Excerpt from American Railways as Investments: A Detailed and Comparative Analysis of All the Leading Railways, From the Investor's Point, of View; With an Introductory Chapter on the Methods of Estimating Railway Values The aim Of this work is to provide the general investor, the banker and the investment broker with the means whereby he may judge intelligently and readily, so far as the accessible facts will permit, Of the value Of the securities Of the different railroads passed under review. The volume covers the Operations Of nearly miles Of road or about 90% of the total for the country. More especial attention, and detail, has naturally been given to the more important lines and systems, on the theory that they present greater opportunities for safe investment, greater stabil ity, wider fluctuations in value and therefore larger Opportuni ties for profit, with less liability to suffer from the minor accidents Of trade reverses, manipulation or bad management. At the end Of each analysis or review, conclusions and opinions are offered, but only for what they are worth; that is to say, all the material facts upon which these conclusions are based have been given in full. The details, the figures, the tables are there; the investor may therefore judge for himself as to the validity Of the conclusions reached. The inductions offered are suggestions and nothing more. The aim has been to provide the broadest possible basis of judgment, to Offer the largest perspective, to cut out tha which is evanescent, not to look at last year's results or this year's conditions merely, but to consider what has been done through a series Of years, and under varying conditions. Only in this wise is it possible to frame any intelligent Opinion of the future. Tendencies do not rapidly change. Established roads do not suddenly become great earners; they do not as a rule radically change their policies, save under a radical change Of ownership. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.