Exit Shooting

Rambunctious Robert Ralph Young and the stodgy Association of American Railroads had long been incompatible. Last week Bob Young finally packed up his three roads (Chesapeake & Ohio, Nickel Plate, Pere Marquette) and left A.A.R.'s house. As he left, he fired a Parthian shot: The A.A.R. "has encouraged . . . noncompetitive practices," thus also encouraged Federal antitrust action. It has fought to perpetuate discriminatory freight rates helpful to the Eastern, bank-run roads which dominate its affairs. "To squeeze the last dollar of revenue from obsolete equipment . . . technological development has been discouraged." To Young, wartime difficulties were not a sufficient excuse for the way roadbeds and trains had bruised and beaten passengers. And, he added, it was the C. & O., not the A.A.R., which had forced improvements, e.g., the introduction of through-transcontinental trains.

Bob Young concluded: "We think the quarter of a million dollars a year we have been paying in A.A.R. dues can be better spent by ourselves."

Of Young's departure, an A.A.R. man said stonily: "No hearts will be broken."

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