Transport

“ UT—Union Transport, spread the meshes of its transportation service through almost every city of Earth and the hamlets and roads and bus and railroad and airlines between—and even to the few far ports where mankind had found a toehold in space. ”

“ We transport our merchandise not in single wagons loaded with hundred-weight and hauled by creeping oxen, but in long trains crammed with hundreds of tons and whirled through space by powerful steam engines. ”

“ Definition.—As used in this section, the term “transport” includes staying in temporary lodging overnight, common carrier misrouting or delays, stops for food, fuel, vehicle maintenance, emergencies, medical treatment, and all other activity related to the person’s overall journey. ”

“ One thinks of mechanical transport; if not the railway, which, with a single train at its slowest, would whirl along in half-a-day the load which thousands of carriers need six times as long to transport, then of motor lorries, a couple capable of doing in a day work that requires 150 men with head-loads three days. ”

“ And large are the cargoes these great ships can transport,
Food to feed a city, or supply a large fort.
A whole township of crops in one enormous load,
Or railroad rails enough for eighty miles of road,
A copper cargo worth three millions of dollars,
Or cloth enough to clothe four millions of scholars.{134}
Many are the products transported by these ships,
And vast is the volume for they make many trips,
So great is the traffic it is safe to relate,
There’s no other river has a commerce so great. ”

“ COMPARATIVE COST OF WATER AND LAND TRANSPORT.
There is no matter connected with the trade and commerce of a country that is of greater importance to its welfare than cheap transport. The business of transportation, both by land and by sea, is now one of the most gigantic in the history of the world. ”

“ The process of transportation, different from the process of final distribution, comprises the act of bringing the products of land, water, and mines to the places of manufacture and general production, and to re-transport the partly finished goods either to other places at which the process of production is finished, or to bring the finished goods to the points where the distribution to the users or consumers takes place. ”

“ In primitive societies the transport of goods is effected by men and women carrying them; in civilized societies by the aid of horses and camels, and wagons drawn by oxen; till finally these are insufficient, and railways are created, whose power of transport transcends the earlier methods, as the breathing of a mammal transcends the respiration of a mollusc. Breathing is the special function of an organ—the lungs (or more strictly, the thoracic apparatus) —as Railway Transport is a special social function. ”

“ The transports of the masses are generally prepared artificially by those who need them, and the degree of transport expressed by the crowd shows only the degree of the art of the arrangers of these transports. ”

“ The mechanism of transport constitutes a vast net-work of [Pg 128] inter-relations that have been carried farther toward a world basis than any other phase of the world's economic life. The nature of ocean transport, of the postal service, of the express service and of the telephone and telegraph made this inevitable. The inventions and discoveries of the past century have worldized transport without the necessity of any intervention from a producer's society. ”

“ In particular, the transport of perishable goods shall be promptly and regularly carried out, and the customs formalities shall be effected in such a way as to allow the goods to be carried straight through by trains which make connection. ”

“ The primary objects have therefore been, to sketch briefly and simply the development of the transportation systems of the United States, to indicate their importance and mutual relations, to present some practical methods used in the operation of highway transport and to make occasional suggestions for the betterment of the road as a usable machine for the benefit and pleasure of mankind. ”

“ So the tendency of the railway was not only to advance trade, travel and transport, but to open men's minds, to broaden the intellectual outlook of the artisan and the labourer, to place them more on a level with their social superiors, and to make them better fitted for the exercise of greater political powers. ”

“ The present condition of our inland transport is a subject which calls for the close attention of all who are in any way interested in the commercial prosperity of the country at large. The enormous increase in our imports and exports demands a corresponding increase in the facilities for inland transport. ”

“ But now the amendments of the roads with the many other improvements of travelling have in a manner opened a new communication between the several parts of our island.... Stage-coaches, machines, flys and post chaises are ready to transport passengers to and fro, between the metropolis and the most distant parts of the Kingdom. The lover now can almost literally annihilate time and space, and be with his mistress before she dreams of his arrival. ”

“ Enterprise, capital, and skill have, of late years, been directed with extraordinary energy to the improvement of inland transport, and this important instrument of national wealth and civilisation has received a proportionate impulse. ”

“ Large and commodious vehicles, for carrying many thousand tons, running over peculiarly adapted level roads, at the rate of forty miles per hour, or one thousand miles per day, may transport men and things, small houses, and whatever may serve for comfort and ease, by land. ”

“ Earths easily removed do not admit of so large a haul, with a given number of excavators, as hard earths. The nature of the ground, form of carts, kind of horses, season of the year, and price of labor are some of the elements entering the problem of transport. ”

“ Bright specks that were commute ships, little eggs that carried businessmen and white-collar workers around. The huge transport tubes that shot masses of workmen to factories and labor camps from their housing units. ”

“ Also if transport by land routes becomes too expensive the small traders turn to the sea routes and the carriers have an increased business. But so far as I have been able to learn, dry years favor only a few scattered individuals. ”

“ Manifestly, it is of great moment that the technical conditions which influence the cost of transport should be as perfect as possible, and that the most economical methods of carrying on the business of a country from this point of view, should be put into operation. ”

“ All other things being equal, the system of transport that is able to afford the greatest average speed will be certain to command the lion’s share of business. There are, however, both natural and economical limits to speed, alike on water and on land. ”

“ In many respects the railway service proper—that is to say, the particular branches thereof which deal with actual transport, as distinct from construction and manufacture—offers features that are unique in their way, even if they do not, also, bring about types of workers of a class distinct from those to be found in the majority of other industries. ”

“ Railway operation is thus calculated to give to the workers engaged in transport a keener sense of responsibility, and to develop therewith a greater individuality, than any other of our national industries. The railway man concerned in operation requires to be capable both of foresight and of initiative. ”

“ From the great stores which keep their "fleet" of delivery cars, and from the furniture-remover who wants the equivalent almost of a traction-engine down to the draper, the grocer or the butcher who is content with a modest three-wheel auto-carrier for loads up to five or ten cwt., every class of trader is to-day finding that, to keep pace with the times, and to deliver goods as promptly and at the same distances as his competitors, he must needs have a quicker means of road transport than a horsed-vehicle. ”

“ Where commodities are carried either in considerable quantities or for considerable distances, and more particularly when both of these conditions prevail, transport by a locomotive, operating on rails, and conveying a heavy load with no very material increase in working expenses over the carrying of a light load, must needs be more economical than the distribution of a corresponding tonnage of goods among a collection of commercial motors, for conveyance by road under such conditions that each motor is operated as a separate and distinct unit. ”

“ Not until well towards the middle of the nineteenth century, then, were the conditions of transportation altered materially from what they had been since the very dawn of civilization,—conditions under which one hundred miles constituted about the maximum extent of a hard day's land journey.
The elaboration of railway and steamship lines through which nearly all portions of the habitable globe have been made accessible, has constituted one of the most remarkable examples of economic development that man has ever achieved. ”

“ Transportation is the most exacting, the most diversified, the most far-reaching of commercial and industrial activities. It follows then, under the law of the survival of the fittest, that those who can survive in the art and science of transportation must be the fittest of the fit. ”

“ As the towns or the industrial centres developed, however, there grew up increasing need for improved means of transport—supplementary to the roads of that day—in order, more especially, to facilitate the better distribution of the commodities then being produced in ever-increasing quantities. ”

“ It only remains to be stated that there is regularly established transportation daily between all the principal points, that the distances are not fatiguing, that the charges are reasonable, and the equipment everything that could be desired. ”

“ Transportation.—A third industry that has its centre in the city but extends across continents and seas is the business of transportation. Manufactured goods are conveyed from the factory to the warehouse and the store, goods sold in the mercantile establishment are delivered from door to door, but enormous quantities of the products [205] of economic activity are hauled to greater distances by truck, car, and steamship. The city is a point to which roads, railways, and steamship lines converge, and from which they radiate in every direction. ”

“ Transportation, the first handmaiden of progress, is in active attendance every day of the year. Those who worship at her shrine and follow her teachings must lead the strenuous life and love the voice of duty. The splendid, virile performance of the past, handicapped often by crude facilities and forced expansion, must and will be eclipsed under the intense, trying conditions of the present and the future. In no profession more than in ours is there eternity of opportunity. ”

“ The advent of the new means of transport was, in fact, marked by the complete absence of any centralised effort with a view to securing the network of a railway system, so planned or so co-ordinated as to make the best possible provision for the country as a whole, and especially for the rapidly increasing necessities of trade, commerce and industry. ”

“ The need for better means of communication in order to open up districts then more or less isolated, to provide better transport for raw materials and manufactured goods, and to facilitate the carriage of domestic and other supplies needed by the increasing population, thus became more and more apparent. ”

“ With the large wholesale and retail houses the use of the road motor is a matter not simply of economy in transport but, to a still greater degree, of doing a larger business, in less time, and over a wider area, than if horsed vehicles were used. ”

“ In writing this book, then, I have had constantly in mind the myriads of people who have not the time, and possibly not the facilities, to search the pages of the literature of the past for the origin and development, or to work out their present importance, of our amplification of roads and of road uses. It is felt that many of these people laudably desire a conversational knowledge of the origin, evolution and present status of highway transportation, even though it be glimpsed by a very rapid passage through a very large subject. ”

“ Trade and industry have, also, completely changed in method, while thousands of men can carry on a business of their own to-day who, in the pre-railway epoch, must have been content to be little more than hewers of wood and drawers of water.
The economy in time, also, due to the speed at which the general merchandise traffic of the country is carried, has been of no less importance than the economy in cost of transport. ”

“ Transportation in production.—The change of place necessary to bring together wants and those things which satisfy them is a method of producing wealth most apparent everywhere. The bringing of wild fruits from the forest or the swamp to the home gives them worth. The mere transportation, change of place, gives them an importance they did not have on the trees or bushes. ”

“ The population had increased, it is true, and commerce had been developed in the interval. But the facilities for rapid and economical transportation had not been materially altered for the better. The great mass of the people were as ignorant, as superstitious, as shiftless as in the seventeenth century. ”

“ Importance of roads in the present transportation292 system.—A word of warning may be advisable before we leave this subject to study more recent means of transportation. Not many years ago a French economist estimated that not one twentieth of the settlements of the inhabited world were within less than a day’s distance from a railroad. Even in the most advanced countries the extent of roads far exceeds that of railroads, and only in the rarest cases do products reach the consumer without having traversed a stretch of common road. ”

“ With ample facilities of transport, however, the most limited natural resources may be made to go a long way, and nations that are not possessed of great natural endowments may even rise to a high place in the economy of human industry. ”