What America did

by Florence Finch Kelly

For the Government to take control of the railroads was an almost revolutionary procedure, so opposed was it to American economic theory, conviction and practice. But the problem was rapidly being reduced to the bare alternatives of governmental railroad control or the losing of the war, or, at least, its long-drawn out continuance. But one solution was possible, and, disregarding all theory and all deeply rooted custom, the President, in accordance with powers already conferred upon him by Congress, took possession and assumed control of the entire railroad system of the United States at the end of December, 1917.

Management of transportation by rail and water was thereupon put into the hands of a Director General of Railroads, who thus found himself at the head of more than 265,000 miles of railway, many times the mileage of any other nation, and of 2,300,000 employees. There were about 180 separate operating companies having operating revenues of $1,000,000 or more per year each and several hundred more with less than that yearly revenue. The Railroad Administration, which decentralized its work by dividing the country into districts, each under a regional director, began its task in the face of weather conditions without parallel in the history of the country, which had already almost paralyzed transportation and were to continue for ten weeks longer.

There was a shortage of freight cars and of locomotives and the railroads, in common with all the country, were menaced with a shortage of coal, due mainly to the immensely increased demand and the breakdown of transportation. So great was the congestion of freight that in the area north of the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and east of Chicago and the Mississippi there were 62,000 carloads waiting to be sent to their destination, while along the lines west and south of that area there were over 85,000 more carloads held back by this congestion. Nearly all of it was destined for the eastern seaboard north of Baltimore.

In addition to the usual transportation business of the country, hundreds of thousands, mounting into the millions, of soldiers had to be carried from their homes to cantonments and from cantonments to ports of debarkation and billions of tons of munitions, food, supplies and materials of many kinds had to be carried from all parts of the country upon lines that converged toward eastern ports, while the immense war building program of the nation—cantonments, camps, munition plants, shipyards and ships, warehouses, structures of many sorts—called for the transportation of vast quantities of material.

By the first of the following May practically all of this congestion had been cleared up and through the rest of the year there was no more transportation stringency, although traffic grew constantly heavier until the end of hostilities. It will illumine the conditions under which the Railroad Administration achieved its results to mention a few of its items of transportation. During the ten months ending with October it handled 740,000 more cars of bituminous coal than had been loaded during the same period of the previous year. From the Pacific Northwest there were brought, from April to November, for the building of airplanes, ships and other governmental activities and for shipment overseas, 150,000 cars of lumber. During the year 630,000 cars of grain were carried to their destination, the increase from July to November over the previous year being 135,000 cars. Livestock movement was especially heavy, showing in all kinds a large increase. Five hundred and sixty thousand carloads of material were moved to encampments, shipyards and other Government projects. From the middle of May to the end of the year the car-record office showed a total movement of 1,026,000 cars, an average of 5,700 daily.

Comparison of the physical performance of the roads during the first ten months of 1918 with that of the similar period in 1917, reduced to fundamentals, showed an increase in the number of ton-miles per mile of road per day, in number of tons per loaded car, in number of tons per freight train mile, in total ton-miles per freight locomotive per day. The constant purpose was to keep each locomotive and car employed to its capacity and to make each produce the maximum of ton-miles with the minimum of train, locomotive and car miles.

Highly important among the achievements of the Railroad Administration was the movement of troops. From the first of the year until November 10th there were transported over the roads 6,496,000 troops, an average of 625,000 per month, the troop movements requiring 193,000 cars of all types, with an average of twelve cars to the train. Outstanding features of the troop movement were that 1,785,000 men were picked up from 4,500 separate points and moved on schedule to their training camps, that 1,900,000 were brought into the crowded port terminals for embarkation without interference with the heavy traffic of other kinds already being handled there and in the adjacent territory, that 4,038,000 were carried an average distance of 855 miles, undoubtedly the largest long distance troop movement ever made. During one period of thirty days over twenty troop trains were brought each day into the port of New York. During the entire period from January to November including these huge troop movements there were but fourteen train accidents involving death or injury to the men.

To all the necessities of the wartime effort of the railroads—the enormously increased quantities of freight that had to be moved expeditiously and the transportation of troops—was added a considerable increase in the ordinary passenger traffic. Notwithstanding the earnest and repeated requests of the Railroad Administration that only necessary journeys should be taken by civilians, a request that was, indeed, very generally heeded, and the increase in passenger rates, the passenger traffic all over the country was much heavier than in any previous year, the increase amounting in the region east of Chicago to twenty-five per cent.

The efficient handling of all this enormous freight and passenger traffic was made possible by the policies that were adopted. The handling of the whole vast network of railroads as one system eliminated competition and the wasteful use of time, effort and equipment. The previous usage of the roads in accepting freight at the convenience of the consignor without regard to the ability of the consignee to receive it had resulted in the appalling congestion of terminals and lines in the autumn of 1917. The Railroad Administration based its policy upon the principle that the consignee must be considered first and that if he could not receive the freight it was worse than useless to fill up switches and yards with loaded cars. In order thus to control traffic at its source a permit system was adopted which prevented the loading of traffic unless there was assurance that it could be disposed of at its destination. This policy proved to be the chief factor in the ability of the transportation system to meet the enormous demands upon it.

Modification of demurrage rules and regulations induced more rapid unloading of cars and their quicker return to active use. Consolidation of terminals, both freight and passenger, greatly facilitated the handling of cars. Locomotives that could be spared were transferred from all parts of the country to the congested eastern region. Coördination of shop work increased the amount of repairs upon equipment that could be done and kept locomotives and cars in better condition while new ones were ordered and work upon them speeded. Rolling stock and motive power were economized by doing away with circuitous routing of freight and sending it instead by routes as short and direct as possible, a policy which saved almost 17,000,000 car miles in the Eastern and Northeastern Region.