on page 129, a conspicuous feature is the uni- formity with which all Canadian ports have adopted, as their rates to and from Chicago, the passenger rates of the cheapest American port; namely, Baltimore. 1 Boston, New York and Philadelphia differential routes; Montreal and Baltimore standard routes. 136 THE PORT OP BOSTON It is the American cabin business, in particular, which these Canadian ports are seeking; the heavy immi- gration to Canada has kept the third-class quarters full. Particularly in the case of the Canadian winter ports, very heavy reductions have been made in the rail fares for steamship travelers, under the regular passenger fares between those points and Chicago. The following table indicates the extent of these reductions : Tablk Showing Eeductions in Eegular Fibst-Class Rail Passenger Fares to and from Chicago, Accorded to Steamship Travelers at Boston and Canadian Poetsi Eastbound From Chicago Westbound To Chicago Eegnln.r Pare Steamship Reduction Regular Travelers Accorded Fare Steamship Travelers Reduc- tion Ac- corded Boston $22.00 $20.00 $2.00 $22.00 $22.00 Montreal 18.00 17.50 .50 18.00 17.00 1.00 Quebec 22.00 17.50 4.50 22.00 17.00 5.00 Portland 20.50 17.50 3.00 20.00 17.00 3.00 St. John 28.50 17.50 11.00 27.50 17.00 10.50 Halifax 33.00 17.50 15.50 32.50 17.00 15.50 Competition of Montreal and Quebec. The rail journey between the United States interior and the Canadian winter ports, particularly St. John and Halifax, is so tedious that their lower rail fares will hardly avail them to take cabin traffic away from New York and Boston, in spite of the rate sacrifices made. But Montreal and Quebec are, during the warm season, when passengers move, competitors of the 1 Boston fares via standard routes, via Montreal. Canadian and Portland fares PASSENGER TRAFFIC VIA BOSTON 137 most active sort. Boston should be put on the same basis in handling westbound United States passengers as she is in handling eastbound. Boston shut out from Canadian steerage business. It will be remembered that all these Canadian ports but HaHfax take the Baltimore import rates on com- modities into the United States interior, 3^ per 100 pounds lower than Boston; while Halifax has the Philadelphia rates, 2^^ lower than Boston. There is a concerted and determined effort to build up Canada's ports and, when necessary, to draw upon the American interior to feed them. This policy is expressed in the high subsidies paid by the Dominion Government to liners between Canada, Great Britain and France, and in a railroad passenger and freight rate structure which, while reserving Canadian territory for Cana- dian ports, claims United States territory also for those ports. Instances of this in Canadian export freight rates will be given later. A single further illustration will suffice with regard to passenger fares. It might be expected that, as the Canadian roads enter United States passenger territory on the basis of the most favored American road, the American lines would be able to make some reciprocal arrangement by which they could share in the transportation of Canadian passengers. The Canadian passenger move- ment is one of immigrants inbound. The inland fares to Winnipeg from the Canadian and United States Atlantic ports are as follows : 1 In Halifax it is elatmed that this 1^, by which Halifax rail rates nominally exceed St. John's, is absorbed in the proportion of 0.8^ by the steamers, 0.2^ by the Intercolonial Railway, making the through rates the same via both ports. 138 THE PORT OF BOSTON Bail Fares tor Immigrant Passenqeks to Winnipeg From From Montreal . $18.00 Boston . $24.00 Quebec . 18.00 New York . 25.00 Halifax . 18.00 Philadelphia . 25.00 St. John . 18.00 Baltimore . 25.00 Portland . 18.00 Canadian immigrants only for Canadian ports. This $6.00, by which the rate from Boston is higher than from Canadian ports, effectively precludes the movement of Canadian immigrants through this port. To make assurance doubly sure, the Dominion Govern- ment pays to booking agents abroad a bonus of £1 per head for British agricultural and domestic labor- ers over 18 years, 10/- for such immigrants under 18 years. The bonus applies only to immigrants cbming via Canadian ports, Portland being consid- ered as a Canadian port during the winter season. It is this $6.00-$7.00 differential against American ports which causes the Cunard, White Star and Allan Lines to Boston in the spring, before Montreal opens, to stop westbound at Portland or Halifax to land Canadian immigrants. It is this which makes many lines having no Canadian services, like the Navigazione Generale (Italy) to Boston, the Eussian American to New York, the Uranium Line (Eotterdam) to New York, call at Halifax to discharge and take on Cana- dian steeragers. From many points of view, some of which will appear later, Boston's severe competition in the future will come from the North rather than the South. United States immigrants are pooled. With regard to United States third-class (immigrant and emigrant) passengers, in- and outbound, the inland rail fares are PASSENGER TRAFFIC VIA BOSTON 139 not of determining importance. That is because the ocean rates on third-class passengers are continually being varied by the different steamship lines in order to effect the distribution of westbound and eastbound steeragers as arranged in the British, Continental and Mediterranean Steerage Pools. It will be recalled that the inland rates to Chicago vary little as between the different ports. Boston is $14.00, $1.00 under New York, 50^ over the Canadian ports, 25^ over Philadelphia, 55^ over Baltimore. Immigrants are susceptible to slight differences in through rates and, with the inland rates fixed, the variable ocean proportion determines the through rate. These ocean rates are moved up or down, on various steamers, in order to regulate the quotas carried by the different Pool lines. The Canadian lines are going to be more and more fully employed in carrying Canadian steeragers. Boston's hold on immigrant traffic. Boston offers to steamship lines serving the United States excep- tional inducements to bring their through immigrant passengers via Boston. These inducements are: a shorter ocean voyage to Boston; an inland rate to the West $1.00 under New York, free piers in Boston with spacious quarters for handling immigrants; finally, examination of immigrants on the piers where they are landed, without the necessity of transporting these passengers, at steamship expense, to a union immi- grant station for examination. At New York, after the steamers have docked and cabin passengers are landed, steeragers must be barged to Ellis Island. At Boston western immigrants may be sent inland from the steamship pier. The smaller number of immigrants landing at this port permits the immi- 140 THE PORT OF BOSTON gration officials to give more time and courtesy to the examination of the new arrivals than is possible in the crowded station at Ellis Island. Because of these conveniences in Boston, the port enjoys a growing popularity among immigrants. The best publicity among prospective immigrants in Europe consists of letters from their pleased countrymen who have entered at Boston. The growth of New England industries has fur- nished a valuable local territory for absorbing immi- grant laborers. Boston's Liverpool lines have been built largely on British and particularly Irish immi- gration to New England. The replacement of the British by a Continental stream of steeragers is reflected by the development of North European and Mediterranean lines. New York in Boston territory on British steeragers. A peculiar equalization of inland rates on British steerage passengers for New England has let New York into this territory more than would have been natural. An immigrant for Boston can reach Boston as cheaply via New York as via Boston itself. If he comes via New York he is given a free ticket to Boston on the Fall Eiver Line. Similarly, if he is destined to a point nearer Boston than New York, and enters at New York, he pays the inland fare from Boston and is given a ticket from New York. For instance, an immigrant at New York for Providence pays 90(J (the Boston-Providence fare) and is given a ticket to Providence on the New York-Providence boat. So far as inland fares are concerned. New York is moved up to Boston. In point of convenience in inland travel, Boston is still preferable; the immigrant can reach PASSENGER TRAFFIC VIA BOSTON 141 Providence on the day he lands in Boston, while he must wait for the night boat from New York. The equalization of Boston and New York rates on British immigrants to New England territory is not a matter of great importance. It does not generally apply to Continental and Mediterranean steeragers. In the case of these, Boston retains in inland fares the advantage of its location, though the New Haven publishes from New York to New England points, via its Sound Lines, lower inmaigrant fares than the local rates from New York, the fares including transfer from Ellis Island to the Sound Line boats. Russian outward steeragers at Boston. The one serious hindrance to the movement of local New Eng- land third-class passengers through Boston is in refer- ence to Eussians outbound. In order to return to his own country, a Russian must have a passport. Many of them come from Europe without passports, being smuggled across the border. Those who bring regular passports usually let them lapse because of the high annual tax payable to the Russian Government in order to keep the original passports alive. The usual way to return is with a consular certificate, or pro- chodnoje, issued by a Russian consular official in the United States. At the present time the Imperial Russian consul at Boston is not empowered to issue these prochodnojes ; he can obtain them only from the Consulate General in New York. The delays and expense of this procedure are such that many Rus- sians from Boston itself pay their fares to New York and sail from there, in spite of the fact that the Hamburg-American Line and all British lines from Boston carry Russian passengers. An inquiry sent to the principal agents selling outward steerage 142 THE PORT OF BOSTON tickets in 21 towns in the neighborhood of Boston showed that, during the first eight months of 1913, these agents had sold 3,205 Enssian outwards via New York and only 1,253 via Boston. By the Metro- politan District agents alone 1,799 tickets were sold via New York and only 711 via Boston. It is to be hoped that the necessary extension of powers will be conferred on the Boston consular office. CHAPTER VIII STRONGER BOSTON SOLICITATION IN THE WEST Stronger Boston solicitation in West. The develop- ment of the passenger business of Boston transatlantic lines has been described as an offset to the effect of differential freight rates. Another offset would be the strengthening of exclusive Boston soliciting forces in the West. Western export traffic is sought by three main sorts of solicitor: the western steamship freight agent, the western "commercial agent" of a railroad fast freight line, and the western representatives of New York forwarders or ocean freight brokers. In Boston, brokers should get commissions, as in New York and Philadelphia. The last type is solicit- ing only for New York. One reason is that the brokers are allowed a commission of 1.25% on the freight rates of all traffic they book at New York. If a Boston forwarder gets exports sent to him in Boston he gets no commission on such traffic when he books it with the steamship line. Even the American Express Company gets no commission from the steamship companies on traffic booked at the port of Boston. The largest brokers and forwarding companies have offices in both New York and Boston, the home office being in New York. It does not increase their enthusiasm for Boston exports when they are allowed a freight commission at New York and not here. 144 THE PORT OF BOSTON Here there is opportunity for the steamship lines to correct an inequality by providing, under proper safe- guards, to give the New York 1.25% commission to Boston brokers who bring them traffic. In Philadelphia also all brokers are allowed 1.25% commission on all freight they book. What a seaboard broker does. The seaport broker or forwarder is used particularly by the inland exporter of L.C.L. The broker books the freight by the cheapest steamship line, exchanges the inland for the ocean bill of lading, forwards the latter to the shipper, looks after prompt clearance, notifies the shipper of clearance and makes a return regarding weight and value to the Customs for statistical pur- poses. In some cases complicated proceedings are necessary to get the consular documents required for shipments, especially for shipments to Latin- American countries. The seaboard forwarder can consolidate small lots of export, and, by offering them as a larger lot, obtain a saving in ocean freight which is shared with the shipper. An L.C.L. exporter cannot afford to maintain at the seaboard an export representative of his own, to look after his export shipments. The small inland shipper can save money if he can consoli- date into a full car all his export shipments, send them to New York at the carload rate — consigned to the broker, and pay the broker for distributing them to the various steamship lines. Boston's extensive services. New York is of course the best port to which to send such a consolidated car for export, as, no matter where an individual shipment may be destined, foreign or coastwise. New York is sure to have a line to carry it. But Boston now reaches, with direct services, all leading British ports, STRONGBE BOSTON SOLICITATION 145 Hamburg, Italy, Havana, Central America and the Maritime Provinces. Mediterranean, Australian and African points are reached via transhipment at Liver- pool or London or Hamburg; Australia, for instance, usually as rapidly as via the infrequent direct services from New York. Evidence of weak western solicitation for Boston. A letter received from Springfield, Ohio, in response to a circular letter sent to traffic managers in the West, indicates the lack of solicitation, in that territory, of Boston forwarding people. Springfield is an L.C.L. export town. The letter follows : The Springfield Traffic Bureau, Springfield, 0., Feb. 5, 1913. Dear Sir: — Acknowledging receipt of your favor of the 30th ult., in which we are asked as to what conditions are operating against the flow of export business from here through the port of Boston, we itemize below some of the points which we believe have a bearing on that subject: 1st. The time made by freight from here to Boston does not compare favorably with the time to New York. It is our opinion that the railroads put forth greater efforts to rush New York export business than that destined to Boston. 2d. The infrequeney of sailings from Boston. (We are pleased to note that you are changing this.) 3d. Business is sent through New York on account of a long-established habit. "We do not believe that this is done on account of any prejudice against any other gateway, but rather on account of the consignors not taking the trouble to investigate the merits of Boston or other gateways. 4th. The lack of solicitation or boosting the port of Boston such as you are now doing. 5th. The activity of the numerous freight-forwarding 146 THE PORT OP BOSTON agents located in New York. Their solicitation in this territory is vigorous. We never heard of one from Boston. 6th. A very small percentage of L.C.L. export business moves from here.^ Our manufacturers combine their own export shipments or in conjunction with other manufacturers and move the business at carload rates, which makes a very material saving not only in the freight but in the lighterage charges. Under these conditions there may be one shipment in a car which would find prompt accommodation^ and several others which would be delayed, whereas New York could promptly move each shipment.' 7th. Our opinion so far as applying to this territory is, that the shippers themselves are the ones who must be educated to the fact that New York is not the only American port. "We would estimate that 90 per cent of the prices made on export shipments are f. o. b. New York. In fact a great many catalogues show prices covering that delivery. Yours truly, The Springfield Traffic Bureau. Equalize Boston with New York and Philadelphia. There is need, and, with the extension of Boston's oversea services, opportunity for an increased activity of Boston brokers and their connections in the West. Equal treatment with New York and Philadelphia in the matter of commissions paid, would help supply them with the incentive for extending their western solicitation for exports via this port; and it would increase interest for Boston on the part of New York firms with branches here. The brokers can offer via Boston the same export rates as New York and one advantage over New York ; 1 As L.C.L. The next sentence explains. 2 At Boston. 8 Because of the extensive oversea services at 'New York. STRONGER BOSTON SOLICITATION 147 namely, in the free distribution, from the car, of ship- ments, to the different steamship lines. New York will give only three free lighterage deliveries to the con- tents of such a consolidated car; further deliveries must be by team and paid for. Boston tariffs provide for free teaming of any number of "split shipments" in a consolidated ear. An especial reason for increasing the interest of forwarders in shipments via this port is that they so enjoy the confidence of many shippers as to control the movement of their exports. The recent prepon- derance of manufactured goods in the export trade has largely increased the demand for the seaboard service which these brokers and forwarders render. Western agents of steamship lines. The second class of western solicitors of export freight consists of the western representatives of the steamship lines. For instance, the International Mercantile Marine Company has a General Western Freight Agent at Chicago, a Northwestern Agent at Minneapolis and a Southwestern Agent at St. Louis. The Hamburg- American Line, Furness Withy & Company, and other large freight-carrying lines have similar western representation. Besides soliciting freight for export at Boston these agents are also soliciting freight for the parallel services which they run out of ports competitive to Boston, and as they earn more on carryings out of Baltimore and Philadelphia, they cannot be expected to throw any especial influence to the Boston service. As a matter of fact, these repre- sentatives solicit impartially freight for all direct services run by their companies. The steamship companies feel that they have done a great deal when they equalize the through rates via Boston with the 148 THE PORT OF BOSTON rates via the southern ports; see, for instance, the equalization for the Boston-London service, in the table on page 125. When, in spite of this equalization, it is more difficult to fill the Boston boats than the Baltimore and Philadelphia boats, the steamship lines feel that they are not having adequate help from the traffic forces of the Boston railroads. Commercial agents of fast freight lines. Eailroad solicitation of export freight is performed by the western representatives of "fast freight lines." For a long time there were separate sets of lines east and west, respectively, of Buffalo and Pittsburgh. To provide for through cars, through routes and through rates between points on eastern and points on western lines, "fast freight lines" were jointly established, sometimes jointly owning special through cars which, without breaking bulk, ran through over the rails of eastern and western members. But essentially they were traffic organizations soliciting through freight for this particular route. Eventually nearly every eastern line came to have a fast freight line in con- nection with every western road, though now each road has one or two connections with which it works preferably. When eastern and western lines are one road, as in the case of the Pennsylvania east and west of Pittsburgh or the Erie east and west of Salamanca, then the fast freight line of the road becomes its traffic organization dealing with through business. Such are the Star Union Line of the Pennsylvania, the Erie Despatch of the Erie, the Eed Line and the Blue Line of the New York Central system. The "fast freight" solicitors of the West, being interested in through business, also solicit export freight. There is a repre- STRONGER BOSTON SOLICITATION 149 sentative of every sucli line, called a "commercial agent," in every western center of importance. New England members of fast freight lines. These through routes attach to their fast freight lines short roads in the Middle West and also lines east of the Hudson Eiver. The Boston & Albany is a member only of New York Central fast freight lines. But the Boston & Maine and New Haven have long been members of all the leading fast freight lines, including those of the New York Central. The New England road participates in the support of each of these traffic organizations in proportion to the volume of freight which they turn over to the New England carriers. Minor interest of lines in Boston. It might be sup- posed that, as the Boston & Maine participates in the support of these organizations, their fast freight employees are in duty bound to solicit as zealously for Boston as for New York or any other port. But the contributions of the Boston road come after the traffic has been sent here. It pays for trafic sent to Boston, not for sending it here. The fast freight organization is appointed, instructed and controlled by the eastern trunk line, which in every case has another home port than Boston. Effect when through rates via Boston lower. The shipper has a right to route his freight as he chooses. When the through rate is lower via Boston, he is fairly certain to book his export for a Boston boat. Then nearly every commercial agent is soliciting that freight to move to Boston via his line. If it is once booked to sail from Boston, there is no chance to influence it via any other port, and it is better to take half a loaf than none at all. 150 THE PORT OF BOSTON When through rates are equal. If every shipper picked his boat before consulting the fast freight men, they would have little influence on routing. Many shippers — ^for instance in Duluth — get their ocean rate quotations from the commercial agents, letting them stand the expense of wiring to Chicago for rates. When the quotations come back, the through rate to Europe on flour, for example, is likely to turn out to be the same via all ports. Then the influence of the commercial agents is used in favor of their home ports, by such methods as expressed or implied preference or promises of prompt car supply and service. The shipper knows that the Erie Despatch man prefers New York. He knows that the Erie Railroad alone will be responsible for prompt export service to New York ; if freight moves to Boston, the Erie shares the responsibility of service with the Delaware & Hudson and the Boston & Maine. A possible exception to this rule is the New York Central, which, owning the Boston & Albany, can as profitably carry exports to Boston as to New York. In the 1904-1905 Differential Case, Mr. Eaton, Western Agent of the Erie, referring particularly to flour, testified as follows (Hearings, p. 705) : With equal through rates, I should say that there are more instances where the bookings and the routing of freight beyond the Atlantic seaboard are left to the railroad, than cases where the shippers express their preference. Boston steamships miss railroad help. As a result of the lack of Boston solicitation in the West, the steamship people say that it is easier to get freight for other ports than Boston, on equalized through rates. No one in the West is telling shippers of the STRONGER BOSTON SOLICITATION 151 advantages of using this port ; for instance, that it has New York's export rail rates and usually ocean rates low enough to offset Baltimore and Philadelphia's differential, that fast passenger steamers increase the port's advantage of heing a day's sail nearer Europe and that Boston has for provision shipments an "ice water route" that can in every way measure up to that of Montreal. Western shippers talk of New England roads as a great terminal yard, complacently switching domestic traffic which is bound to come to New England any way, and indifferent to the export business, highly competitive and moved at lower than domestic rates. For education, a traffic department of Port Direct- ors. To systematically carry on this work of educa- tion among shippers, the Boston Port Directors should have a small traffic department of their own. The work of such a traffic department is so well illustrated by the development of the port of Manchester that Manchester's organization deserves examination in some detail. The example of Manchester. One of the most successful examples of port development is that of Manchester, England. It has proceeded essentially along traffic lines. In 1894, after heavy expenditure made by a private company and by the city after the company's resources gave out, a ship canal was opened, 35 miles long, connecting Manchester with the sea. It has cost $80,000,000. To get to Manchester, vessels had to pass by Liverpool, the second port of England. In Liverpool were concentrated all the steamship lines serving the north of England; there were located the merchants who handled export and import goods; railroad lines radiated from Liverpool 152 THE PORT OF BOSTON and got their longest haul, and largest earnings, when traffic moved through that port. When the ship canal was finished, and docks, sheds, grain elevators and belt line were constructed, Manchester was by no means a port. Organization of Manchester's Traffic Department. It was the Traffic Department of the Manchester Ship Canal Company which engaged the steamship lines that now make Manchester the third port in the United Kingdom, and induced them to give Manchester the same ocean rates as Liverpool. This department brought about a readjustment of rail rates, between interior points and Manchester and Liverpool respect- ively — a readjustment that gave Manchester the advantage of its greater nearness to the manufacturing centers of the North. The railroads now allow to the belt line rate divisions which make it self-supporting. The charges levied on ships and goods for use of the canal and docks are carefully calculated for each article of traffic moving. In every case inducement is left for the traffic to move via Manchester, rather than a rival gateway. Its field force. The Traffic Department has thirteen or fourteen solicitors traveling out of Manchester in the manufacturing centers. These solicitors carry the rate cards of Manchester steamer lines and demon- strate to the shipper that he gets the same ocean rate out of Manchester and a lower inland rate than to Liverpool; that his carload shipments will be deliv- ered alongside the ship at Manchester without the cartage usually necessary at Liverpool, etc. These Manchester solicitors do not book freight ; it is booked by the local agent of the originating carrier. But, having persuaded the shipper, they call in the local STRONGER BOSTON SOLICITATION 153 representative of the Manchester steamship line and he makes a contract with the shipper covering one shipment or all shipments for a year. That is, the Manchester Ship Canal solicitors are working for all steamship lines in Manchester. In order to be consid- ered impartial, they accept no commissions from either railroad or steamship lines, but are supported by the Manchester Ship Canal Company, which means the port of Manchester. The stake of the latter is partly the charges paid by ships and goods using its belt line, docks and canal; but particularly the growth of the port's steamship connections and the resulting prosperity of the city of Manchester, which is the principal holder of the Canal Company's securities. Representatives in other English ports. This Traffic Department also has traffic representatives in London, Liverpool and Hull. The business of these men is to find out what traffic is moving through those rival ports destined to or coming from the territory geographically tributary to Manchester. They find out who controls that traffic and he is approached and urged to give it to Manchester. A London importing house may give the information that goods it imports for the account of a Birmingham buyer are sold f. o. b. Birmingham; hence the routing is directed by the foreign seller. The foreign traffic representative of the Canal Company, located nearest to that seller, is then instructed to call on him. Agents in United States and elsewhere abroad. Foreign representatives are maintained in the leading countries trading with the north of England; for instance, in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In Toronto is a representative who has an assistant continually traveling for him and who 154 THE PORT OF BOSTON travels some himself. The New York office has a manager and two traveling agents, besides an office force. One of these traveling agents confines himself to New York alone; one travels mostly in the "West; in addition, the New York manager regularly visits the largest shippers. Foreign agents are not main- tained in near-by coimtries such as Spain and Italy. These are covered by the Manchester home office which, for instance, every year sends a man to Italy before olive oil is shipped, and to Spain before grapes move, in order to inform and solicit the leading shippers there. A considerable amount of literature is regularly issued by the Canal Company. The most important piece is a regular monthly pamphlet called "Man- chester Sailing List and Shipping Guide." The sheets giving Manchester sailings are new every month; the rest of the pamphlet does not change. This booklet contains information regarding the history of the canal ; the charges for use of the canal and the docks ; illustrations of savings on inland rates and terminal charges effected by using Manchester rather than Liverpool ; a list of all officials and representatives of the Canal Company with their addresses; advertise- ments of the Manchester steamship lines and the Manchester freight brokers and forwarders. Boston is like Manchester. It Avill be seen that Manchester has a traffic organization of world-wide scope, educating shippers and soliciting freight. Its co-operation is the most valuable inducement that can be offered to a prospective steamship line. Boston's situation, overshadowed by New York, is not unlike that of Manchester, subject to the overwhelming competition of Liverpool. The same measures will STRONGER BOSTON SOLICITATION 155 be effective here as there. The present extensive Manchester organization is the result of evolution; Boston does not at first need such wide connections, but it should start its organization now. Port Directors' traffic department. The traffic department of the Port Directors should be under a traffic manager, who would be part of the permanent force of the Directors and co-ordinate with the chief engineer. This manager should have an assistant, who, among other things, would keep a rate file of the land and water rates affecting Boston water lines ; and a traveling agent who, under direction of the traffic manager, would regularly cover the exporters of New England, the Middle West and Eastern Canada. Once a year the traffic manager himself should visit each of the largest of these exporters. The shippers should be encouraged to feel that this department is the one to turn to for rectification of inland or ocean rate adjustments that keep traffic from moving through Boston. A great many obstacles to this movement would come to light, now kept hidden by those whose interest it is to do so. Ways to remove these obstacles would be devised. The Department would be a reser- voir of information for New England exporters and importers. What it would accomplish. The information col- lected from many sources by the traffic department would put it in the strongest position to approach steamship lines and negotiate for desired extensions of Boston's services. The traffic department should prepare and regularly distribute a pamphlet of information for shippers, modeled on the "Sailing List and Shipping Gruide" of the Manchester Ship Canal Company. Finally, the traffic department 156 THE PORT OF BOSTON should do the work of the industrial commissioner of a railroad; that is, it should have charge of the busi- ness of attracting tenants to the State's lands at South Boston and East Boston. "With the aid of this department, the Port Directors would be able to formulate and pursue the broadest traffic policy, look- ing to the development of the port. Most "port development" in the United States is based on instinct and enthusiasm rather than the business information that should be the basis of public as well as private expenditure and action. The traffic department should save the Port Directors and the State from errors being committed elsewhere. The institution of a traffic department would be a strong evidence to steamship companies of the earnestness with which port development in Boston is proceeding, and of Boston's recognition of the lines along which it must develop if at all. The traffic manager should be a practical transportation man of high caliber. Its organization. The traveling agent covering inland exporters would primarily serve the purpose of educating them to the use of Boston and keeping them in touch with the port's progress, as in the extension of its steamship lines or the rise of new seaboard trade agencies capable of handling the exporters' shipments. As in the case of the Man- chester men, when the traveling agent found a shipper ready to make a shipment or a contract, he would bring him in contact with the western representative of the Boston steamship lines. Steamship companies have expressed their willingness to have their western representatives work in harmony with such an agent of the Port Directors. STRONGER BOSTON SOLICITATION 157 Its later extension. Later it will no doubt be found advisable to extend this organization. It will be found desirable to have a representative located in Chicago, with at least one man traveling for him. In Chicago are concentrated the general western offices of steamship and railroad lines ; in Chicago originates a large proportion of export traffic moving. Memphis, Minneapolis, St. Louis and other export centers are quickly reached from Chicago. It will also be found desirable to have a man located in Buffalo, which is destined to play a much more important part than at present in export traffic, and which, because of its equal rates to all Atlantic ports, is of especial interest to Boston. It will be found desirable to have a foreign representative in England and one on the Continent, in order to reach foreigners who control the routing of export or import shipments that might move via this gateway, and in order to keep in closer touch with the home offices of foreign steamship lines. But these developments will come naturally when the effective- ness of a traffic organization is demonstrated. The important thing is to get it started in the modest way outlined above. Need of Boston railroad agents in West. There should also be in the West representatives of Boston railroads, engaged in soliciting export freight for Boston. It has been seen that Boston is in a weak position to secure western exports in that it has no railroad line of its own beyond the Hudson River. All its traffic must come from rail lines whose primary interest is to carry the traffic to some other port. Under these circumstances it is not enough for Boston roads to have equal raU rates with New York. They 158 THE PORT OP BOSTON need active solicitation in the West; the fast freight lines of which they are members cannot be relied on to give them that solicitation. All other ports represented in West. Baltimore has two raU lines to Chicago: the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania.^ Chicago is full of Baltimore & Ohio solicitors. The Star Union Line (Pennsyl- vania) maintains there an export agent with an extensive organization. He has educated the Star Union Line men throughout the West in the solicita- tion and handling of export business. He issues to shippers ocean rate sheets giving rates at various ports, and is probably the most effective of all the western railroad agents, with regard to influence upon the routing of export traffic. Philadelphia has three roads : the Baltimore & Ohio, the Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia & Reading. The Chicago representation of the Baltimore & Ohio and the Pennsylvania has been described. The Philadelphia & Eeading does not get west of Williams- port, Pa. It is the Boston & Maine of Philadelphia, a stub line dependent for traffic on what is handed to it by the trunk lines, each with a home port of its own. The Philadelphia & Reading maintains in Chicago an office with a manager and several Reading men traveling out of it. Their especial care is the export business. The New York railroads are represented by the commercial agents of fast freight lines belonging to these roads, and also by Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley offices, distinct from the representation of their 1 The Western Maryland is not yet of any considerable importance in the export trade. STRONGER BOSTON SOLICITATION 159 fast freight lines. Montreal is represented by the strong solicitation of the line men of the Grand Trunk and the Canadian Pacific. In the winter their efforts are turned to Portland and St. John, respectively. Only Boston has no representation. When the New Haven was in export business. In the early 1900 's, the New Haven decided to enter the export business. It engaged for its South Boston docks a line to Antwerp and a line to Manchester.^ The New Haven established a foreign freight agent in Boston and opened offices for New Haven representa- tives in both Buffalo and Chicago. In addition, it devoted one of its New York soliciting force to cover- ing New Yorkers controlling the routing of export and import freight, in order to have them move their shipments via Boston. With the entrance into power of the late New Haven regime, it was decided that the export business did not pay. The New Haven representatives, engaged in facilitating it, were with- drawn, and the steamship lines were forced to the Boston & Albany and Boston & Maine piers. The New Haven then stayed out of the foreign trade until it was brought into it again by the institution of Commonwealth Pier 5, at South Boston. The situation is in no way changed today. There is still the same need for western railroad solicitation for the Boston gateway as there was when the New Haven took the matter up. The steamship lines of the port deserve this aid from the inland carriers of their freight. They deserve it particularly because of the western aid given by railroads to foreign lines 1 While the New Haven had these lines at South Boston it applied the Baltimore import rates to the West. 160 THE PORT OF BOSTON at other ports; and because of the geographical and commercial weakness of Boston, ■with respect to getting western export traffic. The Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany and the New Haven should each have an export agent at Chicago, covering the Middle West. c A SOLUTION OF THE TEAFFIC PEOBLBM CHAPTER IX CANADIAN GRAIN PRODUCTS Boston must he a freight port. Development of passenger business through Boston has been described as one offset to the effect of the differentials. A second offset would be the strengthening of Boston's solicit- ing forces in the competitive West. This would enable Boston to get a fairer share of the exports of this territory. But the worst effect of the differentials remains: the subsidy they offer to steamship lines to handle the exports of the "West at a differential port, by offering these lines additional earnings via the southern ports, earnings greater than the added costs of operation to those ports. The offsets described may mitigate the severity of Boston's problem, but they do not solve it. Passenger business is seasonal. If Boston is to attain real greatness, it must be a freight port. To develop Boston as a freight port, the steamers must be supplied with export traffic on which they can earn as much as they could by taking that traffic elsewhere. Then, the lower steamship operating costs applicable to Boston will make them turn their influence this way. The only way in which Boston can become a second great seaport on the North Atlantic coast is to make it worth while for the steamship lines to make it so. Non-differential traffic necessary. Boston's efforts in the last Differential Case, seeking equal export and import rates with Baltimore, were an attempt to have 164 THE PORT OF BOSTON the ban taken off the traffic of United States differ- ential territory. It failed. Boston must now look elsewhere for non-differential traffic; that is, traffic brought to this port on as low inland rates as to its competitors — on which, therefore, the steamship lines need not shrink their ocean rates in order to compen- sate the higher Boston rail rates. This may be safely stated as the chief problem of the port of Boston. Where it may come from. This traffic may be of three main sources: from New England, Buffalo and Canada. Boston cannot complain of its present quota of New England export freight. Most of its coarse exports, such as apples and cotton waste, move for export at Boston. There can be no just complaint that export rail rates from New England points are unfair to Boston and tend to take oversea traffic to New York. When New England manufactured exports go to New York there is generally some good reason for it. In some cases they are destined to points like South America, to which Boston has no sailings. In some cases they are sent to New York in the interest of expedition, when the Boston outward service is a slow, indirect one, such as the Antwerp and Rotterdam services via Philadelphia. One case is that of an exporter of motorcycles who has a contract to deliver fifty motorcycles per week in London. Boston has no weekly London service, as it used to have; therefore it is not in shape to contract for this traffic. In some instances the New England manufacturer does not export direct but sells to a New York commission house, which brings all shipments to New York to be consolidated and exported. But in general New Eng- land export shippers are loyal to Boston, which wiU get a stUl larger proportion of their traffic as soon as CANADIAN GRAIN PRODUCTS 165 its oversea connections are made more frequent and more extensive. If every pound of New England exports could be forced through this gateway, it would not save the situation. New England does not produce the bulk to fill ships. Buffalo. Buffalo is an export center of great promise. The mills which make grain products for eastern distribution and for export have expanded largely in Buffalo in recent years. The reason is that grain thus exported pays the low rate on grain down the Lakes to Buffalo and the higher rate on grain products only from there east. Grain milled in the West pays the higher rate on grain products all the way east. In addition to an advantage in rates, Buffalo has the advantage of nearness (which means rapid service) to the Atlantic seaboard. The cheap transportation of grain in the Lake freighters is the making of Buffalo. The exports of oil cake (from flax- seed) by a single firm have already been referred to. One of the striking developments of the flour industry in recent years has been the growth of mills in Buffalo. In the daily capacity of its mills it is now easily the second milling center of the country. Daily Capacity of Tloue Mills at Leading Milling Centeksi No. of Mills Daily Capacity Minneapolis Buffalo . Montreal New York Kansas City 23 11 3 1 8 85,100 barrels 27,300 barrels 12,500 barrels 12,000 barrels 11,600 barrels Taeoma . 3 9,000 barrels Toledo . Seattle St. Louis 5 5 4 8,100 barrels 6,800 barrels 6,700 barrels 1 Millers' Almanack, 1914-1915, p. 184. 166 THE PORT OP BOSTON Buffalo as a milling center. These Buffalo mills are run largely on export product; for instance, most of Washburn Crosby's exports come from their mill there, which can turn out 15,000 barrels per day. If Canadian wheat comes into this country free, as it will automatically when the Canadian duty on American wheat and flour is taken off, the present restrictions on milling Canadian wheat in bond will be removed, and Buffalo will become the largest miller of Canadian wheat for export. Canadian wheat milled in Buffalo would have its choice of ocean services of all United States Atlantic ports and, in addition, a marked advantage in rates and service to the whole consuming market of the Atlantic seaboard. Buffalo good Boston territory. It will be recalled that export rates from Buffalo to Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore are the same. They are, in cents per 100 pounds, 8.5^ on oil cake, 9.5^ on flour, 10.5^ on iron and steel products. Therefore no higher ocean rate can be earned on this traffic out of Balti- more or Philadelphia than out of Boston. In the case of flour, for instance, the Boston lines generally earn the Baltimore ocean rate on Buffalo shipments. Boston can look with the greatest satisfaction upon the devel- opment of Buffalo. Everything produced there, rather than in United States differential territory, is moved out of the ban and into the zone of influence of New York and Boston. Buffalo is an export fiield to which the attention of the soliciting forces of Boston rail- roads, and of the traffic department of the Port Directors, can be turned with profit and success.^ 1 Buffalo traffic is also far more profitable to the Boston roads ; 40% of a 9^ flour rate from Buffalo is far better than 20% of a 14^ rate from Chicago. CANADIAN GRAIN PRODUCTS 167 Canada. But the principal field to which Boston should look for its export tonnage is Canada. Boston has always been considered, even by the Canadians, as the ''natural" overflow port for the growing vol- ume of Canadian grain and grain products which, as the Canadian roads know, cannot be forced through the narrow gateway represented by Canada's summer port of Montreal, and its far-away winter ports of Portland, St. John and Halifax. It has been expected that Boston would come into its own as Canadian wheat replaced United States wheat for export, and that the monopoly of the differential ports, based on the carriage of this United States grain, would be broken. Yet, as Canadian exports have increased, they have not seemed to flow through Boston, which seems to get no particular advantage from its relation to Canada. A study of the situation shows that Canadian export wheat is taking routes that do not lead to Boston, and having applied to it the differential rates constructed to protect the southern ports on United States grain. Quietly, and without protest, a rate discrimination is crystallizing which, unless it is promptly met, will result in Baltimore and Philadel- phia appropriating Canada as they have the American Middle "West. Boston's last chance as a freight port disappears if it allows its rivals to appropriate this, its legitimate export field, which, in its possibilities for the future, is the most promising of all areas on the continent. The danger is so great, and the stake so large, that the subject deserves the most careful attention. Decline of United States grain exports. The staple upon which the British and European services of all American ports are built is the carriage of grain, 168 THE PORT OP BOSTON especially wheat. A small quota of wheat for a liner to carry from a United States ontport is 100,000 bushels (2,600 tons). Two hundred thousand bushels (5,200 tons) is not an unusual item; for instance, for the Boston Leyland Liners to Liverpool. Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, France, Italy and Spain produce less wheat than they consume, particu- larly the three first named. The highly developed North Atlantic trade was built upon the carriage of wheat to Europe and the bringing back of immigrants to produce more wheat. But the United States is ceasing to have a large exportable surplus of wheat. The immigrants have been more and more turning to the high wages offered in our industries, especially as free government land began to give out. Mouths to be fed have increased more rapidly than workers to feed them; in the last ten years our wheat production has not advanced; the surplus available for export has dropped. This is shown in the following table : Table Illustrating Decline of U. S. Wheat Available foe Export, Fiscal Years 1898-1913, Inclusivei Fiscal Tears Ending June 30 Population Wheat Production bu. Wheat retained for consumption bu. Wheat Exported^ 3U. Per Cent Ex- ported 1913 97,080,000 730,267,000 587,387,000 142,880,000 19.57 1912 95,410,000 621,338,000 541,618,000 79,689,000 12.83 1908 88,938,000 634,087,000 471,043,000 163,043,000 25.71 1903 80,848,000 670,063,000 467,157,000 202,905,000 30.82 1898 72,947,000 530,149,000 812,813,000 217,306,000 40.91 Only New York unaffected. The year 1913 shows a recovery in American wheat exports, due to the 1 Figures from Statistical Abstract of U. 8. for calendar year preceding fiscal year. 2 As wheat and flour together. Production figures are CANADIAN GRAIN PRODUCTS 169 exceptional wheat crop of 1912. But the United States cannot be counted upon to supply Europe with wheat much longer; the rapid tendency is to consume our own product. The same is true to a lesser degree of flour; but the decline in United States flour exports has been aided by the development of modern mills in foreign ports, supplied with American machinery. These mills are beginning to market flour more cheaply than mills in the American interior, because bulk wheat can be carried abroad more cheaply than sacks of flour. In the last few years the complaints of Ameri- can flour millers have multiplied regarding the increas- ing spread between ocean rates on flour and wheat, respectively. The drop in wheat and flour exports has been a most serious matter for North Atlantic ports other than New York. Baltimore and Phila- delphia have seen the usefulness of their differential decline, for the two exports which it most affected, dropped off. New York has steadily progressed, for, with its network of services and its perfected trade agencies, it was in position to handle the exports of United States manufactures which have replaced our shipments of foodstuffs. The differential had no effect on these manufactures; 60 V \/ /% ■¥ \ V / V Jf a » \ /^ *H N^\ , 1 4r^-^ C-» \ » > Ml \ 1/ r DIV. C^'^'Vk 1 ^sf-X-. , ~-i il_ IE P^^ 6 J I ^^/ I e \ i ^^Sfiif ^ \ v/ , v/ ^ w^ LAYOUT S RAILROAD TERMINALS B aYa i SE>.PORT TMRBC RAlUtOMU MSUMCO line similarly competes for imports in the important matters of car supply and service to the interior. New Orleans and Montreal have waterfront belt lines of this type. An ideal seaport layout. Plan A, on this page, illus- trates an ideal layout for terminal and interchange 254 THE PORT OF BOSTON railroad operations in a seaport situated on a semi- circular bay of the sea. It is the sort of layout that the founders of such a city would have provided for, by the reservation of land and in other ways, if they could have foreseen the invention of the railroad and steamship, and the relations that have arisen between them, due to the development of trade. The layout assumes three railroads to be co-ordinated, the number in Boston today. Its waterfront belt. The rails of each division of each road unite just before they come into the terminal yard of the road. All trains come into this yard. The cars are here sorted out and switched for delivery to outbound trains, industrial sidings, team tracks, freight houses or storage tracks — ^perhaps for later delivery to the waterfront belt line. When the water carrier served by the belt line is ready for the cars consigned to it, the railroad delivers those cars upon the belt line tracks at its junction with the belt, whose locomotive sets the ears upon the pier where they are wanted. It will be noted that the belt intersects the railroad lines inside their terminal yards, so that there is no back haul necessary to effect the interchange. The belt line is simply one of the classifications for which cars are sorted at the inbound terminal yard. Similarly with carload freight from the water carrier to the railroad. Each day the belt line is notified of the number of cars from each carrier for each steamer next day. The belt collects these empties from the railroads in question and sets them. When the bars are loaded, the belt line switches them out and turns them over to the railroads, which, at their TERMINAL OPERATIONS IN BOSTON 255 outbound classification yards, sort them into the out- going freight trains. Its intermediate belt. From three to five miles back from the waterfront runs another belt line, an inter- mediate belt. It is a semicircle parallel with the waterfront belt and similarly cutting all railroads, intersecting their terminal yards. It serves the pur- pose of a detour for railroad interchange — for cars that need come into the terminal yards to be sorted — and the purpose of an industrial belt line, lined with factories and warehouses. Each railroad would also have frequent freight houses and team tracks along this neutral belt. The business section of the city would grow up between the waterfront and the inter- mediate belts, the residence section between the intermediate and outer belts, or even out beyond the latter. Its outer belt. The outer belt line is twenty miles back from the waterfront, semicircular and parallel to the first two belts. Like them it cuts all the rail- road lines, but (see Plan A) cuts them out consid- erably beyond the point where the divisions of each road unite to enter the terminal yard. Inbound cars on each division that need not come into the terminal yards for sorting may be stopped at the intersection of this outer belt and, if destined out on certain other divisions of other roads, save considerable mileage by not being brought into the terminal yard for distribu- tion by the intermediate belt. As time goes on, the industrial trafSc of this latter line becomes heavier and it is desirable to have the outer belt relieve it of much interchange work. At the junctions of the outer belt line with the divisions of the three roads, suburban 256 THE PORT OP BOSTON towns arise to which, in time, mamifacturing indus- tries overflow from the crowded intermediate belt. Boston's physical situation. The reason for de- scribing in general terms an ideal layout of this type is that there exist at Boston parts of all these three belts, so far as physical location is concerned, but not • ••»■... A.IC .T n HB>I»><«M "' Y-^-=-= ^,5^. l«»W» M.I UwrtMH '!^\^ \ ^ ><:"' t« K1 » NMl>ll(»»t / Y \' y »0 MUVIOWCI • It V. ff^ \ jT.^. J^O i^i«wrivak« IT-^ "^ ""••sSo U < \ —■^■ff HABBOR \ \ "-4-" Ho ^ /\ ■^*l-.:.":::;>-~d^ t0M S fn'MionAf*'^ r TO fMi a^vl* <^^ ff \_ ni»n«Mi>^K K- SECTIOM WMrCM BOSTON POSSEISSES Of IDIAl. LAYOUT OF PLAN "A" -LIMHO-J •Ut. til l.»\ • *■« ■.« ■ 1 K.*. IHJI'U"* " * "* ** Mil X TO CAVI COB ^ "V ^^IWUfllfll in the matter of neutral ownership. Plan B, on this page, is a diagrammatic modification of Plan A. It is intended to show the sections of waterfront, inter- mediate and outer belt lines at Boston, and the parts they play, or can play, in the co-ordination of inter- change between railroads or between railroads and water carriers. 'New Haven, The divisions of the New Haven rail- TBEMINAL OPERATIONS IN BOSTON 257 road are seen to converge before entering the terminal yard at Soutli Boston. Adjacent are the New Haven's piers and Commonwealth Piers Nos. 5 and 6. Boston <& Albany. The single line of the Boston & Albany runs straight into Boston to South Station. The road's main terminal yard lies several miles out, at Beacon Park (Cottage Farm), from which a branch of the Boston & Albany runs around the city, through the main freight yard of the Boston & Maine and into the Boston & Albany's terminal yard serving its piers at East Boston. Boston & Maine. The Boston & Maine's situation is not so simple, because it is a loose amalgamation of separate railroad lines never built to be divisions of the same system, and never fully co-ordinated, at the terminals, into the system. But as a general statement it is true that the divisions of the Boston & Maine unite and enter the main terminal yard at East Somer- ville. Adjacent are the Boston & Maine piers, known as Hoosac Docks and Mystic Wharf. The 'present outer belt. The outer belt is formed by lines of the New Haven and Boston & Maine rail- roads which were never intended to serve as a belt, and which are not operated primarily as such, today. The main line of the old Boston, Stonington, Fitchburg and New Bedford Railroad runs from Taunton to Framingham, thence by a branch to Lowell. There is a branch of the New Haven from Taunton to Plymouth. There is a branch of the Boston & Maine from Lowell to Salem. These lines together form the outer belt and intersect the divisions of the three Boston rail- roads as follows (see Plan B) :^ 1 See also Map I, following the text. 258 THE PORT OP BOSTON Eoad From New Haven Boston New Haven Boston New Haven Boston New Haven Boston New Haven Boston Boston & Albany Boston Boston & Maine . Boston Boston & Maine . Boston « Boston & Maine . Boston Boston & Maine . Boston Boston & Maine . Boston Intersection with outer belt Plymouth Middleboro Taunton Mansfield Walpole South Framingham To Plymouth Cape Cod (Fall Eiver and JNew Bedford Providence {Poughkeepsie and New York {Albany and the West Northampton South Sudbury {Rotterdam Jet., N. T. and the Concord Junction West White Eiver Jet. and Canada; also Newport, Vt. and Canada Portland Portland Lowell Lawrence Salem Thus, physically, the outer belt line exists/ Over each part of it are already operated two or more freight trains per daj, to which can be added, at small extra cost, the cars involved in any interchange not now taken care of. Outer belt surveyed by Port Directors. The engi- neers of the Port Directors have surveyed and reported upon two alternative outer belt lines, somewhat inside the present outer belt, and running through Eeadville, Needham, Wellesley, etc. These were the innermost routes practicable. Such a belt would be between the outer belt and the only desirable intermediate belt; namely, one that intersects the terminal yards of the 1 Another outer belt consists of the Boston & Maine from Lowell to Ayer to Worcester, and the New Haven from Worcester to Providence. (See Map II, following text.) This line is used largely as a detour, avoiding the congested Boston district, for freight between northeastern New England and New York, or the South and West via New York. TERMINAL OPERATIONS IN BOSTON 259 roads. For interchange, the surveyed route would have no appreciable advantage over the present outer belt line. It would not be an intermediate belt because it would run far out beyond the Boston terminal yards of the railroads. Its cost for land and construction would be very high ($260,000 per mile over one route surveyed, $316,000 per mUe over the other). Instead of adding new interchange traffic to that already existing, such a public outer belt would require the operation of a new freight train and switching service. Proper charges for services by that belt would have to provide not only the cost of operation of the new trains and locomotives required, but also for the entire interest on the heavy investment in the road. It would he no improvement over present belt. The traffic on the present outer belt could not and would not be transferred to the new. To a large degree this present traffic is not interchange, but local business, that must move over the present route, such as the heavy traffic between the New Bedford Sound Line and Lowell, Fitchburg, South Framingham, etc. Reason- able rates on new railroad interchange traffic added to this present movement would need provide only for a quota of the cost of operation of trains already running, and for a quota of interest on the cost of a roadbed already heavily used. It is not reasonable to expect to decrease the charges for interchange or terminal services when the inherent cost of the services performed is greatly enhanced. No new belt lines should be built. In general, then: Boston has an outer belt. In so far as it does not serve more extensively for railroad interchange, that is due to the failure of the railroads themselves to 260 THE PORT OF BOSTON provide for its use. Boston does not want a new outer belt, it cannot have an intermediate belt. It must seek to gain the equivalent of an intermediate belt in another way. The present intermediate belt. At the present time the Grand Junction Branch of the Boston & Albany Eailroad constitutes, physically, two-thirds of an inter- mediate belt. It runs from the Beacon Park yard of the Boston & Albany at Cottage Farm through the East Somerville yard of the Boston & Maine, into the yard of the Boston & Albany which serves that road's piers at East Boston. This intermediate belt, how- ever, is owned and operated as a Boston & Albany branch. In addition to being a belt which conducts an interchange between the Boston & Albany and the Boston & Maine, it is an industrial belt of high impor- tance. Something over sixty industries are located upon it. Finally, it serves as a waterfront belt. At East Somerville it drops Boston & Albany cars destined for Boston & Maine piers at Hoosac or Mystic, and picks up Boston & Maine cars destined for the piers at East Boston. The Grand Junction was designed as a waterfront belt reaching the Boston & Albany terminal at East Boston. Incidentally it has become a waterfront belt serving the Boston & Maine piers, an intermediate belt interchanging with the Boston & Maine, and an industrial belt of the first order. Boston oversea piers parts of railroad terminals. It is to be remembered that all of the ocean-going steamer piers likely to be built in Boston are located adjacent to the terminal yards of the New Haven at South Boston, the Boston & Maine at Charlestown (Hoosac and Mystic), or the Boston & Albany at East TERMINAL OPERATIONS IN BOSTON 261 Boston. Each of these three groups of piers is, and will long continue to be, operated as part of the rail- road terminal to which it is attached. The new Commonwealth Piers, upon construction, enter into this system. Commonwealth Piers 5 and 6 are, from an operating point of view, parts of the New Haven terminal. Similarly, Commonwealth Pier 1 at East Boston and other East Boston piers as they may be built would be operated as a part of the Boston & Albany pier cluster there. Boston intermediate and waterfront belts can be identical. In this section, dealing with Operation, the terms "South Boston piers" and "East Boston piers" include the Commonwealth Piers which are, for operat- ing purposes, parts of the railroad pier groups in those sections of the port. In order to reach an ocean steamship pier it is necessary to reach the railroad terminal from which that pier is served; that is, to reach the yard of the road in question, or the switch by which it serves the pier. There are three railroad terminal yards, each connected with its own pier cluster, and each to be connected with the terminal yard and pier cluster of each of its fellow roads. What Grand Junction can now do. The Grand Junction Railroad, if it were publicly owned and if it could be extended — as it cannot be, by reason of excessive cost — from Beacon Park to the South Boston railroad yard, would be, so far as the foreign trade is concerned, an ideal waterfront belt. Simi- larly, it would provide ideally for railroad interchange and would furnish the opportunity for an expansion of the present industrial development along its route. At the present time, it provides, physically, for adequate interchange as follows : 262 THE PORT OF BOSTON Between Boston and Albany yards and the Boston & Maine yards. Similarly, it provides for the following waterfront service : Between Boston & Albany yard and Bast Boston piers. Between Boston & Albany yard and Charlestown piers. Between Boston & Maine yard and East Boston piers. What Grand Junction fails to do. The gap between Beacon Park and the South Boston yard results in the following interchange movements being inadequately provided for, in Boston : Between the New Haven yard and the Boston & Albany yard. Between the New Haven yard and the Boston & Maine yard. Similarly, in Boston, the following waterfront ser- vices are inadequately rendered: Between the Boston & Albany yard and the South Boston piers. Between the Boston & Maine yard and the South Boston piers. Between the New Haven yard and the Charlestown piers. Between the New Haven yard and the Bast Boston piers. That is, the New Haven yards and piers are unco-ordinated with the rest of the terminal system, for either inter-railroad or waterfront interchange. The equivalent of the missing link between South Boston and Beacon Park is what should be developed. Union Freight and South Station switch. Before seeking for that equivalent, it is weU to stop and consider the Union Freight Railroad which, in con- junction with a midnight switch across the South TERMINAL OPBEATIONS IN BOSTON 263 Station passenger yard, tries to supply the connection between the New Haven yard and piers on the one hand, the Boston & Albany and the Boston & Maine yards and piers on the other. From New Haven to Boston & Albany. Some car- load traffic moving on through rates between East Boston piers and the neighborhood of Providence, Fall Eiver and New Bedford is interchanged between Boston & Albany and New Haven at Worcester. Otherwise, New Haven cars for export at the Boston & Albany piers at East Boston are brought into the South Boston yard and some time between midnight and five o'clock in the morning, when no passenger trains are running, are switched across the South Station passenger yard to the KJneeland Street tracks of the Boston & Albany, which pulls the cars out to Beacon Park and thence by the Grand Junction Rail- road to East Boston. The distance from Kneeland Street to East Boston is a road haul of 12.8 miles, for which the Boston & Albany charges Z^ per 100 pounds. The New Haven performs its nocturnal switching as a part of its terminal service, included in the Boston rate. In general, cars from the New Haven's piers to Boston & Albany rails move on through rates via Walpole-South Framingham, as will be described. From Boston S Albany to New Haven. The reverse traffic, from the Boston & Albany rails to New Haven points, or from the Boston & Albany rails to the New Haven's piers, is aU moved on through rates, by detouring the Boston & Albany cars at South Framingham, whence they are handled by the New Haven via the outer belt. This movement from the Boston & Albany is large and cannot be handled by the limited and dilatory method across South Station. 264 THE PORT OF BOSTON Export and import traffic via tlie South Framingham route to South Boston cost the Boston & Albany (New York Central) heavily. The traffic is handled by the New Haven, not for a switching charge, but for a division of the through rate. For instance, from South Framingham to Commonwealth Pier the New Haven gets 20% of the through export rate from Chicago, and a larger percentage of the through rate from nearer western points. What the South Station switch and the outer belt do badly or expensively for the New Haven and the Boston & Albany, the South Station switch and the Union Freight do badly and expensively for the New Haven and the Boston & Maine. The Union Freight. The Union Freight Railroad is owned by the New Haven but is operated as an inde- pendent belt line on Atlantic Avenue. At Kneeland Street it effects a junction with the Boston & Albany and New Haven, a junction which the New Haven reaches by working its cars by night across the South Station passenger yard. The Union Freight thence runs along the surface of Atlantic Avenue for two miles to a junction with the Boston & Maine near North Station. Except for local Atlantic Avenue switching movements, the Union Freight may be operated only at night, except for emergency freight. Its capacity is very limited and is taxed by its atten- tion to the switching for the industries it serves and the Atlantic Avenue piers of the coastwise steamers which it reaches. Much through traffic interchanged between the New Haven and Boston & Maine is moved by the Union Freight, especially when from or to a point on either road inside the outer belt, which is otherwise exten- TERMINAL OPERATIONS IN BOSTON 265 sively used for New Haven-Boston & Maine inter- change. This Union Freight interchange traffic moves at through rates and the division allowed the Union Freight for the transfer is 2^ per 100 pounds. Union Freight between South Boston piers and Boston (& Maine. The Union Freight is extensively used for interchange between New Haven rails and Charlestown piers and between Boston & Maine rails and South Boston piers. It might seem cheaper to detour via the outer belt this latter traffic, which is fairly heavy. But the New Haven demands, as its revenue from such a joint service, not a switching charge but a good portion of the through rate to or from the South Boston piers. This makes it usually cheaper for the Boston & Maine to bring the cars into its terminal yard and have them switched across to the New Haven by the Union Freight. This switching is done subject to the small capacity of the method used, and subject to the limitations which night switch- ing imposes. At present only Commonwealth Pier 5 at South Boston is the subject of any appreciable exchange of freight with the Boston & Maine. To get freight to or from this pier via Union Freight it costs the Boston & Maine 3.5^ per 100 pounds, divided as follows : To the TJnion Freight (which hereby cuts in two its regular 2(( charge for transfer between the two railroads) . . . . ■ ■ . 1. ^ To the New Haven for switching between Kjieeland Street and Commonwealth Pier, and loading or unloading the car there . . . . . 2. ^ To the Port Directors, wharfage for accommodating the freight at Commonwealth Pier . . . .5^ 3.5# 266 THE PORT OF BOSTON Between New Haven and Charlestown piers. There is less congestion in the handling of the cars between New Haven and Boston & Maine piers. In the first place, the traffic is not large; in every direction the New Haven's contribution to the export and import traffic is small. Moreover, the New Haven has, via the outer belt, through rates between New Haven points and Hoosac or Mystic, applying to and from New Haven points beyond the outer belt. Cars between near-by New Haven points and Hoosac or Mystic move on through rates via the Union Freight, with the same delay and expense that is involved in the heavier movement from Boston & Maine rails to South Boston piers. Union Freight and Northern Avenue. Connection between the Union Freight and the New Haven will be improved when the Union Freight is extended from Atlantic Avenue over the Northern Avenue Bridge, which was built to carry it but on which, for various reasons, the rails have never been laid. It is to be hoped that this will occur under the present city administration. But this does not remove the inherent difficulty of the limited capacity of the Union Freight, nor the conditions which must continue to forbid the use, by day, of a switching service through the city's marginal teaming street. It is to be recalled that the port authorities are directly interested only in the operation of getting freight from the rails of each railroad to each group of piers. The speed and the charges at which this is accomplished are matters of considerable moment, especially with regard to export and import traffic competitive with other ports. CHAPTER XV INTERCHANGE BY CARFLOAT ROUTES Imperfect operating movements in Boston. Of all the difficulties that have been enumerated, the port authorities are immediately interested in the following : 1. Export and import traffic between the New Haven rails and East Boston piers. 2. Export and import traffic between the New Haven rails and the Charlestown piers. 3. Export and import traffic between South Boston (New Haven) piers and the Boston & Maine rails. 4. Export and import traffic between South Boston piers and the Boston & Albany rails. Two carfloating services the remedy. These four difficulties can be remedied by the institution of two carfloating services, one from South Boston to Charles- town and one from South Boston to East Boston. The carfloating services represent the principle already discussed in the Introduction, of floating freight past congestion. The difference between this case and the cases cited is, that here there is no breaking bulk, no handling of the freight at either end of the route. The carfloats and the towboats handling this traffic might be supplied by the Port Directors but should be leased and operated by the three Boston railroads jointly. By buying towboats and carfloats and by 268 THE PORT OP BOSTON BiAcciB muhV atHeent «« !• w. ■ MiwPatr """^^^ "N< z, r / v\ y, MO \l»W»i»ei t\ "-^ ■hSp \ ?..^ ^ ^"■•^^ ^ \ #»T* pgaiiAHD PtAN'C* PROPOfitO CAR FLOATING &UPPLEMCNTIN3 VLAN'e'Or ACTUAL BOSTON LAYOUT building appropriate float bridges at the three points in question, there would be created the equivalent of an intermediate and waterfront belt line, connecting and co-ordinating each railroad yard with the yard and the piers of each other road. This water belt line is free of aU congestion; its roadbed is given and maintained free ; it is capable of any expansion. The location of the two carfloating routes, conformed to the type of diagram already used, is shown on Plan C, on this page. New Haven to East Boston. The operation of the carfloating routes would be somewhat as follows : la. Export freight arriving on the New Haven destined to East Boston pier for export. These cars come into the New Haven yard in the same trains with cars having freight for export at their own piers, or INTEECHANGB BY CARFLOAT ROUTES 269 local freight. These export cars are pushed by the New Haven locomotive over the float bridge, upon the car float, which carries them across to the float bridge at East Boston, adjacent to the East Boston pier. From this bridge the Boston & Albany locomotive pulls the cars off and sets them. After unloading, the cars are pushed back on the float by the Boston & Albany locomotive and towed back across to the South Boston float bridge. The charges for this service should be 2.5^ per 100 pounds, divided as follows : For float service . . 5^ To Boston & Albany, for setting the car, unloading, and use of pier . . . . . . . 2. ^ 2.5^ Savings on present method. The New Haven, as part of its free terminal service, would be relieved of the present expensive night switch across South Station ; it would need merely to push the cars out of its yard upon the float. The Boston & Albany would get 2^ for setting and unloading the cars, while at present it gets only 3^ for the same service plus a road haul of 12.8 miles from Kneeland Street to East Boston. The compensation is fair to all parties involved. It is 0.5^ per 100 pounds, $1.50 per car of 30,000 pounds, cheaper than the present movement and it is twenty-four hours quicker. The importance of the latter factor, for this movement, is great. The shippers in New Haven territory, so far as service goes, at present find themselves very far removed from most of the Boston oversea piers — situated at Charles- town and East Boston — and find themselves very near New York. lb. Import traffic arriving at East Boston for 270 THE PORT OF BOSTON shipment over New Haven rails. This traffic is the converse of that in la. Mutatis mutandis, the same considerations apply and the same savings in expense and time are effected. There are a few through import commodity rates applying from Boston & Albany piers to certain New Haven points, via Worcester. This traffic also could be more quickly and cheaply handled by the proposed carfloat route. 2a. From New Haven to Charlestown piers. Ex- port traffic arriving on New Haven rails for export at the Charlestown piers. These cars would arrive in South Boston in regular New Haven trains, go through the New Haven yard, and later be put aboard the car- float, taken off at Charlestown by the Boston & Maine locomotive and set on a Boston & Maine pier at Hoosac or Mystic. The charge for this service should be 2.5^, divided as follows : For float service ....... 0.5^ To Boston & Maine, for setting the car and unloading 2. ^ 2.5^ Savings on present method. The New Haven, as part of its free terminal service, would be relieved of the present expensive delivery to the Union Freight via South Station and would merely have to deliver the cars over the float bridge adjacent to its South Boston yard. The Boston & Maine would get 2^ for switching the car to the pier and unloading. It cannot get more than this as its division of through rates between New Haven points and Boston & Maine piers, via Boston. Switches to Boston & Maine piers from the junction of the Boston & Maine and Union Freight are no simpler than similar switches proposed from INTERCHANGE BY CARFLOAT ROUTES 271 the float bridge at Mystic. As has been explained, certain of this traffic, that between Boston & Maine piers and New Haven points beyond the outer belt, now moves at through rates via the outer belt and the Boston & Maine. Some of this traffic can be more cheaply and expeditiously brought into Boston and floated across the harbor. The compensation is fair to all parties involved and is less than the cost to the two railroads of the similar transfer service they are now rendering each other at through rates, whether via the Union Freight or via the outer belt. In addition it would be at least twenty-four hours quicker than the present methods. 2b. Import traffic arriving at Charlestown piers for shipment over New Haven rails. This movement is the converse of 2a. The same savings in money and time are effected. 3a. From Boston <& Maine to South Boston. Ex- port traffic arriving on Boston & Maine rails for ocean shipment at South Boston piers. These cars would arrive in trains with other Boston & Maine traffic and would be sorted in the Somerville yard, then by a Boston & Maine switcher put aboard a carfloat over the float bridge, located probably at Mystic Wharf. At South Boston the New Haven locomotive would pull the cars off the float and set them for delivery on the pier, later returning them to the float and so to the Boston & Maine, as soon as the cars were unloaded. Very probably they would go back with loads of import freight, in which case they would fall under 3b. Just as at present, the cars would be returned without a switching charge if empty, with one if loaded. The charge for this new switching service would be 3^ per 100 pounds, divided as follows : 272 THE PORT OF BOSTON For float service ....... 0.5^ To New Haven, for setting the ear and unloading it 2. To Port Directors as compensation for use of Commonwealth Pier ...... 0.5^ 3. (* Savings over present method. The Boston & Maine, as part of its free terminal service, would deliver the cars to the float bridge, instead of to the Union Freight as at present. There is no essential difference in the nature of these movements. The New Haven would receive 2^ per 100 pounds for taking the car from the adjacent float bridge, setting it on the pier, and unloading it. It now receives 2^ on this same traffic, which it must likewise set and unload, after having received it from the Union Freight at Kneeland Street and switched it across the South Station passenger yard. Compensation to all parties is fair. The switching charge would be less than the present switch- ing charge^ by 0.5^ per 100 pounds, $1.50 per car of 30,000 pounds, and the service would be twenty-four hours quicker. 3b. Import traffic arriving at the New Haven piers destined for Boston & Maine rails. This situation is the converse of 3a. By substituting the float service for the present Union Freight transfer, the same saving in time and money would be effected. 4a. From Boston S Albany to South Boston. Ex- port traffic arriving over the Boston & Albany rails and destined for export at South Boston piers. This 1 Switching charge on export or import traffic between New Haven piers and Boston & Maine connection with Union Freight is 3^ per 100 lbs.: 2^ to the New Haven, 1^ to the Union Freight. If the traffic moves over a pier of the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth is paid O.Sji INTERCHANGE BY CAEFLOAT ROUTES 273 traffic would come into the East Boston yard of the Boston & Albany along with its other export cars. The cars would be pushed by the Boston & Albany switcher upon the East Boston float bridge and taken to the float bridge at South Boston, thence pulled, set and unloaded by the New Haven road. Then they would be sent back, without another switching charge if empty, with one if loaded. There is at least an even chance that they would be loaded. The charge for the transfer described would be 3^ per 100 pounds, divided as follows: For float service ....... 0.5^ To New Haven, for Betting and unloading the car . 2. 4 To Port Directors as compensation for use of Commonwealth Pier ..... 0.5^ 3. 4 Savings over present method. The Boston & Albany, instead of losing this traffic at South Framing- ham and (for instance, on western traffic, the principal item) paying the New Haven 20% or more of the Boston rate, would carry the traffic through to East Boston and have to absorb only a 3^ switching charge. Provisions for export move on a sixth class rate, the lowest class. The rate from Chicago to Boston is 30^ per 100 pounds. The New York Central Lines must now pay 6^ of this 30^ to the New Haven road for what is, from the Boston & Albany's standpoint, a belt terminal switching service. The 20% division bears no relation to the mileage involved. The compensation is fair to all parties. The New Haven road would receive 2^ per 100 pounds for set- ting and unloading the car. The New York Central Lines, for a slightly larger terminal service, would 274 THE PORT OF BOSTON earn 3^ per 100 pounds, $9.00 per car of 30,000 pounds, more on sixth class freight from Chicago. Of course the Boston & Albany's savings would be still greater on the higher classes of freight, where the New Haven's 20% works out into a larger amount per 100 pounds. This increase in earnings would without doubt work to increase the interest of the Boston & Albany, and its connections, in ships at the South Boston piers. The service afforded these piers, in the case of freight hauled by the Boston & Albany, would be better than it is today. The Boston & Albany has at least two switches a day from Beacon Park to East Boston, and at Beacon Park the export cars on through trains from the West are sorted and on their way to East Boston before the cars dropped off at South Framingham are in the New Haven train. This New Haven train does not run to South Boston but drops the South Boston cars off at Walpole, where they wait for another train to pick them up and carry them to destination. Bettering of service to and from New Haven territory. For fear that too much emphasis has been placed upon the savings in money and transportation effort, the element of improved service ought again to be set forth. The necessity of bringing New Haven territory nearer, in time, to Charlestown and East Boston piers has been mentioned. A solicitor for export freight for Boston in New Haven territory will find as obstacles low rates to and from New York, especially via the Sound Lines, and a clock-like over- night service. No one can count on just how long it will take to get his car to Hoosac, Mystic or East Boston, or from those points. New York is a sure thing. With this new service in operation a solicitor INTERCHANGE BY CAEPLOAT ROUTES 275 could promise delivery at any ocean steamer pier in Boston on the same day the car arrives in Boston. He could promise that on the day the car of import freight was loaded, it would be set into the New Haven train that carries local freight from Boston. Bettering of service of South Boston piers. It is just as necessary to get the South Boston piers into rapid connection with the yard of the Boston & Maine and the Boston & Albany. These are the roads which now carry most of the through import and export freight of the South Boston piers and which, to a large degree, always will. The advantages of the South Boston situation — particularly in the matters of passengers and local freight drayed to and from the pier — are going to be neutralized and overcome if these piers cannot have fully competitive railroad service to and from the yards of the principal carriers of their through freight. Proposed cost to Boston S Albany and Boston & Maine of reaching South Boston piers. The interest which the Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany and their connections show for the traffic of the South Boston piers will depend largely upon the sacrifices they have to make in delivering or getting that traffic. It is possible to arrive at an approximate estimate of the sacrifice involved, as compared with the cost of moving the same freight over one of their own piers. If the Boston & Maine delivers export traffic from its yard to one of its own piers, the terminal cost is about as follows: Switching and setting the car . . . . 1. ^ Handling the freight out of the car . . . 1. ^ Wharfage (compensation for use of the pier) . 0.5^ 2.5^ 276 THE PORT OF BOSTON Boston d Maine. It would cost the road no more to set the car upon the carfloat than to set it upon their own pier. It then saves the two latter items in the above table, amounting to 1.5^/ The service from the Charlestown float bridge to the floor of Commonwealth Pier would, as has been shown, be 3^. The Boston & Maine would save 1.5^ and pay 3(i, making the traffic of the South Boston piers cost the road 1.5^ more than trafiSc to and from its own piers. The difference is nothing compared with what other terminal carriers do at other ports, or compared with what the Boston & Albany now voluntarily does for Commonwealth Pier. Boston & Albany. In the same way the Boston & Albany would have to pay approximately 1.5^ per 100 pounds more for South Boston pier traffic than it costs it to handle its own export and import business at East Boston. The Boston & Albany would save the large sacrifice in rate percentages which it now suffers in working this business via South Framingham. Carfloating routes for railroad interchange of cars. The carfloating routes, then, would supply a water- front belt which promises savings in expense and time of service. Can this belt also be used as an inter- mediate belt, to connect the yards of the New Haven with those of the Boston & Albany and the Boston & 1 It may be objected that the Boston & Maine does not save the 0.5(f wharfage. But each 100 lbs. taken from the Boston & Maine Tails to Commonwealth Pier is prevented from taking up Boston & Maine pier space, which the Boston & Maine says is worth 0.5^ for every 100 lbs. that passes over it. This space is then available for other freight which can and does get exported at the Boston & Maine piers. So long as these piers are kept busy (and there is no evidence or prospect that they will not be) the Boston & Maine is saved 0.5^ per 100 lbs. on all freight which it carries, and for which some one else (the Commonwealth) provides pier accommodation. INTERCHANGE BY CAEFLOAT ROUTES 277 Maine, and so to provide for qtiick interchange of joint traffic to or from near-by points ? It is as suitable for this transfer work as for that already described. Movements now badly performed. It is recalled that the Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany yards are already connected by the Grand Junction Railroad. What is needed is the equivalent of the impossible extension of the Grand Jimction from Beacon Park to the South Boston yard of the New Haven. This extension, or its equivalent, would provide for exchange of cars: 1. Between the New Haven and the Boston & Albany. 2. Between the New Haven and the Boston & Maine. la. Through rate business between New Haven and Boston S Albany. The business in question is that moving between New Haven points and points on the Boston & Albany or its connections. It is prin- cipally a matter of points on the Boston & Albany connections, because the Boston & Albany has few local points of importance not also reached by the New Haven. This business now moves on through rates via South Framingham. As the New Haven's policy is one of taking approximately equal percent- ages via all junctions, the Boston & Albany would prefer to drop these cars at South Framingham, and receive them there, rather than to haul them in to an East Boston float bridge. Business between New Haven near-by points and stations on the Grand Junction Branch, East Boston, Chelsea, Everett and East Cambridge could be more economically handled across by carfloat. lb. Competitive business switched at Boston. 278 THE POET OF BOSTON There is a considerable movement of domestic traffic from beyond New England, carried to Boston by the New Haven and destined for delivery on sidings on the Grand Junction Railroad. This is now switched across South Station by the New Haven, which absorbs the Boston & Albany switching charge of 3^ per 100 pounds to destination. This could better and cheaper move by carfloat. Conversely, western domestic freight for South Boston industries, solicited by the Boston & Albany's connections in the West, is carried into Kneeland Street by the Boston & Albany, which absorbs the New Haven's switching charge of 1.5 or 3^ per 100 pounds for setting the car on South Boston siding. The New Haven might prefer to have this traffic over its float bridge. As we saw, nearly all traffic on through rates between the New Haven and the Boston & Albany is handled, and can best be handled, via South Framingham. The small inter- change between near-by New Haven points and near-by points on the Boston & Albany main line will probably continue to be handled via the South Station passenger yard, at least so long as the New Haven includes the switch across that yard as a part of its free terminal service. 2a. Through rate business between New Haven and Boston S Maine. Here the case is different. The traffic moving from a near-by New Haven point (inside the outer belt) or to a near-by Boston & Maine point is fairly heavy. The delays in the present movement via the Union Freight are great and have been the subject of repeated complaint by communities north and south of Boston. There is a class tariff covering through rates on traffic between all New Haven points and all Boston & Maine points. But in INTERCHANGE BY CARFLOAT ROUTES 279 the througli rates between near-by points on the Boston & Maine and all near-by points on the New Haven, the present expensive method of transfer is taken into account : the New Haven's switch across South Station, the Union Freight's 2^ charge for movement to the Boston & Maine connection point, the Boston & Maine's switch to its outbound yard. By use of the float service the New Haven would be spared its South Station switch and the two roads would pay 0.5fS per 100 pounds for interchange of cars, instead of 2^ as at present. The service between points north and south of Boston, respectively, would be put upon a reasonable basis. Cars arriving at the Boston & Maine yard would be in the New Haven outbound trains on the same day. More than the freight advan- tages of the tunnel, which the New Haven once pro- posed to build from the north to the south of Boston, would be secured, for there would be no expensive construction — on which interest would have to be earned — effecting the transfer. 2b. Competitive business switched at Boston. On competitive business from the West carried by the Boston & Maine into Boston, for a South Boston industry, the present switching charge absorbed by the Boston & Maine is 3.5^ (2 -+- 1.5) or 5^ (2 + 3^) per 100 pounds.^ This traffic carried by the carfloat, besides being more expeditiously handled, would cost the Boston & Maine 1.5^ per 100 pounds less than the present method. Between certain points beyond outer belt. The car- float route could be advantageously used not only by 1 The New Haven charges 1.5(S for switching from its junction with the Boston & Albany or Union Freight to locations inside of Massa- chusetts Avenue, 34 for locations out beyond that line. 280 THE PORT OF BOSTON traffic whose source or destination lies inside the outer belt, but also by certain through traffic to and from points beyond. For instance, there is some movement between points such as Middleboro and Plymouth and the Cape, on the one hand; and, on the other, Lawrence, Salem, or points on or via the two divisions to Portland, including points in Maine. From Middle- boro to Lawrence (the least saving effected), the distance would be 64.2 miles, compared with 85.1 miles over the outer belt route.^ Floating self-supporting. The initial charge, for floating, of 0.5^ per 100 pounds, minimum $1.50 per loaded car, will be sufficient to support floating opera- tions. The revenue would be 10^ per ton for a maximum carfloat distance of 2.2 miles through the still waters of the harbor. A few years ago the New Haven was floating cars in New York over distances averaging over 10 miles — one of the principal move- ments being over the 14 miles from Harlem River to Greenville, N. J.,^ — for less than 13(i per ton carried, including operation, interest and depreciation on floating equipment and float bridges.' These carfloats moved over a 10- to 14-mile long, densely congested waterway, past Hell Gate, and against the fierce tides of the East River. 1 See Plan B, page 256. 2 The New Jersey freight terminal of the Pennsylvania. 3 This can be estimated in another way. Car floating in New York costs the New Haven 130 per car mile. Assuming that one-third of the movement on the Boston carfloats would be empties, paying no fare, the earnings per car mile would be 520 on the longer float distance, the 2.2 mile route from South Boston to the Boston & Maine float bridge. CHAPTER XVI INCIDENTAL INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT OF BOSTON Car-float belt and South industrial Boston. Finally, the carfloat belt line described can be used as an industrial belt, to open for industrial development the 6,400,000 square feet of State-owned land at South Boston. The Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany- can reach, by carfloating, the present Commonwealth railroad yard at South Boston, back of Conomonwealth Pier 5. This railroad yard could be extended and operated as a joint terminal by all three Boston roads, any one of them thus serving industries at South Boston connecting with the yard by spur tracks. To perfect the new industrial situation, the Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany should be given land for freight houses at South Boston. Boston S Maine and Boston S Albany freight houses at South Boston. The Boston & Albany has long wanted to get an entrance into South Boston. They can float their cars in and buy land for a freight station and team tracks not inferior in situation to that occupied by some of the New Haven freight houses at South Boston. The Boston & Maine has lacked an entrance to the southern end of the town, especially since, some years ago, the Boston & Albany refused to switch, at any terms, traffic between the Boston & Maine raUs and Boston & Albany deliveries 282 THE PORT OP BOSTON on its main line inward from Beacon Park. The Boston & Maine can buy land for a freight station and team tracks in a suitable location in South Boston. Proposed freight stations for the Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany at South Boston, located at the inter- section of C and Summer Streets, are shown on' Plan CI, on this page. Boston & Albany. The result would be that the Boston & Albany would reach its South Boston freight Summ cr ^i: Northerly Line of Summer St. Plan CI Layoul- for Boston and Albany & Boston and Maine freigtit Stations South Boston Scale I (n -50 ft- INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 283 station over its own rails, or rather, its own float-and- rail service from East Boston. It would also reach, over its own rails, industries on the industrial tracks at South Boston. The Boston & Albany's own locomo- tive (that of its terminal company) at South Boston every afternoon would pull its cars from the freight station and its outbound cars, or empties, from the tracks of South Boston industries. At the same time, cars of import freight from Commonwealth Pier would be gathered. The three groups of cars would be consolidated on the Boston & Albany float, taken across to East Boston, thence to Beacon Park and put into the regular Boston & Albany trains. Excepting perhaps in the case of near-by points, the Boston rate would apply from South Boston. Boston S Maine and New Haven. Similarly, the Boston & Maine over its own rails would reach and serve its South Boston C.L. and L.C.L. patrons. The New Haven would see the spur into the South Boston industry operated as a part of its own terminal and would similarly apply the Boston rate to trafiSc to and from this industry. Limitations of present industrial locations. The result would be a unique industrial situation, both with regard to rates and service. To understand it requires a brief consideration of the workings of rates to and from specific Boston locations. If an industry is located, for example, on the Boston & Albany (for instance, on the Grand Junction Branch at East Boston), the Boston rate, without additional switching charge, carries cars of freight between that industry and all points on or via the Boston & Albany. But suppose the shipment is to or from Nashua? Then the East Boston shipper pays $4.00 per car plus the 284 THE PORT OF BOSTON Boston rate. The $4.00 per car is what the Boston & Albany charges the Boston & Maine for switching that car; the Boston rate is the Boston & Maine's rightful compensation for hauling the car on to Nashua. Only the Boston & Maine reaches Nashua, and this railroad need make no sacrifice, in the matter of absorption of switching charges, in order to get the car to haul. If the car were going to Buffalo, the Boston & Albany and New York Central would of course l;aul it there for the Boston rate, applying from the factory door. The car could also move to Buffalo via the Boston & Maine and the West Shore, if that route could get hold of it. But they can manifestly charge no more than the Boston rate from the factory door to Buffalo, for the Boston & Albany-New York Central stand ready to haul the car at this flat rate. Therefore, the Boston & Maine must absorb, into the Boston-Buffalo rate, the switching charge which the Boston & Albany sees fit to make for hauling the car from East Boston to East Somerville, the Boston & Maine junction point. Now the Boston & Albany does not care to encourage the routing, via the Boston & Maine, of traffic which it could personally carry, so on this competitive traffic it charges, for switching, class rates varying from 80^ to $1.40 per ton, or $8.00 to $14.00 per 10-ton car. The Boston & Maine stands willing to absorb this and does so. But the shipper on a Boston & Albany siding feels imder the strongest moral obligation to give all "competitive" business to his parent road. The Boston & Albany switching service from his factory is arranged to connect with the Boston & Albany fast trains, not with those of the Boston & Maine. The result is that the Boston & Maine gets little of the business. That is, on "com- INDUSTEIAL DEVELOPMENT 285 petitive" business, industries located on only one road cannot have competitive service/ On non-competitive business (to and from points reached by only one road or its connections) these industries have a switching charge added to the rate in the case of all points except those reached by the parent road. Limitations removed at South Boston. Neither of these limitations apply to the South Boston situation. The flat Boston rate would be given on shipments to local points on all lines, as well as to all competitive points. On competitive business there would be real competitive service. No one road would control the switching rates or the switching service of these industries, for switching would be done by a terminal company owned by all roads. The industry would be on the own line of each of the railroads.^ There is thus created in South Boston a neutral industrial location for whose traffic all Boston roads would compete. It would have the advantages of the location of the Bush Terminal Company in Brooklyn. Basis for Bush Terminal development. Here is the basis upon which a Boston Bush could build. Here he would have land reasonably cheap, within ten minutes' walk from South Station. He would have convenient access to the entire labor market of South 1 This is not so true of inbound service on competitive business originating, for instance, in the West. The New Haven's or Boston & Maine's connections do get hold of a considerable amount of this traffic and send it in on New Haven or Boston & Maine rails to Boston, the carrying route here absorbing the switching charges of the Boston & Albany. 2 It will also be desirable to include, in the lease to the three roads jointly, the tracks leading from the Commonwealth Pier storage yard to Commonwealth Piers 5 and 6, and other piers to be constructed in South Boston. Each railroad would then similarly control its service to and from the Commonwealth Pier group. 286 THE PORT OF BOSTON Boston, Boston and its southern suburbs. He would have bridges for teaming across Fort Point Channel^ to the business city. Whoever put up a loft building for light manufacturing and warehousing on the tracks at South Boston could, like Bush, offer from his ship- ping platform direct car-loading to destination, or direct loading into a car for a transfer point of the carrying railroad. Most teaming of L.C.L. could be eliminated, as at the Bush Terminal. If there were teaming, it would be to an adjacent freight station of one of the three roads.^ One dray could carry freight for all three roads. The Boston rate would apply from the shipping platform of such a Boston Bush Terminal. Instead of having to float to all railroads, as Bush must, the South Boston terminal would have direct raU connection with one, the New Haven; and this would keep the other roads rendering splendid service. Both for C.L. and L.C.L. shipments the man located at South Boston would have an unequaled situation. Fits into "Boom Boston" movement. The newest and one of the best things in Boston is the movement for the industrial development and expansion of the city. In South Boston there would be an ideal field for beginning this development and expansion. What makes an industrial location? It is, primarily, near- ness to labor, nearness to the railroad freight stations, adequate connection with all railroads for carload shipments, moderate taxes. This development would 1 Fort Point Channel separates South Boston from Boston. It is clearly shown in the panorama view of the South Boston terminals, opposite page 36. 2 We ought also not to disregard the advantage to Commonwealth Pier, and future piers at South Boston, of having withia a stone's throw freight stations of each of the roads, to and from which to dray L.C.L. import and export freight. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 287 be offered to land owned by the State itself. The State would prosper from the jump in land values brought about by giving this choice land a unique transportation situation. Here is no need for "excess condemnation" or any other means to get into public hands land which wiU profit from public improve- ments. The land is there, waiting to be used.^ C.L. between South Boston and various piers. The charges payable by an industry located upon the new South Boston tracks, in reaching, with carloads, expeditiously, the three sets of steamship piers, would be as follows: 1. Between Factoet and South Boston Piees Switclting 1. ^ Loading or unloading . . . . . . 1. ^ To ComiiiDnwealth, for use of pier .... 0.5^ 2.5^ 2. Between Factoet and Chaelestown Piees Switching . . . . . . . . 1. ^ Carfloating ....... 0.5^ To Boston & Maine, for switching, unloading and use of pier . . . . . . . 2. ^ 3. Between Factoet and East Boston Piees Switching . . . . . . . . 1. ^ Carfloating ....... 0.5^ To Boston & Albany, for switching, unloading and use of pier . . . . . . . 2. ^ 3.5^ 1 The Canton Land Company, which has property in a distant suburb of Baltimore, far down the Bay, has a successful development similar to the one urged here. The Company operates its own industrial tracks and has arrangements for interchange by switching with the Baltimore & Ohio and Pennsylvania, by earfloat with the Western Maryland. But it is a suburban location in no way comparable with that at South Boston. 288 THE PORT OF BOSTON Difficulty of having ocean terminals self-supporting. It is proper to point out an incidental advantage to the State and its representatives, the Board of Port Directors, which will arise from the increased availa- bility of the State's industrial area at South Boston. There is no immediate prospect that port improve- ments in Boston will become self-supporting alone from charges that can be levied on carriers or goods involved in the traffic here interchanged. This is due partly to the competition of other ports and partly to the policy, which the Boston railroads enforce at their piers, of making no charges on steamships using them. Area of State land at South Boston. The Port Directors are not dependent alone upon income from the piers they build and lease or operate. They own 6,400,000 square feet of South Boston land with a value now of somewhere between $8,000,000 and $13,000,000. The most of the land lies unused, and the income from it is small. If this land were availed of for industrial development, the income would be large. If the land were initially leased (on long term rentals, revised every thirty years) at merely 6% on the lower above estimated value, the annual return would be $480,000. It will not all be leased at once, but the rental value will be far above $8,000,000 when the land is neutral- ized and connected up with all transportation systems in Boston. An annual income of $480,000 would make up the deficit in the annual budget of the Port Directors, and would make the port improvements self-supporting, including interest and sinking fund on at least all future bonds to be issued. San Francisco port self-supporting from land rentals. A model for port financing is to be found in San Francisco, the best American example of a INDUSTEIAL DEVELOPMENT 289 publicly owned port. At San Francisco the title to the shore line has remained vested in the State. For a considerable distance, the State has established a bulkhead line outside the original shore line and filled the area between the old and the new shores. This area is then divided into "seawall lots" which are leased to the highest bidder. This "seawall reclama- tion" has recovered twenty-five acres^ from the sea, and these twenty-five acres returned to the State Harbor Board, in rentals, nearly $100,000 in revenue annually during the two year period ending July 1, 1912.^ All improvements in the port of San Francisco have always been made out of current revenue, and halted until current revenue was available, until in 1909 a $9,000,000 bond issue was approved by the people of the State, interest and amortization payable out of harbor revenue. The port of San Francisco is self-supporting as a real estate and pier proposition jointly. Does not the same way lie open to Boston? Total Bxpbnditubes and Eeceipts of the San Francisco Haebor Board from 1865 to June 30, 19123 Expenditures $34,328,505 Receipts 34,212,320 State land at East Boston also will help. Nor need the advantage of the carfloat belt service be limited alone to this South Boston land of the Commonwealth. It is proposed to create a great area of new land off Jeffries Point, East Boston, by filling the State-owned 1 There are about 150 acres at South Boston and the Conunonwealth is reclaiming 20 acres more in connection with the construction of the dry dock. 2 Secretary Merle of the San Francisco State Board of Harbor Oommissioners, in the Pacific Marine Eeview of November, 1913. 3 1912 Biennial Eeport of the Harbor Board. 290 THE PORT OF BOSTON flats there. No one thing will so help put that area into use and give it value as adequate connection with the entire transportation system of Boston. The South Boston industries will have direct connection with the New Haven and float to the Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany. Industries on the land at East Boston can have direct connection with the Boston & Albany, float to the Boston & Maine and the New Haven. At first, of course, the float service from East Boston could not be so frequent as that at South Boston, where the industrial cars would be consolidated with a heavy movement between the New Haven rails and the Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany yards or piers, and between the New Haven yard or piers and the Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany rails. Harbor waters as belt line in New York. With the institution of these combined float-and-rail services of the Boston & Albany and Boston & Maine into South Boston, the "free waters" of the harbor would take on a new significance. Boston has never known what the real meaning of "a waterfront location" is. In a vague way it is realized that it is a good thing to be on the harbor. No one knows what it really means until he sees the use made of the New York harbor as an industrial and detour belt line. Nothing has so greatly con- tributed to the growth of New York as free lighter- age — free delivery anywhere within extensive lighter- age limits — forced upon the New York railroads by the competition of the old Erie Canal barges, which could equally well deliver anywhere on either side of the Hudson, East or Harlem rivers. This opened and has held open the opportunity for industrial develop- ment anywhere on the New Jersey, Staten Island, INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 291 Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan shores, within lighterage limits in some places 26 miles apart. Service afforded C.L. shippers. All a New York industry has had to do has been to buUd a wooden wharf, and, as often as it had a carload of freight to ship or receive, order any New York railroad to take or deliver that carload, by one of its lighters, at that wharf. The harbor waters were a belt line, and so they remain. Industries making and receiving car- load shipments are satisfied with such waterfront locations. These heavy industries long ago deserted New York and its high land values for New Jersey and particularly Brooklyn, because of its good labor market. Bush extends these advantages to L.C.L. However, the manufacturers and warehousers of high class goods that move in less-than-carload lots would not leave the city. They needed to be adjacent to the freight stations of the railroads on the West Side waterfront, where each road daily loads a hundred cars of L.C.L. through to destination. Mr. Bush met the situation and is drawing even those people away from Manhattan. He has invited them to consolidate themselves in his huge loft buildings. That consoli- dates their L.C.L. shipments, all of which he handles for them. He is thus enabled to obtain the minimum of L.C.L. tonnage and to load many daily through cars to important interior points. In any case, Bush loads a daily straight car of L.C.L. to each New York railroad's transfer station on the Jersey waterfront or just inland from it. These cars may be loaded by Bush up to twelve o'clock noon; by twelve o'clock night they have, at the transfer station, been put into 292 THE POET OF BOSTON through cars to destination and are on their way to the interior. This is the essence of the Bush Terminal/ It was made possible by the policy of the New York railroads to float cars to Bush's float bridges free of charge, and deliver them alongside the loft building where he wanted them ; or rather, they pay Bush a compensation reimbursing him for performing this service with his own rolling and floating stock. The New York rate delivers the car alongside the manufacturer's shipping platform exactly as if he had his buildings in Jersey City. The L.O.L. manufacturer has no drayage expense or delays. He is, as it were, located in a joint freight station of all roads serving New York. Social significance of Bush Terminal. The success of Bush has brought the New York Dock Company and at least two other concerns to imitate him; the movement has only begun. We may expect to see the decentralization of high grade manufacturing and warehousing in Greater New York, exactly as we have seen the decentralization of the heavy industries. This will mean the removal of operations in dark and unsanitary quarters to commodious loft buildings. The heart of a city is no place for manual laborers to work. The land is too valuable. No one can afford to give them enough room. The interior city is the place for mercantile and financial business. But light- manufacturing industries are held here because of the impossibility of finding exterior situations accessible to labor, and with convenient freight stations of aU raUroads, which were all built to reach this central section and which thence diverge, so that an exterior 1 Discussion of the Bush Terminal Company's situation and opera- tions, except as pertains to rail carriers, is purposely avoided. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 293 situation is as a rule dependent upon connection with a single road. Same way open to Boston. Mr. Busli has shown us how to give an exterior situation the transportation advantages of an interior one. There is reason to believe that the way can be paved at South Boston, not only for the settling of heavy industries, but for the gradual, voluntary removal of light-manufacturing from the congested area in Boston to the air and sim- light of roomy loft buildings in a situation that will have the advantages of both exterior and interior locations. The removal will be voluntary because nothing will be lost in transportation service or labor supply; much would be gained in ability to get more space for less money, in lower insurance, in avoidance of cartage. Carfloat belt serves all purposes. The carfloat belt, designed as a waterfront belt, to improve and complete the connections between the railroads and ocean car- riers, would also be an interchange belt of considerable worth, and an industrial belt which may be utilized to great advantage for the industrial development of Boston. Public ownership of entire waterfront. It is now proper to point out how the waterfront of Boston, engaged in accommodating oversea lines, could be acquired and operated by the Commonwealth, possibly on a self-supporting basis and with no more burden upon the rail carriers than they now assume in the case of foreign traffic handled over their own terminals. Plan C (on page 268) shows the present terminal situation at Boston, reinforced by the proposed new carfloating routes between South Boston and East Boston, South Boston and Charlestown. 294 THE PORT OF BOSTON Purchasing all piers and the equivalent of a belt line. The Conunonwealth could purchase, at a fair valuation, the New Haven's piers at South Boston. The State's car storage yard, now being built on State land at South Boston, would be sufficient to serve aU piers in the South Boston group. The Conunon- wealth could purchase the East Boston piers of the Boston & Albany and the car storage yard serving those piers. The State could contract for running rights on the Grand Junction Railroad between the Boston & Maine's East Somerville yard — where Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany intersect — and the storage yards of the East Boston piers. They could purchase Hoosac Docks and Mystic Wharf, and running rights between them and the East Somerville yard; also the storage trackage in that yard now engaged in handling foreign traffic. Operation. The Commonwealth would then own the four export terminals of the port and a belt line con- necting each road with each of these terminals. An export car could be taken from any road and be set on any pier, or an empty car set from any road upon any pier, to handle import traffic. Cars would be taken from the Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany at East Somerville yard and delivered to Hoosac or Mystic via the trackage on which running rights would have been acquired. Cars would be taken to East Boston via the Grand Jimction. Cars for South Boston would be taken from the East Somerville storage tracks to the new float bridge at Mystic Wharf and floated to South Boston. Similarly, cars would be accepted from the New Haven at the South Boston storage yard of the State. The cars for South Boston piers would be switched in direct. Those for East Boston would INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT 295 be floated across. Those for Hoosac or Mystic would be floated to the Mystic Wharf float bridge and so delivered. Railroads finance Boston oversea terminals. It is frequently said that piers at Boston are free. There is no such thing as free piers. Somebody pays for their construction, maintenance and operation. As a result of conditions already described, the steamship lines in Boston do not pay for the piers. The railroads do. If the switching of export and import freight and the operation of piers were to be performed by the Commonwealth, the railroads could afford to pay the Commonwealth what the terminals now cost the roads in the shape of Interest on investment, depreciation and taxes. Maintenance. Operating costs. Railroad's terminal cost paid to Commonwealth. It should be possible to ascertain these total costs for each road for a period of years and divide into it the tonnage of exports and imports handled over the road's terminal during the period in question. The result would be the contribution per ton which Boston railroads have found it worth while to make for the sake of maintaining in Boston oversea terminals for the steamship lines. There is no reason why the roads should not make the same contribution per ton towards the maintenance of water terminals owned and operated by the State. While no detailed figures are at hand, indications are that oversea traflSc now costs the Boston roads about 3^ per 100 pounds, 60^ per ton for terminal handling. 296 THE PORT OF BOSTON Should make State-owned waterfront self-support- ing. That is, it now costs the roads about 3^ per 100 pounds to make the oversea terminals of the port self-supporting. If these terminals were acquired by the State at a fair valuation, it would seem as if 3^ per 100 pounds paid by the railroads might make the terminals self-supporting, if managed by the State. The State would have lower fixed charges upon the investment, in that the State could get its money 2% cheaper than the railroads and would have no taxes to pay.^ But the State would certainly operate more expensively than the railroads and would render, in certain cases, more extensive and more expensive terminal services than the railroads now give. The 3^ would surely be no more than enough. Experiment should be postponed. However, the venture is a large one, involving the expenditure of probably $15,000,000 to $20,000,000. It would require State operation on a scale unknown in any port in this country. It should not be undertaken unless it proves impracticable to have a terminal situation of sub- stantial fairness under present conditions of mixed ownership of the waterfront. The larger part which the State-owned piers are playing in the oversea business of the port will give the Commonwealth opportunity to have increased weight in the shaping of terminal practices. 1 The loss of taxes on oversea terminals of Boston railroads would be Boston's annual contribution to the cost of acquiring the waterfront for the public. CHAPTEE XVII COMMONWEALTH PIER AS A JOINT PASSENGER TERMINAL Of equal importance with the transfer of freight between land and water carriers is the provision made for the transfer of passengers. Why Boston must seek passengers. There are several reasons why Boston should pay particular attention to this matter. Passengers are much more sensitive than freight to every inconvenience expe- rienced in transfer. Boston's advantage in its situation near Europe is neutralized, so far as western freight is concerned, by the action of differential (lower) inland rates accorded to Baltimore, Phila- delphia, Newport News, Portland, St. John and Montreal. The strongest effort must be made to provide steamship lines at Boston with passenger earnings to compensate them for the lower freight earnings which the inland differentials impose. The opportunity. Finally, it is possible here, as perhaps nowhere else on the North Atlantic coast, to provide for direct interchange of passengers, at least steerage passengers, between cars and vessels. This, however, is not the method at present followed. At the present time, every Boston transatlantic pier handling a passenger steamer has its own layout, where immigrants may be examined and admitted to the country. If rejected or detained for further 298 THE PORT OF BOSTON examination, they are sent to the present inadequate detention station on the end of Long Wharf. If there are enough admitted immigrants destined to points west of the Hudson River to justify making up a passenger train at the steamer pier, such a train is made up. However, it is not always that this occurs. Half the time the westbound immigrants, like those for New England, are carted to the railroad stations and there put into their cars. Similarly, through trains are run from the West to a steamer pier when there are enough western third-class passengers sailing by a Boston steamer to justify a special train. This has occurred, however, only in connection with Christmas sailings, particularly those of the Cunard Line, for which trains of Scandinavian third-class passengers are run from the Northwest. Most third-class trav- elers destined for Boston sailings come into Boston passenger stations on the regular Boston trains, and find their own way to the piers. Practice at Ellis Island. It is instructive to compare this situation with that at New York. In New York no immigrants are examined at the steamer pier. Every steamship loads its immigrants into barges which carry them to Ellis Island, the United States Immigration Station. It is thus a joint immigration station for all lines. There are eight trunk lines operating west from Jersey City — the Pennsylvania, West Shore, Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, Lehigh Valley, Erie, Ontario & Western, Baltimore & Ohio, Jersey Central. Successively, each of these roads is assigned a day on which it has the trans- portation of all westbound immigrants from Ellis Island. As fast as a group of immigrants is examined and admitted, they are taken to the joint railroad COMMONWEALTH PIER 299 waiting room at Ellis Island, where they exchange their railroad orders for railroad tickets. Then, as soon as a barge load of them has accumulated, they are floated up to the Jersey City terminal of the road of the day.^ By evening enough immigrants have been brought to the Jersey railroad station to make up one or more direct immigrant trains. A daily special immigrant train to the "West is made possible by the concentration upon that train of all westbound immigrants arriving in New York that day. Concentrated examination. This convenience and economy for railroad and steamship lines in the handling of immigrants is of course a by-product of the establishment of the Immigration Station at Ellis Island; it is not the object which Ellis Island was designed to serve. Ellis Island was built in order to concentrate at one point the Government's handling of all New York immigrants. They are brought to the immigration officers. The latter do not, as in Boston and Philadelphia, disperse themselves over all passenger steamship piers in the port and examine the immigrants where the vessels dock. It is realized that as the immigrant business of Philadelphia and Boston grows, it will be necessary to have an immigration station at each of these ports, where wiU be concentrated the examination and deten- tion of aU immigrants. Such stations ar6 now slowly under way. The Ellis Island station consists of four parts — offices, examination quarters, detention quar- ters and hospital quarters. Hospital quarters are not planned for the Boston or Philadelphia stations, 1 This barging from Ellis Island costs the railroads an average of 10^ per passenger. It is fair to assume that the cost to the steamship companies of barging passengers to the island is the same. 300 THE PORT OF BOSTON which will continue to send cases of sickness to city hospitals. The Philadelphia station. At Philadelphia $100,000 has been spent by the Government in acquiring a site for an immigration station. This sum bought an estate, including a house, in Gloucester, N. J. The residence is used as an administration building. One hundred thousand doUars more has been spent on the construction of a detention station ; $100,000 more has gone to construct a wharf which will contain exami- nation rooms for immigrants, who must all be barged there by the steamship companies. An appropriation of $55,000 is still imspent; $23,000 more has been asked of Congress. This $88,000 will suffice to shed the immigrant wharf. There is no present intention of applying for a government appropriation for the construction of a hospital. In 1914 it seems likely that within two years the Philadelphia Immigrant Station will be in complete operation. It is many years since the first active steps were taken towards its building. The Boston station. In the meantime, no construc- tive step has been taken at Boston. For $30,000 a site was acquired at East Boston. Local interests were not satisfied with this location, so the Government was persuaded to exchange it for another site, paying about $35,000 additional therefor. Plans were approved by the Treasury Department for the construction of an immigration station on the site chosen, on a total appropriation of $250,000 secured from Congress. It was then discovered that the appropriation was insuffi- cient to carry out the plans. Massachusetts congress- men have asked an, additional appropriation, bringing the total up to $375,000. Judging from the many years it took to get the new Philadelphia immigration COMMONWEALTH PIEE 301 quarters, whose completion is still probably two years away, viewing the method in which the rebuilding of the Boston Customs House has proceeded, and recalling the manner in which government contracts are usually carried out, it is not easy to imagine an early com- pletion of the needed Boston Immigration Station. Suggested station on Commonwealth Pier. It is here suggested that such an immigration station be fitted up for the United States Government on a part of the second floor of Commonwealth Pier.^ There are three second floor spaces — the second floors of the middle and of the two outer sheds. The second floor of the middle shed is connected by a viaduct with Summer Street, which crosses the South Boston freight yards at an elevation.^ This middle shed has been fitted up with accommodations for the customs exami- nation of first- and second-class passengers, and with large examination rooms for the third-class passengers. These examination rooms are large enough to take care of all immigrant passengers arriving in Boston. What a station consists of. The Boston Immigra- tion Station should consist of office rooms, detention quarters and examination quarters. Whether now proposed by the Boston immigration authorities or not, centralized examination of all immigrants will be necessary as soon as the Boston immigrant movement advances materially beyond its present proportions. The Philadelphia station recognizes this necessity and 1 Commonwealth Pier is 1,200 feet long and 400 feet wide. It is covered by three two-story concrete sheds, so connected as to form practically one continuous shed. The location of Commonwealth Pier is shown on Plan B, page 256. 2 Summer Street crossing South Boston at an elevation is seen in the panorama of South Boston terminals, opposite page 36. 302 THE PORT OF BOSTON provides for it in its immigration station ; the Boston station should do the same. Examination rooms already exist at Commonwealth Pier. It would be a simple matter to fit up offices and detention rooms on a part of the second floor of one of the outer sheds. The immigrants detained would pass from the exami- nation rooms directly across a bridge^ to the detention station. The fact that the sheds are separate provides for complete isolation of detention quarters from the rest of the pier. No sick cases will ever be harbored in these detention quarters. It is well known that the third-class examination rooms are separated from the accommodations for first- and second-class passengers. The latter would have no cause to know that there was a detention station on one of the other sheds of the pier ; and not the slightest cause to fear it if they did know. Fitting up offices and detention quarters to please the immigration service would involve only the laying of floors and partitions, perhaps the provision of extra windows, and an extension of the present water and lighting connections and heating plant already serving the second floor of the middle shed. It was once proposed that an immigration station should be constructed for the Government on the second floor of the Leyland Line Pier in the Boston & Albany terminals at East Boston. The proposition failed because of the unwillingness of the Government to lease such quarters from a private railroad com- pany. No such difficulty would arise in devising a proper form of co-operation between the State of Massachusetts and the Federal Government. Advantages of plan. There would be several desir- 1 Connecting the second stories of the three pier sheds. COMMONWEALTH PIER 303 able results of such an arrangement. The Government would be provided with roomy quarters, all on one floor, far more convenient to operate than quarters that can be constructed on the very narrow piece of land acquired at East Boston. The location at South Boston is one much more accessible to the immigration officials. Within a few months these quarters at South Boston can be provided. The proposed immi- gration station should largely reduce the present heavy expense entailed by a dispersed immigration service. The saving, instead of beginning five or ten years from now, could begin at once. The Port Directors would receive a substantial additional revenue from Common- wealth Pier. The large space on present piers now occupied by this multiplicity of examination and waiting rooms would become available for freight or storage purposes. Convenience of location. Assuming that conditions existing before the war will be resumed when it is over, three of the principal immigrant lines in the port will then be berthed at Commonwealth Pier — ^the Hamburg- American, the White Star-Liverpool, and the White Star-Mediterranean services. No other one location for an immigrant station will serve directly so many arriving immigrants as a location on Commonwealth Pier. Consolidate there the immigrants from other lines and they are in the most accessible location in the port of Boston, both with regard to direct loading of immigrant trains for the West, and with regard to carting the immigrants to the Boston railroad stations. Immigrants destined for New England will continue to be so handled. The location chosen at East Boston is not one which can have direct railroad connection, 304 THE PORT OF BOSTON for it is east of the Boston, Revere Beach & Lynn Railroad.^ Attractions for immigrants. From the Common- wealth Pier the New England immigrants would be carted over the viaduct to Summer Street and so to South or North Station. The westboimd immigrants would descend the stairs to the train waiting on the first floor of the middle shed. Though there might not every day be enough iromigrants to form a western train, one could be made up very frequently, especially in the summer months, when the tide of immigration is running heavy. The New Haven, Boston & Albany and Boston & Maine could alternate in running trains to the West. This is what they have already been doing in the case of immigrants of the Hamburg- American Line landing at Commonwealth Pier; each road has assigned to it every third boat, and, for that boat, runs a through train to the West. Philadelphia's mistake. Philadelphia has made the great mistake of marooning its immigration station three miles down the Delaware River, on the New Jersey side. Immigrants must be barged down there and then barged back again, in order to get to the railroad stations and be on their way to the interior. The immigrant appreciates convenience just as any one else does. He writes back home of the comfort with which he is at Boston transferred from vessel to car. Later, when returning home for the winter, he sails from Boston. When he buys prepaid tickets for the family left on the other side, he buys them on a steamer sailing to Boston. No one thing can do more to interest steamship lines in this port than to make 1 This road terminates at grade at a ferry house to the east of the Boston & Albany. See Plan B, page 256. COMMONWEALTH PIER 305 it attractive to third-class travelers. The money in the North Atlantic trade is made in carrying immigrants. The pier a landing stage. There is at the outer end of Commonwealth Pier a berth 400 feet long, available for the use of any steamship that may want to land its passengers there. All Boston transatlantic passenger lines not berthing at Commonwealth Pier should be invited to stop at this end berth for the hour necessary to land or take on passengers of all classes, and mails, in- and out-bound. The berth would thus serve as a union passenger station, or landing stage, such as the Prince's Landing Stage at Liverpool or the Landing Stage at TOlbury Docks, London, each used jointly by all steamship lines. Advantages for steamship lines. There are reasons why the Boston lines not now using Commonwealth Pier might be glad to take advantage of such an offer. The berth is so situated that it could be reached with ease and with no danger, involving only a slight change in the vessel's course, inward or outward. To stop there inbound would save the vessel the cost of barging or carting immigrants to the immigration station at Commonwealth Pier, and save the immigrants the inconvenience of being so transferred. The steamship line would have thrown open to it the splendid, acces- sible first- and second-class passenger accommodations of Commonwealth Pier. If all Boston lines will agree to use this as a passenger terminal, then, in the joint advertising which should be undertaken, the simplest directions can be issued for prospective travelers, for all would sail to or from Commonwealth Pier. A landing stage, such as this pier wiU be, would be an 306 THE PORT OF BOSTON attraction towards Boston whose effect would be countrywide. Practicability of plan. It does not seem imprac- ticable for even the Cunard boats to make the call. Inbound, these boats must turn at right angles before entering their berth at East Boston. It would seem to be little more difficult to make this turn after lying for an hour along the end of Commonwealth Pier than to make it upon entering directly from the sea. In the crowded waters of the Hudson Eiver at New York, with its heavy currents, steamers of 10,000 to 11,000 tons, like the "Creole" of the Southern Pacific's New Orleans service, and the "Cristobal" of the Panama Canal Steamship Company, use different piers for inward and outward cargo. In either case the shift involves taking these vessels out into the Hudson River and towing them to the outward pier. The "Cristobal," 11,000 tons, discharges at Pier 52 and proceeds to Pier 67 to load. It would not seem an insuperable difficulty to move a vessel of any size across the quiet waters of Boston harbor. Pullman service to pier. Prior to the war the Hamburg-American Line announced that when the number of passengers justified so doing it would run a Pullman from Chicago and one on the midnight train from New York, to be switched at Boston to Common- wealth Pier and connect with the Hamburg-American sailings. The Boston & Albany and New Haven roads are perfectly willing to put on a Pullman either east- bound or westbound, at any time, if a minimum number of passengers present themselves. If all lines were using Commonwealth Pier it would be simple to arrange to have all first- and second-class passengers from New York or the West, sailing from Boston on COMMONWEALTH PIER 307 a single day, given tlie opportunity of using Pullmans run from New York and the West to the ship's side on that day. That is, there would be Port of Boston Pullmans run on the important sailing days of the year. It is not impossible that the plan would work so well that the steamship lines would arrange to have their sailings more frequently fall on the same day. Similarly westbound ; by wireless the first- and second- class passengers on all lines arriving on a given day could be notified of the opportunity of taking Pullmans for New York and the West at the ship's side. At the pier they would find awaiting them enough cars to accommodate them. These cars would be switched to South Station during the evening, and would be put into the Boston & Albany evening train for the West, or the New Haven's midnight train for New York. A first-class restaurant upon the pier would be necessary to the success of this plan, but one is sure to be pro- vided if the passenger business of the port is consoli- dated there, to serve travelers and their friends. Unique features of plan. The convenience of such arrangements can be understood by any one who has traveled abroad and has debarked at Liverpool, Tillbury, Southampton, Cuxhaven or Bremerhaven, directly into a train for the interior. The convenience would appeal particularly to elderly persons, women traveling alone or persons traveling with families. For all these people, in addition to the comfort offered them, there would be the not inconsiderable saving of the cost of being transferred from railroad station to ship. Manhattan, located across the river from the railroads, can never have such facilities for contact between passenger car and ship. For first-and second- class travelers, this contact is now made in this country 308 THE PORT OP BOSTON only by the Canadian Pacific Railroad at Quebec, where Canadian Pacific trains, one of them a trans- continental, meet the "Empress" steamers of the Canadian Pacific's Liverpool service.^ 1 If a universal'use by the Boston lines of Commonwealth Pier as a landing stage came to pass, it would probably be necessary to enlarge the present first- and second-class passenger accommodations on the second floor of the middle shed, extending them to include a small part of the second floor of the outer shed not occupied by the Immigration Station. The rest of this second floor should be devoted to another purpose. Commonwealth Pier is a terminal, not a pier in the ordinary sense of the word. After the war, there will be three transatlantic lines discharging cargo upon it: the Hamburg- American Line, the White Star from Liverpool, the White Star from the Mediterranean. No terminal is complete without a warehouse to store free or bonded goods which are not destined for immediate shipment inland. No other terminal is without such a warehouse; both the Boston & Albany and Boston & Maine roads operate warehouses at Bast Boston and Charlestown respectively. The second story of an outer shed of Commonwealth Pier contains 100,000 square feet of floor space; enough, if divided into bonded and free stores, to amply care for warehoused cargo of the three lines. The establishment of such a free and bonded warehouse, caring for stored import freight, would be another step towards making the Pier self- supporting, in addition to being a convenience to the steamship lines and their shippers. The East Boston warehouse of the Boston & Albany is a separate building of permanent fireproof construction. Its accounts are kept separately, and it is charged with a loading and switching charge on all freight taken to it from the Boston & Albany Piers. Yet it is fairly profitable. The warehouse on Commonwealth Pier would be instituted by merely putting up partitions in a fireproof building already constructed and supplied with water and lighting connections, and a heating plant capable of expansion. There wiU be no loading or switch- ing charge to absorb to get goods from the Pier to the warehouse; these goods would come up in freight elevators already constructed, elevators whose prospective use otherwise would not be easy to describe. There- fore, the Commonwealth Pier warehouse would be a profitable thing. The State should not operate a warehouse, but should re-fit the space for such quarters and lease them for operation. The initial storage and profits of the business would be increased as more oversea piers are built at South Boston, the stored import freight from these piers to be switched over to the warehouse at Commonwealth Pier. B CO-ORDINATING RAIL AND COASTWISE CARRIERS CHAPTER XVIII THE COASTWISE WATERFRONT AT BOSTON Rail and coastwise carriers. In aU this plan for a waterfront belt, provided by carfloat service, it wiU be noted that nothing has been said of co-ordinating the Boston railroads with the Boston coastwise lines that dock along Atlantic Avenue. This is perhaps the hardest operating problem that confronts Boston, and is one that urgently needs to be met. Atlantic Avenue problem. The coastwise lines are worth more to New England and Boston than the foreign lines. The coasters are the water carriers to domestic markets and their importance, compared with foreign lines, is indicated by the relative impor- tance of domestic and foreign markets. The latter offer opportunities for great expansion and growth, but, for obvious reasons, foreign wiU never equal domestic trade. There is no more important problem than to improve the unsuitable conditions under which the domestic water carriers do business. At present it would be a physical impossibility for a new coast- wise line to be accommodated on Atlantic Avenue, or for a present line to double its services. Present services are carried on at high cost of handling freight or transferring it to railroads; and at great incon- venience to local shippers and consignees. Atlantic Avenue and the distributors. The Atlantic Avenue waterfront is served by the Union Freight 312 THE PORT OF BOSTON Railroad, a belt line on the marginal street which, in the manner already described, connects with each raUroad, receives its cars and sets them on any siding of the Union Freight for a uniform switch-charge of 1^ per 100 pounds, 20^ per ton, minimum $3.00 per car. A large part of the Union Freight's business is to and from industrial or commercial sidings along its route. A concern located adjacent to such a siding can, by payment of 1^ per 100 pounds, in addition^ to the Boston rate, exchange carloads with any local or competitive point on or via any of the three railroad Hues. This freight, if it had come in to the team tracks or freight house of any of the roads, would have had to be teamed to the Atlantic Avenue concern at a cost of at least 60^ per ton. The Atlantic Avenue wholesaler or commission merchant, therefore, has the advantage of an interior location in the heart of the jobbing district, the value of the situation being enhanced by a switching service which cuts the man's cartage bill in three. There can be no doubt that this condition greatly enhances the value of commercial situations along the Union Freight. One of the largest items moved is provisions for the market dealers located back of Atlantic Avenue. The 20^ per ton switching charge has also drawn here many firms receiving or jobbing beer, pickles, oils, paints, and a hundred commodities distributed to the grocery, meat and other wholesalers in this district. These Atlantic Avenue distributors have not remained upon the land side of the waterfront street, but they have overflowed upon the piers themselves. Type of Atlantic Avenue piers. A peculiarity of 1 The l(f of the Union Freight is not absorbed into local rates to or from Boston. THE COASTWISE WATERFRONT 313 the Atlantic Avenue piers is tliat many of them are so wide that they iaclude blocks of storage warehouses, with encircling roadways, the pier sheds being inci- dental fringes to the entire pier. This construction can be explained historically. Such a pier was the terminal of the Boston merchant adventurer of 1800, who brought back, discharged and stored here tea, silk, spices, ivory and all the rich treasure of the Indies. Or he brought here West Indian sugar to be manufactured into rum, which was shipped — among other places — to the west coast of Africa to exchange for slaves. A souvenir of early days. The merchant adventurer is gone. But there are reminders that he once existed. One is the frequent newspaper articles bemoaning the "good old times," when Boston merchants sailed aU over the globe and Boston was a great maritime power. One is the continuance of West African taste for Boston rum, whose export to those parts still flour- ishes, moving from Boston to the west coast via transhipment at Liverpool. A third souvenir is the persistence of the type of pier mentioned. Inadequacy of piers for shipping purposes. Job- bers, commission men and Hght manufacturing con- cerns have settled in the old warehouses or their successors. This has given these pier terminals a high value, greater than that of piers anywhere where commercial and industrial enterprises have been held off the waterfront. In other ports they are usually so held off, on the groimd that they can do their business on land, while ships must do theirs on the water. The original piers were of course buUt when ships were small, so slips between them were made narrow. Present piers are extensions of substan- 314 THE POET OF BOSTON tially the lines of the old piers, so the water space between them is so narrow as to make it inconvenient, sometimes impossible, to berth two ships at the same time at adjacent sides of adjacent piers. The narrow- ness of the slip similarly interferes with the movement of lighters to interchange between the coastwise steamers and the ocean steamers or railroad lighter- age sheds. The extreme irregularity of these piers, which rim toward all points of the compass, creates angles and impasses which further limit their ability to berth steamers. Union Freight Railroad serving piers. Perhaps half the Atlantic Avenue piers have on them spurs from the Union Freight. In some cases these spurs do not reach to the coastwise steamer's pier shed at the outer end of the pier, but only half way there, so that the freight must be drayed a short distance and rehandled into the car. Even in cases where a spur does come alongside a pier shed, it is a single track. Only a few cars can be set upon it. Limitations to switching service. It is only between 12 and 5 a.m. that the Union Freight makes connection with the New Haven at the South and the Boston & Maine at the North. All its cars for a steamship line are received at that time. If the Union Freight has for a coastwise line more cars than can be set along- side the pier shed at one time, half may be set and the other half stored in the Gas House Lot, a Union Freight storage property adjacent to North End Park, near North Station. When the coastwise line has finished unloading the first string of loaded cars, these as empties may be switched back to the storage lot, and the other loaded cars set for the steamer to unload. The Union Freight does not advertise to do THE COASTWISE WATERFRONT 315 any switching by day. Wlien it does perform move- ments like the above they are a detriment to teaming on Atlantic Avenue. They are similarly a detriment to all teaming in the pier driveway on which the tracks are laid and over which the car must be switched. The mere standing of cars in these limited roadways is a nuisance. Union Freight connects with railroads only at night. Cars loaded at the coastwise piers today will not be switched to connection with a Boston road until an early hour tomorrow morning, and cannot do better than catch the evening freight trains of the Boston railroads, leaving tomorrow night. A car despatched for Boston on tonight's train from Worcester reaches here tomorrow morning, too late for the TJnion Freight switch. The car is not switched until tomorrow night, and not until day after tomorrow morning is it in position to be unloaded by the steamship line. The steamer line will probably order the car's contents drayed tomorrow morning to the boat from the car at the freight station of the railroad. 1^ per 100 pounds, hut 30,000 pounds minimum. Moreover, the charge of the TJnion Freight is 1^ per 100 pounds, minimum 30,000 pounds; the minimum charge is $3.00 per car. Suppose a carload of 6,000 pounds (enough to make a full car on any Boston road) is shipped to Boston in care of the Clyde Line. It will cost $3.00 to have the Union Freight slowly switch the car, or 5 (J per 100 pounds. Moreover, after it arrives the steamship line must unload it. It is far cheaper to order the carload drayed at 4(J per 100 pounds, which sets the freight upon the pier. All these conditions impair the flexibility in the use 316 THE PORT OF BOSTON of the Union Freight as a connection, and makes it impossible for it to render satisfactory service in the interchange between Boston rail and coastwise carriers. Some coastwise lines not reached by Union Freight. Many of the coastwise lines have no Union Freight connection with their piers. If the rail-and-water routes they represent are to compete with all-reiil routes, there must be rapid transfer between raU-and- water carriers at Boston. Therefore these water lines are put to the expense, in their tariffs, of providing for transfer by dray between railroad station and coast- wise pier, at a cost of rarely Zj:, usually ^ to 10^ per 100 pounds (60^ to 80^ to $2.00 per ton). This cost is borne not only by L.C.L. but by C.L. freight.^ Large volume of teaming to and from railroads. Taking this interchange between rail and coastwise lines as a whole, and considering all railroads and aU coastwise lines, L.C.L. always and C.L. package freight to a large extent are interchanged between the two carriers by dray, for the reasons given. The effect of this draying is to increase the cost of the transfer, limit the profits of the coastwise lines which have to absorb that cost, and decrease their radius of action in the interior. If the transfer is part of a combi- nation rate, instead of being absorbed, the burden falls on the shipper. Union Freight indispensable until substitute found. Yet, whatever are the limitations of the Union Freight, it could by no means be dispensed with unless an efficient substitute were found for the work it does. It handles a large volume of carload freight for such 1 As is recalled, these terms mean carload and less-than-earload. THE COASTWISE WATERFRONT 317 important lines as the Clyde and the Savannah services.^ An efficient belt on Atlantic Avenue impossible. The coastwise lines claim that they must be situated along Atlantic Avenue, no matter what the cost. Half their freight is local and not through water-and-rail freight, from or beyond Boston. The coastwise car- riers feel they must be immediately adjacent to the shippers and receivers located directly on Atlantic Avenue, or within close reach of it. Within a few stones' throw of the Avenue are the wool receivers, the jobbers of woolen and cotton piece goods, groceries and hardware, and agencies of the manufacturers of fine machinery, stoves, furniture, etc. What is no doubt desirable would be to provide these coastwise piers with a waterfront belt, which would set cars from all railroads upon wide, newly arranged piers; which would be capable of operation day and night, and would afford between all railroads and all coastwise piers, at least for C.L. freight, the same rapid and flexible interchange which can be arranged in the case of carriers in the foreign trade. Railroading cannot be extended on Avenue. The impossibility of anything of the sort along Atlantic Avenue is immediately apparent. Atlantic Avenue is a marginal way for teaming. The elevated structure upon it is bad enough, the Union Freight tracks are worse. It would not be wise to remove them, in view of the interests that have grown up dependent upon them. But there is no excuse for extending the use of these tracks. An advantage of the carfloat belt pro- posed is that (as has been seen) it would relieve the 1 The Savannah Line has since 1914 moved from Atlantic Avenue to a pier at the Boston & Maine's Hoosac Docks. 318 THE PORT OF BOSTON Union Freight of all railroad interchange business, and so restrict its use. It will not be easy to devise any method of maMng a tolerable waterfront belt out of tracks along Atlantic Avenue, whether by running such tracks on the surface, above or below ground. Solid buildings east of marginal street. Boston proper has for a hundred years been growing at the expense of its waterfront. Strip after strip has been filled in until the original outer end of "Long Wharf" is now located somewhere inland from Atlantic Avenue. The Boston Tea Party took place on what is now good dry land, separated by several squares from the sea. Even when Atlantic Avenue was established as a marginal water street, the encroach- ments did not cease. People were allowed to go on building on the water side of Atlantic Avenue. There is a long deep row of buildings, several stories high, extending from Northern Avenue to Eowes Wharf, on the water side of Atlantic Avenue. On Union, Lewis, Commercial, Long, Central and Lidia wharves are stone or brick blocks used for storage or manu- facturing. Further north on the Avenue there is erected a huge cold storage plant, as well as the great power house of the Boston Elevated Eailway Company and Lowney's candy factory. Some one either did not have the power, or did not exercise the power to keep industrial and commercial enterprises off the water- front, off the territory outside the marginal street. If the power to prevent this in the future exists, it should be exercised; if it does not exist, it should be conferred upon the Port Directors. The heavy occupancy of the waterfront, east of Atlantic Avenue, by expensive permanent structures, makes it a financial impossibility to create a water- BOSTON /N N En H/iRBOK THE COASTWISE WATERFRONT 319 front belt of the type described, or in any way work out a unified treatment of this entire waterfront, the most valuable and vital single pier frontage in the city. Map of Atlantic Avenue situation. Plan D (oppo- site) shows the main features of the Atlantic Avenue situation. It gives the outlines of the coastwise piers and their names. Wooden sheds or buildings are also outlined. The cross-hatched sections represent stone or brick structures that would have to be removed in any reorganization of this district. The tracks of the Union Freight Railroad are indicated. The ships of the various coastwise lines, drawn to scale, are also shown at their berths. Their situation is that of a Friday afternoon, in 1914. Wliere the in- or out-berth of a line is different from the one here occupied, such location is shown in dotted line. In the summer time when the passenger business of the northern coast- wise lines is running heavy, there are more boats in port than here shown. Only one boat of each service is shown to be in port. Small maritime use of Boston waterfront. The striking feature in the situation is the smaU maritime use made of the 1,400 feet of available frontage between Central Wharf and the north half of Lewis Wharf. In this entire area are berthed only three lines : the Clyde Line, the Halifax Line and the United Fruit, representing only four boats in per week and four boats out.^ The reasons are obviously the narrow- ness and the angles of the slips, and the occupancy of 1 The Maine Coast Steamship Company with one sailing per week should be added to this list. Since the map was made, the Merchants & Miners services have been removed to a pier of the New Haven road at South Boston and the Savannah Line to a pier of the Boston & Maine at Charlestown. 320 THE PORT OF BOSTON a section of the area by T Wharf and the fishing industry. T Wharf is to be abandoned and the fishiag industry is to remove to Sonth Boston. Before a non- maritime use of T Wharf is decided upon, there is opportunity to begin a reorganization of this coast- wise frontage. This is the only area where modern long piers can be provided, partly because only here could a modification of the pierhead line reasonably be asked; partly because north of the slip of the South Ferry to East Boston are erected permanent buildings of the most expensive character,^ which make any reformation of this portion of the waterfront finan- cially impracticable. South of Long Wharf the water- front is well utilized for maritime purposes today. Manhattan and Boston waterfronts compared. Manhattan, being an island, has a far longer shore line than Boston, a peninsula of which only a stub end can be used to berth steamers. Boston needs a more intensive utilization than New York of the area in which it has contact with the sea. New York's utili- zation of its waterfront is, however, far more inten- sive. Plan E (opposite) shows the Boston section in question; alongside it is a typical 1,400 foot section of the Manhattan West Side waterfront, drawn to the same scale as the Boston section and so absolutely comparable. The New York 1,400 feet include Piers Nos. 34-39 inclusive, which are seen to berth six steamer lines, giving 12 sailings weekly. Pier 34 can at any time be taken for a coastwise service running three boats a week. Pier 39 can be similarly taken for a coastwise service with three weeMy sailings. So the potential berthing capacity of the New York 1 The power plant of the Boston Elevated, for instance is assessed for $3,206,000. ' JtJgM y/ 1 ^/ BOS T O /W o: o B** F» STA PLAN "M' PROPOSro IMPROVEMENTS BOSTON- TERMINAL OPERATIONS SCALE or FtZT Key Map Showing All Proposed Improvements A UNION LIGHTERAGE SYSTEM 359 be included; also those on tlie Fish Pier. From the storage yard, tracks would be built to industries on Commonwealth land north and south of Summer Street, these tracks similarly operated jointly by the three Boston railroads. CHAPTER XXI RAILROAD PIER STATIONS IN BOSTON Carfloat belt and local Boston freight stations. The work of the carfloat belt is not yet done. Its ability has been demonstrated to provide for inter- change of both C.L. and L.C.L. freight between water and rail carriers, and between the rail carriers them- selves. It can do more. It can be used to improve the present rigid system of local freight stations in Boston, a system involving long draying distances for shippers and consignees, and involving the con- gestion — affecting both railroads and patrons — ^which comes from having a too great centralization of the facilities for handling C.L. and L.C.L. package freight. Present dispersed facilities. The circles indicating freight stations on Plan M, opposite page 358, show the present location of the freight facilities of Boston proper. It is observed that the New Haven freight houses are all in South Boston. The Boston & Maine freight houses are all in Charlestown excepting for the Minot Street Station of the old Boston & Lowell,^ just on the Boston side of a bridge to East Cambridge; and the Warren Bridge freight houses of the Fitchburg Railroad,'' located partly on piles driven in the Charles River and partly on the Charlestown side of a bridge 1 Present Southern Division of the Boston & Maine. 2 Present Fitchburg Division of the Boston & Maine. RAILROAD PIER STATIONS 361 from Boston. The other terminal members of the Boston & Maine are the old Eastern Railroad and the old Boston & Maine,^ having their freight houses on Rutherford Avenue, well in the interior of Charlestown. The Boston & Albany has its freight house at Knee- land Street, to the west of South Station. Resultant cross-town draying. The shipper or consignee located in the north end of the city must dray his freight 1.5 to 2 miles across town to or from the Boston & Albany Kneeland Street Station or the South Boston Station of the New Haven. A shipper or consignee in the south end of the city must dray his freight 1.5 miles to or from the Warren Bridge or Minot Street Station of the Boston & Maine, probably 3 miles to reach the Rutherford Avenue freight houses. The annual cost of this cross-town draying is very high. The operation can be observed any afternoon, when the north-south streets are clogged with teams. Between 1-4 in the afternoon nearly all these teams arrive at the freight station at once. All want to deliver their stuff that afternoon and have it go out on the evening freights. The congestion between 2-5 p.m. at the limited receiving spaces of these Boston freight stations is very considerable. This local freight is drayed through the center of Boston, up one hOl and down another. Atlantic Avenue, originally built as a marginal street for team- ing, is so full of street cars, switching engines, pillars of the structure of the Boston Elevated, and ruts along the tracks of the Union Freight that the street is little used for cross-town draying. Its width of 80 1 At present jointly forming the Portland Division of the Boston & Maine BaUroad. 362 THE PORT OF BOSTON feet would no more than suffice for this teaming if there were no obstructions on the street. New York's West Street, its marginal way, is 200 feet wide. Lack of competition. A second effect of this rigid layout of freight stations is that, on competitive freight of the north end of the town, the Boston & Albany and New Haven are at a disadvantage. The North Ender may have to dray his Willimantic freight to South Boston and his Ludlow freight to Kneeland Street, but he can take his Chicago freight to the near-by Minot Street or Warren Bridge Station of the Boston & Maine. The converse is true of the South Ender. He may have to dray his Maine freight three miles to Eutherford Avenue but he can ship his Albany freight at Kneeland Street and his Cincinnati freight at South Boston. Boston S Maine and Boston & Albany stations in South Boston not enough. With the institution of local Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany stations in South Boston, shippers and consignees there would see most of their draying vanish. South Boston competitive business would be thrown open to the" Boston & Albany and Boston & Maine. But the main problem is unsolved. Its solution depends upon giving the Boston & Albany and New Haven each a freight station in the North End and the Boston & Maine one in the South End of Boston proper (taking, for example, State Street as the dividing line between North and South). Carfloats and pier stations. The carfloat belt gives the opportunity of doing this, by means of utilizing piers as local freight stations, loading and unloading from cars on carfloats placed alongside the pier. RAILROAD PIER STATIONS 363 Plan K, on this page, shows the manner in which this can be done, and is already done, at New York and Philadelphia. The pier carfloat is different from the transfer carfloat described in that it carries only 12 cars on 2 tracks instead of 22 cars on 3 tracks. The pier carfloat has a transfer platform six feet wide and on a level with the car floors. The platform separates , i;i.e,r, ^.b.g ij, , , . P • /\f/ff/r T77 7 TT Q Open Driveway ^depressed) ^Teams and Aufo Trucks Dmn^D yifiT/i'/i ' i/D/n/iiiii/D/T/iiiiiii/t/j ' iiiiini mm rffrrr L Pier Shed S k , I , , ,\ ^\\ , , , I , I '■/],,,,,, \ , , h^MlA , , \//f///\T7\/rr"'*^ i,,,,,,, ffi 33 CE aiE an iBB I aiE Coverall Transfer PtaUhnTT Car ^- Car Floai- Plan K — Method of using Pier as a Railroad Local Freight Station Scale, lin.-30.ff. the two rows of cars. When the float is put alongside its pier, all car doors next the platform are opened, the car doors next the pier are opened, and a level 5-foot-wide stage is laid between each of these doors and a corresponding 1.3 ramp on the edge of the pier shed. It is apparent that every car is then accessible to hand trucks moving in from the pier floor. The pier floor becomes a local freight station with two rows, of six cars each, spotted alongside. As the 364 THE PORT OF BOSTON variation between high and low water in Boston is 9.5 feet, there might, at low water, be a considerable ascent of ramp. To overcome this, a chain elevator, already familiar, would be run up the right-hand side of the ramp, engaging the truck axle as soon as it leaves the level stage and thus overcoming the differ- ence in level. The chain would be run down with the fuU trucks during loading hours, and in all cases the unobstructed side of the ramp would care for the Affernoon PosiHon Car FheH- loactinq Car Fhaf loading f Gw Float loading ^.d^Ajji^tt,» Outward Freighf Inward FVeighi- Open Drivewc^ Outward Freight Inward Freight Car Float loading | Cdr Float discharging < i Car Float discharging \ ^ ; Car Float wailing fe dixharga \ \ Car Float f/aiting fy discharge^ Morning Position Plan L-- lOOO-fl: Piers used as a Local Frei9ht Station by Two Railrdads Scale, rirL-roOfl: movement of empty trucks, just as at the Lighterage Station. Construction of pier station. The use of 1,000-foot piers as local freight stations for two railroads is illustrated by Plan L, on this page. The type of pier construction is that already described, so that, if these railroad pier stations are later relocated at portions of the waterfront where piers are shorter, these long piers can be regained and used by coastwise lines. The shed is, therefore, 50 feet wide and abuts on a RAILROAD PIER STATIONS 365 75-foot driveway down the center of the pier. From the driveway teams back up against the entire length of the shed. Each railroad has half the pier. Each railroad uses 500 feet of its shed as an outward freight station, the other 500 feet as an inward shed. There is plenty of room for three floats, carrying 36 cars, to use one side of the pier at a time. Its operation. Morning. In the plan, the carfloats of Railroad I, occupying the south side of the pier, are shown as they are set up during the morning. Discharging carfloats are shown in dotted line, loading carfloats in full line. Two carfloats (24 cars) are seen alongside the inward shed, discharging freight that has come in on the night trains. Two more carfloats (24 cars) lie outside these two, waiting to take their place at the discharging berths. A float (12 cars) is loading at the outward shed, with freight for the noon or early afternoon trains such as the Boston & Maine afternoon freights to the West. As soon as the two inward carfloats are discharged they are removed and the two other waiting ones set in their place. These two latter floats should also be unloaded at 12 noon, when they, with empty cars, are moved to the outward shed for loading.^ At 12 the loaded float with freight for the afternoon trains is pulled and taken to the parent road. During the noon hour a third empty float is set alongside the pier, whose entire length, during the afternoon, is utilized for loading cars. It is as if 36 of them are spotted alongside the pier, on two tracks. Afternoon. The afternoon set-up is shown on the north side of the pier, belonging to Railroad II. It needs no explanation. 1 Times are figured on present performance in New Tork. 366 THE PORT OP BOSTON Eaeli of the railroads would thus discharge upon its half of the pier 4 floats, 48 cars per day, and similarly load 48 cars. Location of three pier stations on Atlantic Avenue. It will be recalled that it was suggested that four 1,000-foot piers should be constructed on Atlantic Avenue. One of these piers should be used jointly by the New Haven and the Boston & Albany, the one farthest north, located on the site of the present Lewis Wharf.^ The southern half of the southernmost pier, at the foot of State Street, should be used by the Boston & Maine. Each of the Boston roads has given it the capacity to load and discharge 48 daily cars,^ in the choicest location of the city, and in one where the road in question is now at a disadvantage on competi- tive freight. Thousands of team-miles per year would be saved the drays, and the cost saved the patrons who employ them. The shippers in each section of business Boston would have competition for their traffic by reasonably adjacent freight stations of all roads. On Plan M, opposite page 358, is illustrated the change in the local freight delivery situation brought about by the installation of these Atlantic Avenue pier stations. Pier stations on Manhattan. Again this is nothing new. Philadelphia and New York have long done it. A major cause of the industrial growth of New York is the wide dispersal of its local freight delivery points. Of all railroads, only the New York Central reaches Manhattan with rails over which freight may be moved. The Central has a freight line crossing the 1 See Plan G, page 331. 2 Equivalent to inward and outward freight stations on land, each with four rows of 12 cars each spotted alongside. RAILROAD PIER STATIONS 367 Harlem Eiver at Spuyten Duyvil and running down almost the entire length of the West Side (Hudson River) waterfront — through the congested district the rails are on West Street itself — to St. John's Park, in the heart of the business city. All the other roads terminate in Jersey City except the New Haven, which ends in the Bronx, across the Harlem River from Manhattan. Yet all these other roads need stations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, both on islands. They get their Manhattan stations in the manner described : by floating to pier stations.^ Dispersed New York facilities. Each road has frequent stations in Manhattan, on both the North and East Rivers. A shipper located anywhere near the waterfront in either Manhattan or Brooklyn need not dray his freight more than a short distance before he comes to a station of the road he chooses to ship by, whichever road it may be. The New Haven has pier stations scattered along the East River, to which it floats its freight in cars. The New Haven reaches the West Side waterfront by unloading its New England freight at the Soimd ports and floating it in its Sound Line boats to the various pier locations along the West Side which are occupied by these lines. Without such a distribution of freight facilities greater New York could never have grown. New York transfer stations. There is a disad- vantage of such dispersed terminals compared — for instance — with the concentrated freight houses of the 1 In Brooklyn, where land is cheaper, the ears are pnUed off on the land and loaded, at the Bush Terminal, Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, Jay Street Terminal, Baltic Terminal, Atlantic Basin Terminal. These Brooklyn terminals are used jointly by all roads, but each has its separate pier stations in Manhattan. 368 THE PORT OF BOSTON New Haven at Soutli Boston, where all outward Boston freight is loaded. Because shippers are made to bring all their freight to South Boston, more direct through cars can be loaded to New Haven destinations than if the freight were received at dispersed stations in various sections of Boston. This contingency is provided for in New York. It is true that there are East Side pier stations of the Pennsylvania that cannot load a daily car for Scranton. But this does not result in forcing the East Side shipper to dray his freight all the way to the large West Side pier stations where daily direct Scranton cars are made. On every day when the East Side station has not the carload minimum for a Scranton car, it loads Scranton freight into a car for Waverly Transfer, the Pennsyl- vania transfer station inland from the Jersey water- front. In this Waverly car or cars goes also all other freight to destinations for which through cars cannot be made. Similarly, all other pier stations, and the Brookljm terminals, load into Waverly Transfer cars all their L.C.L. freight for "less-than-car" desti- nations. By 5.30 all these cars are floating to New Jersey; within an hour or two they are alongside the transfer platforms at Waverly, operated in a way similar to that described for the proposed Boston Union Lighterage Station. All the smaller pier stations and terminals jointly have supplied enough Scranton freight for a car or, more likely, several cars. By midnight the East Side shipper's freight is in a Scranton car, which is in the Scranton freight house next morning. Philadelphia transfer stations. Philadelphia does the same thing. The Reading, in addition to having pier stations on the waterfront, has land stations EAILROAD PIER STATIONS 369 scattered all over Philadelphia. Pier stations and land stations load through cars whenever possible; other freight is loaded in cars to "Wayne Junction Transfer, in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Here freight, loaded at all the smaller stations up to evening, is by mid- night consolidated into through destination cars and sent on its way. The Pennsylvania in Philadelphia does precisely the same. Its transfer station in the suburbs is Mantua Transfer. These Philadelphia roads could have remained satisfied with their land stations, which, as in Boston, are on the fringes, not at the center of the business city, older than railroads and, when they are built, already closed to them. The Reading and the Pennsylvania could have forced interior shippers to dray to their outlying freight stations. Instead, each of them saw where the freight center was, along the old waterfront, and utilized carfloats and piers to establish local stations in that center. The New York Central, at New York, might have remained satisfied with its single freight terminal at St. John's Park. Instead, it ran cars on floats at 60th Street and floated them to pier stations along the whole lower West Side and East Side waterfronts. Boston needs no transfer for Atlantic Avenue freight. Eventually, Boston can have as wide a dispersal of freight facilities as Philadelphia or New York. A float bridge puts each road upon the carfloat belt which reaches wherever there is water. Greater Boston is exceptionally favored in its large contact with the water. The railroad on the carfloat belt can have a local station wherever it can build or lease a pier. There is no reason why the New Haven should not have a station in Cambridge and Everett, the Boston & Maine one in Fort Point Channel or Quincy. 370 THE POET OP BOSTON Until the Boston roads provide themselves with Boston transfer stations, these outlying stations are not likely to be established, for the reason that they conld load few direct cars, and there is no Boston Transfer to which to load them.^ But this is no reason for not establishing the Atlantic Avenue pier stations. The Atlantic Avenue district will supply freight to load so many direct cars that few shipments wiU need be drayed to Kneeland Street, South Boston, or Ruther- ford Avenue, in order to get into a through car. In no way, so cheaply as in the manner proposed, can the Boston roads largely expand their local delivery facilities, in any situation accessible to shippers. Harbor is a belt line. The carfloats are the trains, a tug handles two of them (24 cars) at once. The tug is the switching engine. The harbor is the belt line. The pier is the local station. The carfloat in the slip represents the tracks alongside. There is no cost of construction, no maintenance, rentals or taxes on the belt line. The pier and the slip can be rented from the State, at a price for which corresponding facilities on the land, in the same district, could not possibly be maintained. The belt line has an indefinite capacity. Cheapness of floating operations. Operation of this belt line is cheap. Suppose that the waters surrounding New York were fiUed in. Then suppose that each railroad now terminating in Jersey City or the Bronx were to build on the land, so created, tracks reaching each of its present pier stations. The road- 1 The transfer stations already mentioned, such as Ayer, Lawrence, Mansfield, etc., are all on separate divisions of the Boston & Maine and New Haven. What is needed is a transfer at a point before the divisions diverge from Boston. RAILROAD PIER STATIONS 371 beds of these connecting tracks would be subject to heavy annual charges for interest, maintenance and taxes. These fixed charges would be so great that they would outweigh any problematical saving in operation brought about by delivering the cars all-rail instead of by float. The result would undoubtedly be that it would be far more expensive to deliver Manhattan freight, per ton, than at present. The criticism of New York terminal operations is by those who do not know New York. No city which has water should fail to study these New York local facilities and operations. Summary. Certain new constructions and certain changes in procedure have been proposed for the purpose of improving the conditions of Operation in the port of Boston. By Operation is meant the process of interchanging traflSc between rail and water carriers. The changes proposed may be summarized as follows : It proves impracticable and undesirable to build a new belt line around Boston for the purpose of co-ordinating all rail carriers with all pier groups, or providing for interchange of cars between different rail carriers. The advantages of such a belt line can be had by the institution of two carfloating routes : one between South Boston and East Boston, one between South Boston and Charlestown. The Port Directors should construct a large modern float bridge at Charlestown, one at East Boston, two at South Boston. They should construct at least six large transfer carfloats. These float bridges and car- floats should be leased jointly to the Boston & Maine, Boston & Albany and New Haven railroads, who would operate them. The transfer carfloat routes thus established would . serve as a water belt line pro- 372 THE PORT OF BOSTON viding for carload railroad interchange between Boston & Maine and New Haven; between the rails of the New Haven and Charlestown piers or East Boston piers; between the South Boston piers and Boston & Maine or Boston & Albany rails. The floats and bridges would be leased upon a self-supporting basis. The carfloat routes would bring the Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany into South Boston, where a great industrial district would be created upon the Common- wealth's land there. Commonwealth trackage in South Boston, as well as the tracks to Commonwealth Pier No. 4, future Commonwealth Piers at South Boston, and the new Fish Pier, should be leased to the three roads jointly and operated as a joint terminal of all three roads. To the Boston & Maine and Boston & Albany should be leased land for the construction of local freight stations in South Boston. These stations should also be constructed according to the designs of the railroads, and leased to the roads. South Boston trackage and facilities should be leased upon a self-supporting basis. The industrial development of the State's 140 acres of land at South Boston would probably supply an annual revenue that would make all activities of the Port Directors self-supporting for the future. It appeared not impossible that the Port Directors could acquire the entire waterfront and operate it upon a self-supporting basis, the railroads continuing their present practice of paying for the maintenance of oversea terminals. The expenditure for the acquisi- tion, however, would be very large and State operation upon an unprecedented scale would be entailed. It seemed preferable first to attempt to attain a satis- RAILROAD PIER STATIONS 373 factory terminal situation under present conditions of dispersed waterfront ownership. An effort should be made to have the location of the new Boston Immigration Station settled on the second floor of Commonwealth Pier. The convenience of this location and the economies it offers to both the Federal Goyernment and the State, all speak for the plan. It appears not impracticable to make of Common- wealth Pier a joint landing stage for the passengers of all classes of all steamers. Besides preventing further duplication of the passenger-handling facilities of the port, this measure would make possible a development of train service, connecting with steamers, for western passengers using Boston. The Port Directors should acquire 1,400 feet of water frontage on Atlantic Avenue, the area from Long to Lewis Wharf inclusive. The present disor- derly wharf system, the product of historical conditions and of an industrial and commercial use of the water- front, should be cleared away, and four modern 1,000- foot piers should be built. These 1,000-foot piers would require an extension of the present pier head line. The new piers would each be an entire terminal and would accommodate enough shipping to make it self-supporting in spite of the high cost of acquiring this Atlantic Avenue waterfront. It is proposed to locate upon the new piers a large portion of the major Boston coastwise lines; also to establish, upon the northernmost pier, local freight stations for the Boston & Albany and New Haven ; upon the south half of the southernmost pier a local freight station for the Boston & Maine. The new wide piers for coastwise lines would greatly facilitate their operations in the handling of local freight. 374 THE PORT OF BOSTON For through freight transferred between coastwise and rail carriers it is proposed to abolish the use of the Union Freight, which would disappear from coast- wise piers. All package freight so interchanged would be carried in Boston Lighterage cars, one of which would run between each important local station on a New England railroad and a Union Lighterage Station, to be built by the Port Directors at South Boston, where all the railroads would have been brought together. The Port Directors should supply the equip- ment for lightering this package freight between coast- wise vessels and the Union Lighterage Station. This equipment, however, would be operated by a Union Lighterage Company, in which all coastwise lines would be invited to join. Great savings in the cost of this transfer will be effected by taking it from 1-ton units and giving it to 200-ton units. It is proposed to carry on this transfer of package freight for a uniform charge of 60