RAILROADS: Cars for Sale

The Assistant Attorney General of the U.S., youngish, trust-crunching Wendell Berge, was a greatly annoyed man last week. The reason: no one seemed to be in any hurry to plunk down $81 million for the 7,121 sleeping and parlor cars, the mountains of hand towels, bed sheets, the ten laundries, etc. that Pullman, Inc. had for sale. Until a buyer could be found, the grand finale to one of Berge’s most successful antitrust suits could not be written.

Last June, after Berge convinced a fed eral court that Pullman’s ownership of its sleeping-car operating company and its car-building subsidiary was a monopoly, the court ordered Pullman to dispose of one or the other.

As expected, Pullman chose to sell its car-operating company and to keep its manufacturing unit, Pullman-Standard Manufacturing Co. Then everyone sat back and waited for the railroads to form an operating company, step in and take over the sleeping cars.

To the surprise of everybody in the Department of Justice, the railroads failed to get together. Some big roads (like the Pennsylvania) have indicated that they would like to own and operate their own sleepers, just as they do their coaches. But the smaller railroads are unwilling to buy their own Pullmans. If they do, they would be stuck with a surplus of sleepers when seasonal traffic is light. Thus, five months after Pullman filed its separation plan, Berge last week fumed at the proposal, calling it “unclear and ambiguous.” His main objection: Pullman Co. was for sale as a unit to the railroads instead of being sold piecemeal, car by car to any buyer who might come along.

Somewhere in this muddle was a middle ground that would give passengers the benefits of better service and equipment, and give the railroads the benefit of a car pool. But neither Berge nor the railroads seemed to know where to find the answer. Said the Justice Department last week,

“Maybe Fred Harvey will buy it.”