Rate Rivalry

Huge advertisements in all major Eastern railroad stations this week lured the public with announcements of drastic cuts in fares. None of the posters made mention of the fact that 23 major Eastern railroads were last week settling down to a grim court fight against the Interstate Commerce Commission's order which made the new fares necessary. All 23 meticulously obeyed the order but declared they would reinstate the old fares if the courts would permit. Of all Eastern roads, only the Baltimore & Ohio complied voluntarily, announced the cuts were permanent.

Simultaneously, the railroads' greatest competitor voluntarily reduced its rates to new lows. Through the National Association of Motor Bus Operators, all the major Eastern bus lines announced they would at once cut their fares below the railroad's basic 2-c- a mile. Old bus fares were about 2-c- a mile. The new schedule ranges from 1.25-c- to 1.75-c-. In addition, the busses will retain their present 10% reduction for round-trip tickets--a privilege the railroads are abandoning. Under the new fares, a salesman scurrying about the nation by bus will pay $3 instead of $3.50 to ride from Boston to New York, $12.95 instead of $14 to continue on to Chicago, $4.75 instead of $6 to go from there to Louisville. These fares are all substantially below the railroads'.

Collaborating in the new bus rate schedules are the Short, Blue Ridge, Great Eastern, Safeway Trailways and Greyhound Lines. Their spokesman last week was serious, 44-year-old President Arthur M. Hill of Atlantic Greyhound, president also of the National Association of Motor Bus Operators. In the bus business since the War, he is known as the most traveled man in the industry, spends two out of every three days on the road. Said he last week: "The bus companies south of the Ohio and west of the Mississippi have had to meet this same sort of contingency before. The Western and Southern railroads reduced their fares before the Eastern railroads did. The bus companies met their reductions and met them successfully. There is no reason to believe that the bus operators of the East now to be affected will be any less successful."

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