JAMES MILLER SYMES

Champion of the Rails

THE most dynamic spokesman and "lobbyist" for Washington the nation's troubled railroads is James Miller Symes, 61, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the nation's largest (1958 revenue $844,200,000). Husky (5 ft. 8 in., 180 lbs.), highballing Jim Symes was the driving force behind the Smathers act, which gave the railroads some Government help and a measure of relief from overregulation. But he thinks the railroads can do much more to help themselves -- by merging. Last week Jim Symes proclaimed that he still has an urge to merge, deplored the New York Central's scrapping of a plan to join with the Pennsy, which would have saved the roads "$100 million a year." Said Symes: "I would be interested in any proposition on mergers." Symes thinks that the Smathers act is just a start in the railroads' battle for relief from overregulation and "discriminatory" taxes. He has asked for the creation of a Secretary of Transportation, suggested Government purchase of new rolling stock that would be rented to the roads. He believes that the long-haul rail passenger is a vanishing breed (Pennsy's 1958 passenger deficit: $44 million) and that the only way to save commuter service is to have communities pay the losses. The Pennsy and Philadelphia are now trying such an experiment. Many western railroadmen disagree with Symes's plan for subsidy and equipment purchase, but admit that the eastern roads have so much more trouble than others that they may need such help. Says Symes : "We have every problem there is. You name it, we got it."

FROM his Philadelphia office, Symes shoots down to Washington several times a month in his private railroad car (with cook, steward, three bedrooms, dining room, observation lounge). Nattily dressed and usually puffing a Camel (his male secretary always carries extra packs), Symes tickles legislators with his hearty humor and ready store of anecdotes, sways them with his sharp intelligence, collars Congressmen for private talks, is always ready to testify before a congressional committee.

He is not afraid to tangle with politicians. When Pennsylvania's Governor George Leader told Michigan's Governor Mennen ("Soapy") Williams that he would swap him the Pennsy for Michigan's General Motors, Symes wrote a cheerfully insulting letter to Leader, saying he would gladly give Leader to Michigan "and ask nothing in return." Then he invited Leader to lunch. Before it was over, Symes got a promise from Leader to build a $1,500,000 state road to lure into Pennsylvania a new Hammermill Paper Co. plant, which will eventually create 3,000 new jobs and more business for the Pennsy.

SYMES was born only 250 yds. from the Pennsy's main line at Glen Osborne, Pa., the son of a railroader. After high school, he joined the Pennsy as a clerk in Pittsburgh, chiefly because his baseball skill was needed on the Pennsy's semipro team. He had a mild ambition to play professional baseball, but gave it up for railroading. Except for a brief Stateside period as a World War I Army draftee (he married the girl who replaced him as a secretary at the Pennsy) and a four-year hitch as vice president of the Association of American Railroads, he leaped steadily-upward at the Pennsy as a protege of M.W.Clement, who later became the road's president. Symes was never one to fumble for an answer or duck a tough problem. He often flatly overruled the orders of top executives, one of whom later named Symes his assistant, saying: "You were right and I was wrong. If you hadn't done what you did, I wouldn't have you here."

When Symes became president in 1954, he speeded up the huge task of modernizing the antiquated Pennsy. The road has 23,500 miles of track, 79,000 employees, 162,800 pieces of rolling stock, sprawls west to St. Louis, north to Mackinaw City, Mich., south to Cape Charles, Del. Symes streamlined management, spent $182 million on capital improvements. Although deferred maintenance costs will cut 1959 earnings, Pennsy's 1958 earnings were big enough in the fourth quarter to put it $3,544,073 in the black for the year. Symes has cooperated in civic projects and such developments as Penn Center, a 14-acre center that contains the Pennsy's modern new headquarters.

Symes is well aware that his job is far from done, that the Pennsy is still big and unwieldy. Many railroadmen believe that a merger with the Central would create a behemoth that could hardly be run efficiently--one reason the Central may have backed away. That does not faze Jim Symes; he is sure that fewer Government regulations and more rail mergers could turn today's invalid into tomorrow's healthy giant.

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