Our Railroads To-Morrow. Edward Hungerford
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admitted the Santa Fé into their ancient train-shed and “mole” at Oakland, opposite San Francisco. Their position was not so well taken however. Even in the competitive era the fast ferry-boats of the Santa Fé, coming from its rail terminal at Richmond, had entered the same terminal with the S. P. at San Francisco—the great union ferry-house at the foot of Market Street. And had not the Santa Fé, as the longer route, been compelled as a war measure to sacrifice its two pet trains between San Francisco and Los Angeles and San Diego, the precious Saint and the Angel?
These consolidations—there were many similar ones in the freight terminals as well—went on all the way across the land. Where there were two or more engine-houses in a place fairly close together, and it was humanly possible so to do, they were consolidated. Trackage at terminals was simplified; for instance at Chicago the trains of the Baltimore and Ohio and Pere Marquette systems, which formerly had entered their passenger stations by a rather circuitous route, were now sent in to them over the tracks of the Pennsylvania, and a saving of approximately seven miles and forty minutes of running time made.
Certain captious critics of Mr. McAdoo’s constructive policies have seen in these terminal and other physical consolidations of the several carriers a deep-laid plot to “scramble the railroad eggs,” which means so to weld the properties together that they could not be easily separated again. Despite the fact that the “unscrambling” has indeed been no particularly easy task, I do not see in McAdoo the deep-dyed villain that so many others perceive. I think that he consolidated these terminals and other operating devices in the interest of real war-time efficiency and economy, and for no other reason. That would seem at this time to be an impartial verdict upon his actions.
I am also setting these things down in some detail because they too are essential to a proper understanding of the final results of the nation’s first sweeping experiment in centralized and governmental railroad control. The most of these operating economies were the accomplishments of the Railroad Administration of the sort which some time ago I characterized as obvious. Now consider a few of them that were strange—marvelously strange, you may prefer to put it:
The Railroad Administration sought as one of the first of its economies the consolidation of the various city ticket-offices that competition long ago had set out in the larger cities of the land, as well as the complete abolition of the so-called “off the line” offices—agencies in cities more or less remote from the actual territory of any given railroad. So far, so good. So far was obvious and sensible economy. If an office here and an office there had been retained for the essential travel needs of the roads and their office forces and furniture had been brought together wherever it was necessary, the others being either abandoned or temporarily closed, there would have been no complaint. But the “winning of the war” took the strange effect in most of the large cities of the land that the Railroad Administration hired new office space—in Chicago it took virtually the entire ground-floor of a huge new sky-scraper on a ten-year lease at $65,000 a year—and installed elaborate and expensive new mahogany office equipment. In New York alone four of these great new offices were fitted out, and many of the smaller and cheaper offices, abandoned, stood idle for months, while the rent went merrily forward.
These things were inexcusable. So were many others. Apparently the ordinarily astute first director-general made a great mistake at the outset. He did not realize perhaps that he was attempting to do two things at once—trying to solve an acute war problem as well as a great economic one that had been gathering urgency for nearly a decade before the coming of the World War. That at least is a kind construction to place upon his policy. And if it was indeed his policy it was not so very different from that which was followed those days by many other large activities down at Washington. Apparently we have not yet learned that almost any war problem is separate and distinct from those of our great social economic questions that are forever showing themselves in one form or another. For instance a good many of us confused the problems of the capitalization and labor of the railroads with that of taking them over as an emergency war measure, just as we repeatedly mixed up all sorts of social and economic problems with the making of an emergency war revenue tax.
Such apparently is also a fair construction to place upon Mr. McAdoo’s remarkable activities in setting great forces of designers and draftsmen at work to create new “standardized” locomotives and cars for our temporarily nationalized railroad system. He made a widely circulated statement that he had found “2303 different styles of freight-cars and almost as many different descriptions of locomotives” and that these presently would be reduced by his experts to twelve standard types of freight-cars, and to six standard types of locomotives of two weights each. Unquestionably our railroad freight equipment has stood and still stands greatly in need of much standardization, although the roads themselves long ago established enough of this to permit common operation of their cars. But I doubt if such a standardization program had any real part in an emergency war plan. I never have been able to reason that out to my own satisfaction.
Nevertheless McAdoo was satisfied with his own idea and in 1918 alone ordered 1430 of his standard locomotives and about 100,000 of the freight-cars, at prices enormously above those of peace days. The engines and the cars eventually were delivered. That they were good engines and good cars I do not doubt. But they have never enjoyed any marked popularity with the railroad operating people. They are a conservative lot, these old hard-shell railroad executives who still hang on to a remarkable degree all the way across the land. You cannot lead them easily to new ways of thought.
All these fine frills, introduced in the midst of one of the most acute national crises ever visited upon this country, cost the Railroad Administration much time and much money—much useless time and much money that might have been used to better advantage in other directions. Digress for a moment with me and compare the great and bulky operations of the Railroad Administration with those of its prototype across the Atlantic, the war-created Railway Executive Committee of England.
The war wreaked no ravages elsewhere in England more striking than those that were wreaked upon her railways. She was quick to realize the supreme importance of her rail carriers to her in her crisis. And so she reached out within a fortnight after the outrage of Louvain and, with the authority that had been given her long years before by Parliament, took over the rail lines and began operating them for the national weal. There was no policy of vacillation on her part. It was a situation that she had anticipated and solved several years before the coming of the war.
Even before 1912 there was in existence an English body known as the War Council of the Engineer and Railway Staff Corps. This council consisted of the general managers (in England the post of general manager compares with that of the president of an American railroad) of the railways that in the event of war with a Continental power would have the most to do with military traffic. The council made elaborate and definite war plans. The possible invasion of the east coast was anticipated and detailed plans—even to the working out of actual train and engine schedules—were made for the evacuation if necessary of the population of east coast towns and cities and the movement of troops and heavy guns up to them. This council by 1912 had developed into the Railway Executive Committee, which was composed of the general managers of the twelve most important railway systems of Great Britain. It in turn formed an integral part of a Board of Communications, which included representatives of the War Office, the Admiralty, the Board of Trade, and the Home Office. Among these representatives was Sir Eric Geddes, then first lord of the Admiralty, a young Englishman of great promise and energy and to-day the British minister of transport.
The Railway Executive Committee went to its job quickly and without ostentation. While it sought to unify the operation of John Bull’s railways so that he might help win the war most efficiently and most promptly, it had no false or grandiloquent ideas of creating a single national rail system overnight. It did not seek to tear down in a day what had taken the patient labor of years to upbuild. It sought not to standardize either baggage-cars or locomotives or dining-car meals. It even escaped having a director-general. Its printed forms were few and modest. It had no press-agent, no propaganda. Few people outside of railway and army circles even knew of its existence. At the height of its endeavors it employed in its joint efforts a total force of not more than eighteen officers and clerks, who occupied two floors of a very small office-building directly across the way