III

THE railroads knew that ample transportation service was the first essential to a successful conduct of the war, and through the Railroads' War Board they set out, immediately our country was precipitated into the struggle, to make their plans for putting troops, food, fuel, and supplies exactly where they were needed when they were needed. That is the railroads' job in war.

The welfare of our nation is absolutely dependent upon an adequate supply of coal for all purposes, and of iron ore for the steel-mills. For that reason the War Board, as one of its first acts, ordered the railroads to give preference to shipments of coal and ore. This action was taken, however, after thorough consultation with government officers, who realized its necessity; the reserve stocks of coal and ore in many sections of the United States had been depleted, due largely to the unprecedented consumption during the past year, and it was imperative that the railroads get started immediately to move the largest possible amount of coal to all parts of the country, and ore to the furnaces, before the coming of the winter months.

To save the use of coal-cars and also to increase the tonnage hauled, the railroads, co-operating with the Committee on Coal Production of the Council of National Defense, arranged with shippers of both lake and tide-water coal to pool their product.

Heretofore a shipper has sent his coal to a port and held it there in cars until he accumulated a complete cargo. During the war, however, coal will be coal regardless of who owns it, and when either a lake or an ocean-steamer wants a cargo of coal it will be taken from the pool. Through this pooling plan it is estimated that a saving in the time of freight-cars will be effected equivalent to adding 185,000 coal-cars to the service.

With the increasing demands being made on America for export coal, together with the gain in domestic consumption, the economical use of coal-cars is a subject of constant concern to the railroads. This year they must haul to tide-water at least 31,000,000 tons of bituminous coal

alone, while on the Great Lakes, in the 180 days of the navigable season, they must haul to Lake Erie ports 26,000,000 tons, a total of more than a million carloads.

Tonnage statistics of coal handled since the war started are not available, but we know much progress is being made. In the first month of the war the railroads hauled about 30 per cent more bituminous coal than in the same month of 1916, and in the second month 23.8 per cent more, or 14,650,600 tons more in the two months than in the same months of 1916, the year of greatest coal production on record.

IV

WITH the necessity before it of getting all possible service out of existing facilities the Railroads' War Board has constantly urged carriers to adopt every practice to get maximum returns from their equipment. Railroads were asked to make every car do the work of two. By heavier loading, by expediting the movement even more than the railroads have been doing, and by speeding up repairs, it is possible to get work out of the present number of freight-cars equal to the service of 779,000 additional freightcars. By adopting these measures, in other words, the supply of cars can be increased more than 30 per cent. The Board has asked the railroads to strive for this goal.

Similarly, by reducing the number of locomotives under repairs, by increasing locomotive mileage, it may be possible to keep in actual service 16,625 more locomotives than are now in use. This in itself would mean an increase of more than 25 per cent in available locomotives. The War Board has put this squarely before the railroads as an attainable goal. Presidents of the different lines have been asked to see to it personally that the men generally strive for it. It is realized, of course, that the diversion of mechanics to purely war work will greatly increase the difficulty of attainment.

The curtailment of passenger service has touched the average citizen more directly than any other action of the War Board. It was not without some mis

V

givings that it was suggested to the railroads. But it was a necessity that had to be faced; it was a sacrifice that had to be made by the public as well as railroads. Personal conveniences had to make way for the most expeditious moving of coal, food materials, and troops. It was equally important as a saving in fuel.

As a war measure the War Board has asked the railroads to:

2.

3.

1. Consolidate, where practicable, through passenger-train service and eliminate trains which are not well patronized. Reduce the number of special trains and give up running excursion trains. On light and branch lines, where two or more passenger-trains are operated, try to reduce to one train a day. 4. Substitute, where practicable, mixed train service for separate passenger and freight service on branch lines. Closely review number of scheduled freight-trains, where tonnage is insufficient to load them, with a view to reducing the number of trains. 5. Where passenger-trains are double-headed for speed, readjust schedules or cut out cars, where possible, to release locomotives for freight service.

6. Reduce, so far as practicable, luxuries, such as observation-cars. Reduce, also in the interest of economy, the present rather elaborate and luxurious bills of fare furnished on many dining and restaurant

cars.

Through changes in passenger service the railroads of the country up to the first of September will have saved some 16,000,000 passenger-train miles annually. It is estimated that this will mean a saving among other things of more than one million tons of coal. The aim of the War Board is to get the railroads to discontinue every train and every facility that the public doesn't actually need, to the end always that the same facilities may be devoted to providing what the public does need. The changes are being made gradually but none the less surely.

In a war of the magnitude of this in which we are engaged it is inevitable that the War Board must from time to time recommend the adoption of policies which will curtail conveniences the public has previously enjoyed. But the Board is relying upon public opinion to support this sacrifice of personal convenience.

EARLY in its work the War Board realized that success in securing greater efficiency out of existing equipment was dependent partly upon "waking up" railroad men of every rank to the necessity for great personal effort. Each man must be brought to feel he is an important element in the struggle and that his failure to produce more may prove just as fatal to the country's success as indolent soldiers at the front.

To get the attention of their men to these responsibilities the railroads are displaying on employees' bulletins throughout the country rather glaring posters. By picture, by cartoon, as well as the spoken word, they are preaching the necessity for action. Patriotism is to get its practical expression in work. These posters bear captions such as: "Locomotives and Shrapnel," "Your Nation's Needs and Your Part in It," "The Nation Needs Freight-Cars as Well as Soldiers," "Will We Railroad Men Fail Our Country?" "War is Not All Shooting," "Talk, Eat, and Dream Car Efficiency," "Waking Up the Railroads," and others, based on the things the Board is trying to bring about.

Individual carriers have also been called upon to go out into the byways and hedges and preach the gospel of getting the utmost out of present facilities. The support of individual shippers is being enlisted. In this way, by passing the word along down the line, the efficiency of each transportation unit in the United States is being increased and the railroads as a whole welded into a most effective weapon against Germany.

The railroads cannot produce the transportation the country must have without the co-operation of shippers and consignees. Shippers can load cars to their full capacity; they can load and unload quickly; they can give prompt advice when cars are ready to be moved. They can do much and they are co-operating to an increasing extent every day. They too, however, must take their share of "warbread" transportation. They can help the roads tremendously, as they are doing to-day, and it is expected that they will continue to. Indeed, too much praise cannot be given to boards of trade,

chambers of commerce, and shippers' organizations generally for the way they have come forward to work out these problems with the railroads. The National Industrial Traffic League-the ship pers' most influential organization-has been of great assistance.

State utilities commissions have also come to the railroads' support. The War Board pointed out to them the necessity for co-operation between all interests, and asked their support to aid in securing full efficiency from the transportation unit, the freight-car. The Board told the commissions that many terminals, yards, and industrial tracks are now taxed beyond their limits, and they cannot be enlarged or extended to any material degree; but these tracks will be relieved if equipment is loaded to full capacity. This will materially increase the total tonnage handled, with better and more regular service.

The following reply, which the War Board received from the Railroad Commission of Louisiana, is typical of the backing the State commissions are giving:

"The Railroad Commission of Louisiana will be glad to support unqualifiedly any movement which will tend to relieve the situation now prevalent concerning shortage of equipment."

The executive committee of the National Association of Railroad Commissioners has pledged the support of all State commissions.

VI

A MOST important matter of concern to the War Board is the necessity of rehabilitating the French railways. This is necessary not merely for France's sake but as a military problem of our own. France cannot spare the men for the work, so we must do it. At least we can supply France's railroad needs and do it practically immediately.

Co-operating with the government the railroads, acting under the instructions of their War Board, have been largely instrumental in recruiting nine regiments of railway engineers. The railroads' part in this work has been in charge of Mr. S. M. Felton, president of the Chicago Great Western. These regiments are

composed of motive-power men, construction men, and operating men of all ranks from the common laborer up. Thoroughness has marked every step of the preparation for the revitalizing of French railways. The make-up of each of the operating regiments will include managing officers, such as division superintendents, trainmasters, road foremen of engines, chief dispatchers, and master mechanics. The enlisted men include electricians, linemen and signal maintainers, gas-enginemen, clerks, stenographers, draftsmen, surveyors, car-inspectors, repairers, storekeepers, pile-driver engineers, pipe-fitters, locomotiveinspectors, wreck - derrick engineers, a water-supply man, cooks, conductors, brakemen, locomotive engineers, stationary engineers, yard foremen, switchmen, machinists, blacksmiths, boiler-makers, operators and agents, despatchers, and track foremen.

VII

WHAT the railroads are trying to do might be better understood perhaps if the public generally appreciated the factors that enter into a "car-shortage" period.

There is no greater misnomer than the words "car shortage." When the railroads report a shortage of 100,000 cars it does not mean that the railroads lack that many cars of the number that would be needed to haul the tonnage offered, though that is a natural impression. At the very time the 100,000 shortage is reported 125,000 loaded cars may be held in accumulations of freight at terminals, freight that for various reasons consignees cannot accept. If these 125,000 cars had been promptly unloaded and the cars placed in service no shortage would exist. One hundred thousand cars might be added to the equipment of the railroads, and in a week the same shortage would recur, unless cars are unloaded.

Cars follow the flow of traffic. The result in times of great commercial activity. is a continuous car shortage in the producing areas, and a constant congestion and accumulation in the consuming territories. Economic reasons more than a lack of cars generally cause car shortages. When a car shortage exists it is usu

ally the result of an unequal distribution geographically of existing equipment, brought about largely by economic conditions.

Almost the first step taken by the Railroads' War Board was to adopt measures to reduce the so-called car shortage, which on May I was reported as 148,627 cars. An appeal to railroads and shippers to make more effective use of cars to load them beyond capacity-met with a prompt response from both. This, with the more fluid movement of cars as a result of changes the War Board made in the car-service rules and an expected seasonable improvement in conditions, enabled the roads to reduce the reported car shortage almost one-third in the month of May. The high-mark in the car shortage was reached just about the time the War Board actually started to operate all of the railroads as a continental system for war purposes.

A very definite result of the summer reduction in the car shortage came in response to an inquiry sent to the twentythree principal grain-carrying railroads of the country to develop the exact status of the grain transportation situation. It was found on the first of July that car shortage was not affecting the grain movement to any very great extent, and further, all old grain would be moved before the new crop was ready. An interesting fact brought out by the inquiry was that there seemed to be no disposition on the part of farmers and country elevators to hold back on grain ship

ments.

Car-shortage figures do not reflect actual conditions. They show a tendency only. Car-shortage and car-surplus figures are based on orders for cars for loading as filed with the railroads by shippers. In time of a surplus, orders for cars obviously reflect exact conditions, because with cars aplenty there is no incentive to inflate orders. When a shortage exists, however, a shipper increases his orders because he knows he will receive only a certain percentage of the cars ordered. In many cases shippers order cars double and treble their actual needs.

In reporting shortages there is much duplication because the same shipper will file an identical order with every railroad

serving his community. Thus a shortage may be reported by every one of the roads covering the requirements of that one shipper. Furthermore, car-shortage figures take no recognition of the tonnage capacity of a car. The average load of a box-car is only 43 per cent of its capacity, yet a shortage in cars is reported. If every box-car was loaded to its cubical capacity there would now be an actual surplus of box-cars.

The railroads' war problem should not be confused with car shortage. While it is true the roads would give much for immediate delivery of the cars on order, they would give more for largely increased terminal facilities to handle the cars they have.

VIII

OUR country's entry into the war came at a difficult time for the railroads. For more than a year before they had been struggling to carry the greatest tonnage ever offered them for transportation, and indeed did render the public 24 per cent more freight service than in the previous year, and in April, 1917, had actually provided freight service 44 per cent greater than they did in April, 1915

an achievement which at that time. would have been considered absolutely impossible. The war also came upon the railroads when they were emerging from a winter the severity of which had tried even beyond the breaking-point the physical plans of many of the systems in the northern part of the country.

The carriers, however, were not caught unprepared or wholly untrained. They had been taking a course of training, as it were, for almost a year-in the mobilization of troops at the Mexican border they had a lesson in what would be required of them in war in organization, equipment, and in co-operation.

When it appeared likely that the United States would be drawn into the war the railroads put aside every other consideration that their facilities might be made of the greatest assistance to the country. On February 16, acting through the American Railway Association, their most comprehensive body, they organized for the war. The nucleus for an organization existed, as the Special Committee for

Co-operating with the Military Authorities had been actively at work on the mobilization of troops at the border. This committee was enlarged, its membership made representative of the four departments of the army into which the country was then divided (it has since been divided into six), and its name changed to the Special Committee on National Defense of the American Railway Association.

In forming their organization for war the railroads had in mind primarily service only for the government itself. In realization, however, of the importance of the domestic activities of the country being conducted in a manner to promote the efforts of the government, the railroad presidents of the country met in Washington on April 11 and agreed during the war "to co-ordinate their operations in a continental railway system, merging during such period all their merely individual and competitive activities in the effort to produce a maximum of national transportation efficiency." They also agreed that this continental railway system should be directed by a committee of five, known officially as the Executive Committee, but generally called the Railroads' War Board This organization, it should be noted, is entirely voluntary. It does not derive any power or authority from the government. It is not a subcommittee of the Council of National Defense, nor of its Advisory Commission, but exercises active, definite, and large powers and responsibilities which the railroads themselves have intrusted to it.

The War Board of five consists of Mr. Howard Elliott, of the New Haven Railroad; Mr. Hale Holden, of the Burlington; Mr. Samuel Rea, of the Pennsylvania; Mr. Julius Kruttschnitt, of the Southern Pacific; and the writer. In addition, Mr. Daniel Willard, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and chairman of the Advisory Commission of the Council of National Defense, has accepted the invitation of the railroads to become a member, ex officio, of the War Board, as has Mr. E. E. Clark, of the Interstate Commerce Commission, by designation by that body. They have been of great assistance in the War Board's work.

The War Board has departmental sub-committees, coexistent with the military departments of the government, as well as committees on car service, equipment standards, transportation accounting, passenger tariffs, freight tariffs, purchases and supplies, and express transportation. It has stationed general agents at all of the military headquarters, with no other duties than to co-operate with the military officers. There are fifty-six of these places, to which we have assigned one hundred and twelve railroad officers.

The War Board's special organization sees to the government's military needs. The movement of troops, ammunition, and supplies, providing of railroad facilities at cantonments, equipping hospitaltrains, and similar tasks are all supervised by men selected because of their fitness. for that particular work. The government's calls receive preference on every railroad in the United States. One of the first propositions put up to the transportation men of the War Board was the movement of 120,000 car-loads of lumber for cantonment camps. Later this was rescinded because of a change of plans, but it gives some idea of the magnitude of the work the government may call on us to do. It illustrates the necessity for getting every ounce of work possible out of our facilities.

The Washington organization of the railroads has twenty-seven experienced railway officers, including the five executives on the War Board, all of whom are there practically all the time. With them war plans constitute the first order of business. In addition, the Board has sixty-nine general employees, and eighteen inspectors who are kept in the field. To get close to local situations and to meet difficulties promptly subcommittees reporting to the Commission on Car Service have been formed at Chicago, New York, Atlanta, San Francisco, Seattle, Memphis, New Orleans, and similar centres. These committees are co-operating with the shipping and travelling public as well as with the military authorities. This machinery, organized for the most part overnight, is now well co-ordinated, so that there is very little lost motion.

In the actual running expenses of this organization alone the railroads are con