Road Block?

Napoleon supposedly said that an army marched on its stomach. But in modern war, an army--and a nation at war--rides on its freight cars. In World War II, U.S. railroads hauled 142 million carloads of freight, the biggest cargo lift in history, and barely had enough cars to squeak by.

Will U.S. railroads make the grade again, if World War III comes? President William T. Faricy, of the Association of American Railroads, thinks they can. Testifying before Congress last spring, he said: "There need be little apprehension ... the railroads [can] meet traffic requirements arising from a national emergency." A fortnight ago, after another look at requirements, Faricy called a special meeting of the A.A.R., and got a pledge from the railroads that they would build 10,000 cars a month until the supply is boosted 7%.

Neither Fancy's confident talk nor his building program impressed Interstate Commerce Commission Chairman John Monroe ("Steamboat") Johnson.* Said he last week: "The railroad statements are misleading ... The railroad plant today, compared to the size of the job it has to perform, is not nearly as good as in 1941. I would say that the outlook on the freight-car situation today is gloomier than it ever has been."

With a shortage of cars already pinching some sections of the U.S., Iron Age has predicted that the U.S. faces "a serious car shortage, potentially the worst in history." Chief reason: the supply of freight cars has not kept pace with the nation's growth. Though the gross national product has more than doubled in ten years, the number of freight cars in service has actually dwindled to 1,605,609 from 1,620,655 at the time of Pearl Harbor.

Johnson fears that the roads may have lost their chance to make up this deficit. With U.S. steel mills already booked solid, there seems small chance of getting the 150,000 tons a month which the A.A.R.'s construction program requires. From bitter experience as wartime boss of the Office of Defense Transportation, Johnson knows that if steel allocations are revived, freight-car construction will be low on the priority list. (In fact, car building was banned for most of World War II.) Said Johnson: "You build freight cars before a war, or you don't build them at all."

As freight-car loadings hit 844,849, highest figure in nearly two years, Johnson tried to get better use out of the cars. He threatened shippers with fines if they kept empty freight cars sitting on sidings over Saturday and Sunday.

* So named for his stint as Assistant Secretary of Commerce (1935-40), when he bossed the U.S. inland waterway system.

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