On June 30, 1903, there were in the service of the railways 43,871 locomotives, the increase being 2,646. As classified, these locomotives were: Passenger, 10,570; freight, 25,444; switching, 7.058. There were also 799 not assigned to any class.

The total number of cars of all classes was 1,753,389, this total having increased 113,204 during the year. The assignment of this rolling stock was, to the passenger service, 38,140 cars; to the freight service, 1,653.782 cars; the remaining 61,467 cars being those employed directly by the railways in their own service. Cars used by the railways that were owned by private companies and firms are not included in this statement. The average number of locomotives per 1,000 miles of line was 214, showing an increase of 8. The average number of cars per 1,000 miles of line was 8,540, showing an increase of 345 as compared with the previous year. The number of passenger-miles per passenger locomotive was 1,978,786, showing an increase of 70,476 miles. The number of ton-miles per freight locomotive was 6,807,981, showing an increase of 141,482 miles as compared with June 30, 1902.

The aggregate number of locomotives and cars in the service of the railways was 1,797,260. Of this number 1,462,259 were fitted with train brakes, indicating an increase during the year of 155,414, and 1,770,558 were fitted with automatic couplers, indicating an increase of 122,028. Practically all locomotives and cars in passenger service had train brakes, and of the 10,570 locomotives in that service. 10 110 were fitted with automatic couplers. Only a few cars in passenger service were without automatic couplers. With respect to freight equipment it appears that most of the freight locomotives had train brakes and 98 per cent of them automatic couplers. Of 1,653.782 cars in freight service on June 30. 1903, 1,-352,123 had train brakes and 1,632,330 automatic couplers. In this report there have been continued several summaries, first presented in the report for 1902, to show the general type of efficiency of locomotives and the capacity of freight cars.

In these summaries locomotives are classified under the heads of single-expansion locomotives, four-cylinder compound locomotives, and two-cylinder compound or cross-compound locomotives. Each of these classes of locomotives is further classified according to the number of drivers, and the number of pilot wheels and trailers.

Freight cars are first classified as box cars, flat cars, stock cars, coal cars, tank cars, refrigerator cars, and other cars. The cars in these classes are further distributed among the requisite number of subclasses, the lowest of which. Class I, being for cars having capacities in the 10,000 of pounds; Class II for cars in the 20,-000 of pounds, the other classes successively increasing in the same ratio.