Over Hummock & Down Ditch

The dreaded "October peak" (TIME, Sept. 29) in railroad traffic passed last week and the railroads came through the test in a breeze. In fact, it wasn't much of a test after all. Highest weekly loadings--922,884 cars--came in the third October week, turned out to be some 25,000 cars less than the railroads themselves had expected. A.A.R.'s slogan ("the railroads are ready") was still untarnished. But the worst may be yet to come.

Chief reason October carloadings were lower than expected was that production itself lagged. Materials shortages and industry's ponderous changeover from peace to war held the Federal Reserve Board production index to around 160. Moreover, some expected peak shipments never came. Coal, thanks in part to advance buying last summer and in part to a warm fall, ran around 165,000 cars a week instead of an expected 200,000. Much grain still waits on farms and at way stations.

As it was, the railroads successfully carried over 900,000 cars a week for seven successive weeks. This required the highest efficiency in operations they have ever achieved for more than the briefest periods. Big shippers were bemused by the unwanted solicitude of rail solicitors who looked for complaints before they were developed. The roads moved each freight car 44.1 miles a day (v. 35.3 miles in August 1940) and their ratio of available cars to cars in use was consistently at or near the record low of 1.64.

Question was how long they could keep up this star performance. Normally the roads expect a breathing spell in November and December (see chart) to prepare for the next peak in January. But defense production knows no seasonal let downs. If the 1941 October peak proved a hummock, the December valley may prove a ditch. Last fortnight actual carloadings were higher than A.A.R.'s estimate for the first time in six weeks. Thus there may be no time for normal repairs.

More serious is the prospect of 1942 traffic, for which the roads need at least 150,000 new cars. Last week carbuilders (for lack of steel) still operated at around 35% of capacity, making no dent on their 90,000-car backlog. In September, the roads got 9,000 fewer new cars than they had figured on.

Other clouds on last week's transport horizon:

> A U.S. mission was reported preparing to visit Iraq to study a rail route for aid-to-Russia. This route, the eastern end of Kaiser Wilhelm's old Berlin-to-Bagdad dream, would require 100 miles of track, 4,500 freight cars, 200 locomotives, push U.S. railroads' equipment orders still farther back in the priorities queue.

> In Congress, a young (32) New York Republican named Edwin Arthur Hall made trouble for the roads with the connivance of the Army. Congressman Hall (who has a brother at Fort Benning) introduced a bill that would help some 800,000 draftees get home for Christmas. If they do, many a would-be civilian traveler might not. To handle this fearsome load, railroadmen insisted on a staggered 16-day schedule, last week huddled over the problem with the War Department.

> Truckers, who have helped the railroads' recent efficiency record by taking less-than-carload worries off their hands, also face serious equipment problems. Last week the American Trucking Associations passed a resolution demanding better priorities for new trucks. Still mostly uncoordinated and decentralized, the trucking industry got its first whiff of wartime regimentation when the War Department began a nationwide inventory of all trucks, whether common carriers or not, in case commandeering becomes necessary. Still unsigned on the President's desk was a months-old order creating a coordinator of all transport for defense.

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