Blood & Cinders

Robert R. Young, who knows a lot about railroads and publicity, fired another broadside last week in his campaign to "wake up the railroads." This time, his full-page ads talked about the freight-car shortage which leaves wheat piled on the ground in the Midwest. Young thought the shortage could be lessened if the roads made better use of the cars they have.

Cried he: "Thousands of cars could be freed by a single decision--if old-line railroad managements would act. . . . There is good reason to believe that by lifting deliberate freight slowdowns on the roads that still practice them, we could provide more cars this summer and fall than our shops can possibly build. . . . Write to your newspaper and your congressman."

Young drew.blood. Like every railroadman, Young had heard of the reported "gentleman's agreement" by which western railroads since 1934 have slowed their fastest freight lines to the speed of their slowest competitors. The railroads justify it by saying that to speed them up would congest freight yards, disrupt passenger service and create locomotive shortages (by increasing the number of short, fast trains). But the U.S. Government, in an antitrust suit, charged that the slowdown was primarily to prevent rate cuts by slower lines trying to compete with faster ones.

Young's critics thought they could see a large cinder in his own bloodthirsty eye. They said Young's Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co., a major hauler of coal, operates some of the longest, slowest freight trains in the country. Said William T. Faricy, president of the Association of American Railroads: "The C. & O.'s record for average freight train speed is nearly one-tenth below the [national] average." The cynical also thought they could discern a bid for public sympathy in Bob Young's imminent proxy battle for control of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Co.

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