Water Boy

"The dominant theme of Soviet rail transport policy," writes one Russian expert in the jargon so dear to experts, "has been that of maximizing the volume of services provided while devoting the minimum possible amount of resources to them." As freight traffic manager on the

Vladivostok section of the Trans-Siberian railway, Comrade Vorobiev was a man with a mission to fill, and the imagination to overcome obstacles. His job was to move a specified tonnage of freight. But what if there was not enough freight to move? The latest issue of Gudok, the Soviet railway journal, tells how Comrade Vorobiev met his problem.

In 1955 Traffic Manager Vorobiev's line was in grave danger of falling below its monthly norm in tank-car loadings. Desperate for something to transport, and finding no petroleum, alcohol, milk or other useful liquid available, Comrade Vorobiev gazed about him, cast his eye on the glint of liquid in a nearby river, and, quick as a flash, filled 50 of his cars with water, sent them rattling off from Voroshilov. At a siding on the Trans-Siberian line, the water froze solid in the cars and it took a month for workmen to chip it out with pickaxes. But no matter--Vorobiev had made his quota.

Last May an even more desperate crisis loomed. Comrade Vorobiev was short of his quota by 150 tank-car loadings, and only two days were left to fulfill it. Vorobiev ordered out all his reserves. Old pumps were repaired, new waybills filled out. "Within a matter of hours," according to one eyewitness of the heroic affair, "an entire lake was standing on wheels in the freight yard." Vorobiev had done it again. Unfortunately, when the cars were unloaded, the sudden cataract released over the tracks washed away a good part of the roadbed. But who could deny that Comrade Vorobiev, reliable as ever, had met the norm?

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