R.R.

From the Interstate Commerce Commission last week came a 121-page prescription for restoring the health of the nation's railroads. Rejecting a prognosis by ICC Hearing Examiner Howard Hosmer that if the present rate of passenger-traffic decline continues, Pullman service will end by 1965 and coach service (except for commuters) by 1970, ICC hopefully insisted that railroad passenger service "is, and for the foreseeable future will be, an integral part of our national transportation system and essential for the nation's well-being and defense." But it conceded that if the railroads are to continue in the passenger business, some changes must be made. Among specific reforms proposed:

P: Repeal the 10% federal tax on fares. P: Reduce railroad property taxes, give outright community subsidies for money-losing schedules deemed essential. P: Experimenting, on the part of the railroads, with new, passenger-appealing types of coaches, sleeping cars, diners and other facilities, coupled with "imaginative" pricing to build volume.

The ICC ducked perhaps the hottest issue involved in the railroads' financial difficulties: union featherbedding. After reporting that conductors, brakemen, engineers, firemen, et al. in 1958 worked on the average only 57% of the hours for which they were paid, against 64% in 1947, the commission lamely concluded that "railroad work-rules and certain full-crew laws may unjustifiably involve uneconomic use of labor," said that a further "comprehensive review of labor-management relations is required."

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