Bricks Without Straw

War can be like Alice in Wonderland. Last week U.S. railroads learned that factfrom the War Production Board.

Since 1942’s carloadings are making history, the railroads expect to need up wards of 1,800,000 cars to carry the fall traffic peak, which appears likely to reach an alltime record. To meet this demand the Office of Defense Transportation had requested 130,000 new cars for delivery during the last eight months of the year. These, in addition to the 45,000 cars which the railroads were authorized to get by May, would give the railroads some reserve against unpredictable peak loadings.

Like the Red Queen, WPB’s all-powerful Material Requirements Committee responded:

> The railroads cannot have any more cars at all (or locomotives either) until WPB fixes a new quota—and the best the railroads can hope for is probably 18,000 out of the 130,000 cars asked for—barely enough to replace worn-out equipment.

> What is more, they cannot have steel or other materials allocated to build any more new cars.

In short, if the railroads get even a few thousand new cars, they will have to be built out of the inventories in car builders’ hands and in railroad-owned shops. This may be tantamount to no new cars at all, unless most of the 18,000 are of wood construction for the appallingly low in ventories remaining must be conserved for repair work, to keep existing rolling stock in service.

WPB may allow construction of the 975 locomotives they planned for in January. But this is below the 1,200 new and larger locomotives that ODT feels the railroads need this year.

WPB’s decision was doubtless based on necessity—acute shortage of steel. So the railroads promised to try to make bricks without new straw. But already they have stretched their modest straw supply to record lengths. In 1942’s first quarter, their carloadings increased 8.2% over 1941, but they forced ton-miles up an estimated 28%. The greater the proportion of ton-miles to the number of cars loaded, the bigger the load that is got into the average car, and the further that car is moved. In 1941 the railroads had a 50% increase in carloadings over the 1932 low, but their ton-miles jumped 100% to an, alltime high in skillful railroading.

How much further can the railroads carry this increase in efficiency? Last week the nations’ shippers (through their Shippers’ Advisory Boards) peered into a crystal ball, came up with their quarterly advance carloading forecast. Their figures: loadings will be 14.6% greater in this year’s second quarter than last year; an average of better than one million car-loadings weekly by June.

Two factors may help to save the railroads, in spite of this upward trend:

1) Until shipbuilders grease two or three ships off the ways daily, export of war materials is not likely to keep pace with industrial production. The railroads may be spared by the shipping shortage from the necessity of delivering all of 1942’s war output to tidewater.

2) Fall grainloadings may be below normal, because most grain elevators are already full and not being emptied rapidly by either consumption or export.

But only the gods can say how long U.S. truck tires will last, or whether an early winter will close down on the Great Lakes and divert millions of tons of iron ore to the western railroads.

Grunting under record hauls of soldiers and war goods, smart, progressive Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad (The Rebel Route) published a big ad in local papers: “This railroad is no longer operated primarily for the convenience of the traveling and shipping public. . . .”