TIME CLOCK

U.S. RAILROADS will have one of their best years since World War II. First-half earnings for 126 Class I roads are up nearly 80%, totaling $416 million v. $232 million for the same period in 1954. Prime example: the Union Pacific Railroad, whose first-half net of $35.5 million is the highest in history, some 16% higher than the previous record in 1953.

ROBERT R. YOUNG has agreed to a settlement of his legal battle with ten Alleghany Corp. stockholders, who charge that he used $700,000 of Alleghany funds to pay for his successful New York Central proxy fight last year (TIME, June 21, 1954).

In an out-of-court settlement, Young agreed to pay Alleghany the $700,000, will also guarantee it against loss in Young's deal with Oilmen Clint Murchison and Sid Richardson to buy 600,000 shares of New York Central stock with Alleghany funds.

CANNED COKES are getting a try-out from Coca-Cola. After holding out steadily against the canned soft-drink boom (TIME, April 26, 1954), Coca-Cola is turning out 100,000 cartons (24 cans per carton) of Cokes for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service in the Far East, seems likely to try the idea on civilian markets if the test works well.

VOLKSWAGEN'S MILLIONTH, rhinestone-studded and gold-painted for the occasion, rolled off the assembly line last week. Supplying more than 40% of the German market already, the biggest German automaker will boost production another 20%, to 1,500 cars daily, to meet a growing demand both at home and abroad. Target for 1955 in the U.S.: 25,000 Volkswagens v. 9,000 in 1954.

RUSSIAN AUTO INDUSTRY will be shaken up in an effort to equal Western standards. After years of putt-putting along with four out-of-date models--the Moskvich (like a 1939 German Opel), the Pobeda (like a 1939 Ford), the Zim (like a 1946 Buick) and the Zis (like a 1941 Packard)--the Reds admit that their postwar designs "are in some respects inferior." A special Auto Ministry will be set up to boost production (1955 planned output: a bare 80,000 cars), cut prices, bring out a new people's car called the Volga, facelift the others.

FRENCH SHIPYARDS are cashing in on lower labor costs to carve away a big slice of the international shipbuilding market. Foreign orders for 1955's first half alone have hit 250,000 tons, some 114,000 tons more than all of 1954. Among the 13 nations that have ordered tankers and freighters from France: the U.S. (four tankers for Tide Water Associated Oil Co.), Britain, Holland and Norway, all traditional maritime powers that normally build their own ships.

SURPLUS SALES ABROAD will be speeded up under a new farm program being pushed by the Department of Agriculture. Although farm exports in 1954 totaled $3 billion (7% higher than in 1953), Secretary Ezra Taft Benson is studying the possibility of selling excess farm commodities to Russia and her satellites. Another idea: to sell a big chunk of the 185 million Ibs. of butter surplus (down from 460 million Ibs. last year) to foreign nations for industrial use in bakeries and candy factories.

KOHLER STRIKE, now dragging into its 16th month (TIME, April 18), still seemed at hopeless deadlock. After a week-long session, negotiations between the second biggest U.S. plumbing fixtures company and 2,800 C.I.O. United Automobile Workers at the company's Kohler, Wise, plant have broken off completely on the issue of rehiring all strikers. Although the U.A.W. has spent $5,500,000 on the strike thus far, it refuses to give an inch, is talking about invoking a "systematic national boycott" against Kohler, even though a suit has already been filed with the NLRB against twelve sympathetic unions for secondary boycotts against the company.

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