How the railroad owners got rich

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=50-100--150-years-ago-age-of-anxiety&page=2

From Scientific American magazine, March 2013, reprinted from 1931:

“The hours of labor exacted by some of the Brooklyn railroad companies are so many and the work is so severe that it is astonishing that men can perform the labor and live. The Brooklyn Central Railroad Company requires seventeen and a half hours of labor per day, and allows no time for procuring meals; the food necessary to sustain life being eaten in the cars. The compensation for conductors and drivers is $1.35 per day.”