Rails & Roads

Last year U. S. railroads ripped up enough track to build a new line from Boston to Chicago (1,050 mi.). The track they abandoned but left on the ties would have carried their line another 826 mi. to the Colorado border. The 1,876 mi. of trackage that went out of commission in 1933 set an all-time record. Until 1917 the annual total of railroad abandoned was so small that no one bothered to keep records. Longest section abandoned last year was 72 mi. of the Southern Pacific between Cochise and Commonwealth, Ariz. Both passenger and freight traffic had nearly vanished with no hint of revival. Second largest was an entire railroad--the 56-mi. San Joaquin & Eastern running from El Prado to Cascade, Calif. Built to supply a utility construction project, it had outlived its usefulness and the area was well served by big buses and good roads. The Norfolk & Western sloughed off 54 mi. of trackage between Lenore, W. Va. and Wayne. Operating in a mountainous region and serving only a few farmers who sold their produce in local markets, the line was threatened by a new highway.

But U. S. railroads also continued to build. Their new line construction in 1933 totaled 24.24 mi., smallest since the first steam road was built 102 years ago. Of this total 11 mi. were built by the Virginian as the last section of a connection with Chesapeake & Ohio and Norfolk 6 Western at Gilbert, W. Va. Another 7 mi. was built between Olmos and Quwmado Valley, Texas by Southern Pacific. Not included in last year's total was the 12 1/2-mi. spur which Andrew William Mellon's little Montour finally completed in the face of injunctions plastered on almost every mile post (TIME, Oct. 23). A Federal Court ruled that the Montour spur was no common carrier but a private Mellon carrier, used only by Pittsburgh Coal Co.

The purple era of rail construction was paling before the War, but it did not end until 1931 when Arthur Curtiss James drove the golden spike near Bieber, Calif, in a 200-mi. link between his Western Pacific in California and Great Northern in Oregon (TIME, Nov. 16, 1931). Only new mileage now projected is a 28-mi. Great Northern spur to the site of the proposed Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, a 14-mi. line planned by U. S. Army engineers between Wiota and the Fort Peck dam in Montana.

Dotsero to Orestod. Carried over from last year, however, is the construction of one new line which will make the 1934 total more than half again as big as that of 1933. This is the 38-mi. Dotsero Cutoff, now 85% completed. Built largely with RFC funds, it will run from Dotsero, Col. on the Denver & Rio Grande Western to Orestod (Dotsero backward) on the Denver & Salt Lake. The Dotsero Cutoff will finally put to more than nominal use the famed Moffat Tunnel just west of Denver. Commonly known as "Moffat's Folly" or "The Gateway to Nowhere," this tunnel was the life-long dream of the late David Halliday Moffat, oldtime Denver banker who sank his $10,000,000 fortune in an attempt to put his home town on a transcontinental system and died twelve years before the tunnel was begun. Bored more than 6 mi. through the heart of the Continental Divide, it was finally financed and finished by the proud citizens of Denver and surrounding counties, who leased it to Banker Moffat's Denver & Salt Lake.

But still Denver was not on a transcon- tinental system because the Denver & Salt Lake did not run to Salt Lake City or anywhere near it. Banker Moffat had spent all his money throwing the road over Rollins Pass, 11,600 ft. above sea level. Even when he got his tracks over the top, snow drifts would often force Denver & Salt Lake to shut down for weeks at a time. Now owned by Denver & Rio Grande, the road pierces the Continental Divide through the Moffat Tunnel at an elevation of only 9,000 ft., coasts gently down the western slope of the Rockies to its western terminus at Craig, Col. (pop. 1,297).

Everybody agreed that since it was financially impossible to construct the line from Craig straight through to Salt Lake (346 mi.), the next best thing was to build a short line which would connect with the parent Denver & Rio Grande, which does run to Salt Lake. It would save Denver & Rio Grande 173 mi. between the two cities. But neither parent nor child was rich and government aid was not obtained until 1932.

Last week Denver got what it has wanted for 75 years when Chicago, Bur- lington & Quincy announced that after June11, it would extend the schedule of its crack Chicago-Denver Aristocrat through the Moffat Tunnel over the Dotsero Cut-off to Salt Lake City and over the Western Pacific to San Francisco.

"Emery & Paint" In 1932 the U. S. Railroad System operated at a net deficit of $139,000,000. Last year it cut this loss down to about $40,000,000. But the return on its invested capital was only 1.8%. Yet during Depression two eastern trunk lines have spent or will shortly spend a sum sufficient to build and equip a system as big as Atlantic Coast Line R.R. New York Central's improvements on Man- hattan's West Side call for a total outlay of $175,000,000. Pennsylvania's great electrification and terminal program is costing $182,000,000.

Pennsylvania has completed electrification of its four track line from New York through Philadelphia to Wilmington (118 mi.). From Public Works Administration it borrowed $77,000,000 to carry the job on to Washington (another 108 mi.) and to embark on the greatest equipment-buying spree in the history of railroading. General William Wallace Atterbury, Pennsylvania's up-from-Yale-and-the-tracks president, last week estimated that the whole project would provide two years' work for at least 25,000 men. "The Standard Railroad of the World" will build 7,000 steel box cars at a cost of $17,000,000 in its own shops, will buy 101 electric locomotives for some $15,000,000. In his exuberance over this vast enterprise President Atterbury last week handed dazzled newshawks two new business "indices." "The thing to watch for is paint," said the General. "If you see a box car going along with a bright new red coat of paint on it you will know that the railroad that owns it is doing a profitable business again. . . . Everybody stops painting when profits stop. . . . Watch emery wheels. Watch the carborundum business. When industry begins to use its tools, it needs emery wheels to keep them in shape, and a lot of them." Asked how the emery wheel business was now, the General admitted: "Not so good."

Equipment. Car and locomotive builders find it difficult to shed tears over the plight of the railroads or any other industry since, of all the makers of capital goods, they have suffered the most in Depression. In 1929 there were 1,200 locomotives ordered. In 1932 U. S. locomotive builders received orders for three-- two for domestic industrial use and one for a Brazilian cement company which was built by American Locomotive Co. in its Canadian shops. Last year they got orders for 17--twelve for domestic railroads, four for industrial use, one for the Philippine Railway. In 1929 the railroads ordered 111,000 freight cars. In 1932 the car builders got orders for about 350, last year 942. And in those two years the railroads built only 2,300 in their own shops. In 1929 the railroads ordered 2.303 passenger cars, last year six. But since the first of 1934, New York, Chicago & St. Louis has ordered as many steam locomotives (20) as all railroads ordered in the last two years. Last week Chesapeake & Ohio fired at the car-builders in one $17,000,000 salvo orders for 7,808 freight cars--more than four times as many as were ordered all last year. Erie boomed in with orders for 3,725, Nickel Plate for 1,200. Passenger car orders so far this year amount to 25 times last year's total.

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