Busy Bob

Alleghany Corp.'s Robert R. Young took a light drubbing from the U.S. Supreme Court last week. It knocked out his hope of getting control of the Pullman sleeping-car business. Young's Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co. had bid for it when anti-trust action forced Pullman, Inc. to put the business up for sale. But Young's bid had been thrown out in favor of one made by a pool of 43 other railroads. Young had cried "monopoly." So had the Department of Justice, which put the matter up to the Supreme Court. But the Court approved the sale to the pool (for $75 million).

Otherwise, scrappy Bob Young was riding high. The day after the Pullman decision, the Interstate Commerce Commission approved his plan to merge the Pere Marquette Railway Co. with the C. & O. The C. & O. has controlled the Pere Marquette since 1929, but, by integrating them, Young hoped to strengthen both, effect operating economies.

With this lollipop in his hand, Bob Young went right back to ICC and asked for more. What he wanted now was the right to vote the 400,000 shares of New York Central stock which the C. & O. has bought since last November. ICC had forced C. & O. to put its New York Central holdings in a voting trust.

In return for a release of the Central stock, Young told ICC he would gladly place his holdings in the Nickel Plate (which competes with the Central) in a similar voting trust. If all goes well with plans for unifying the Central and the C. & O., said Young, the Nickel Plate stock would be disposed of entirely. Finally, Young asked that he, as C. & O.'s board chairman, and Robert J. Bowman, as C. & O.'s president, be permitted to accept an invitation to join Central's board of directors (TIME, March 31).

To round off a busy week, Bob Young reported that Alleghany Corp., the top investment-holding company for his railroads, had turned a tidy net profit of $1,665,000 in 1946.

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