Battle Report from OWI

The Office of War Information this week produced an unexceptionable report: a 22-page summary of "the battle of transportation in the continental United States." OWI stuck close to the facts, and of them all, one fact stuck out: any citizen who can read could see why joyrides are out.

The Rails and Passengers. U.S. population centers are bunched in the Northeast. The Southeast and Southwest have the best climates for training camps. Therefore, reported OWI, troop movements have necessarily been enormous, are now running at the rate of 1,750,000 men a month (exclusive of furloughs). These excursions consume 50% of all Pullman space (and could use 100%). In the last war each U.S. soldier made an average of three moves by rail; in this one a typical soldier makes eight.

All U.S. citizens, uniformed and in mufti, traveled 54 billion passenger miles last year--an alltime high--though U.S. railroads had only two-thirds of the cars, half the locomotives they had 20 years ago. Where 100 passengers used to be considered the peak for one diner, now a single crew of waiters may have to serve up to 700 meals a day, sometimes work from 5:30 a.m. until 2 a.m. next morning. Pullman porters, working over 250 hours a month, are similarly overloaded.

The Rails and Freight. In 1942 the railroads carried, "with few major congestions," one-third more freight than in 1941, with one-quarter less equipment than they had in 1918--when breakdowns were wholesale and the Government had to take over. Normally U.S. railroads move freight east. Last year one-third of the total volume was westward traffic which Western roads, often single-tracked, were never designed to handle. OWI statistics underline the huge new burdens that submarine warfare placed on the rails: in peacetime one tanker used to leave Gulf ports almost every hour, to supply the 17 Eastern States.

Waterways, Airways, Trucks. Only six months ago, barges lay idle on most of the nation's rivers and canals. Now only the southbound movement of freight on the Ohio and Mississippi is not at near-capacity levels. No. 1 war cargo on the waterways is oil; No. 2, coal. Busiest U.S. barge canal is the Gulf Intra-Coastal (Corpus Christi, Tex. to Carabelle, Fla.).

The airlines are carrying almost as many passengers with only half their 434 pre-Pearl Harbor planes, by heavier loading and a daily average run for each plane of 1,100 miles. Trucks: 200,000 of the nation's 4,500,000 are already out of service (no manpower, no rubber, no business). Despite a 40% mileage cut (from 1941 levels) already ordered for this year, trucks are hauling 10% more tonnage from city to city "than the last available figure for the entire [prewar] fleet."

Getting to Work. Before the war, more than half U.S. passenger-car mileage was for business purposes. As gas and rubber supplies got short and employment soared, local transit business in Charleston, S.C. skyrocketed 622% last year; in Wilmington, N.C. 522%. War workers ride to & from Baltimore and Pittsburgh suburbs on wooden benches plunked into boxcars. Yet for 1943 only 3,000 new busses have been authorized, only 220 new trolleys.

OWI predicts that "by the end of 1943 about four times as many Americans will be going to work every day as can be carried at any one time on all available public vehicles." Probable solutions: 1) staggered working hours; 2) private car pools.

In sum, OWI declared that "the battle of transportation ... is now being won"; added, "the victories are not necessarily permanent."

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