Business: Lost Mileage

The New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R. went into court twice last week in the matter of losing railway mileage. In New Haven, Conn., trustees of New England’s No. 1 railroad filed a petition in Federal court seeking authority to ask the Interstate Commerce Commission for permission to abandon 204.34 mi. of track in New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut because it was unprofitable.* In Providence, R. I., the New Haven was an interested party in the prosecution and conviction of Joseph Gemma, 40, for “stealing a railroad in broad daylight.” A Superior court jury found the operator of Joe’s Auto Salvage Co. and a gang of men had pilfered 250 tons of New Haven rails worth $3,800 from an abandoned stretch of the Harrisville-Woonsocket R. R. in northern Rhode Island last summer.

*Total U. S. railroad trackage abandoned in 1936 was 1,523 mi., Railway Age reported last week. Abandoned mileage since 1932 totaled 7,236.