you've heard of the golden horn of plenty traditional symbol of prosperity and of good things the stone upon mankind well these are the wheels which carries the horn of plenty wheels which take it to the places where the good things a bomb and bring it back full and overflowing we take our american comforts and conveniences pretty much for granted in our homes we are surrounded by twentieth century miracles miracles wh america the comfortable homes we live in the cars parked at the door the bikes and mechanical gadgets of all kinds schools where every child has a right to expect an education satisfying recreation for everybody leisure time in which to enjoy american you are in law of course you've worked for you've made the lamb hum with the song of great inheritance from ambitions and freedom loving for about all these are parts of the american we are parts of the reason for our golden horn of plenty but look further car like this that a man of average means kind of four door if every american had to build his own automobile with materials of his own gathering and with tools of his own contriving it would be very few automobiles where would an individual get the steel to mold into this beautiful looking body where the vast presses to shape it where is the raw rubber to make these tires the tough fabric to weave with it these things are as widely scattered as the four winds or they were until wheels brought them together the magic of our modern horn of plenty is the magic of mobility the magic of the greatest interchange of goods and services which the world has ever know takes the farm machinery which helps to make our soil the most productive on earth this tractor contains quantities of steel which came from the iron ore of them a sabi range in northern minnesota that order came hundreds of miles by rails and by boat to the mills along the fringes of the great lakes it was refined with the use of coal and blind stone and other elements which were brought great distances hundreds of types of raw materials and of semi finished materials and fabricated parts have to be brought together into a single factory before such a complex mechanism as a tractor or a reaper or a threshing machine can be put together each great factory such as this makes use of countless car loads of materials during the course of the year turns out thousands upon thousands of pieces of machinery machinery which is sent to every corner of america and to the four corners of the world for that matter where farmers needed to till the soil efficiently machinery sent at a price which nearly every farmer can afford because it is manufactured by the american mass production methods the method which mass transportation the variety of raw material which we make use of in our modern civilization is seemingly a limit and the great quantities of them which have to be shipped over vast distances are all the undelete consider the billions upon billions of in an average year transported many of them several times before they reach their final destination your dining room table transported to feeding areas to stop yards to processing plant them as me refrigerator cars a year but years cooler and then products of the farmers billions of board feet of lumber a year were brought to the mill as giant a la carte into all shapes and sizes the thousands of factories which make products out of wood that down in your front yard as building material or in your living room as furniture covers products to enrich your life products of the mind many of them kerosene synthetic rubber useful products almost a new of oil which must be transported before it can be of any use to most people things which are brought from distant lands across the sea coffee and tea tim and rubbers spices and still things a never ending succession which we bring in from the four corners of the earth things which we send abroad  exchange for the items we import cotton and grain mineral machinery and fabricated items of every description this great movement pattern which is the foundation of our twentieth century prosperity symbolized by the ingenious machines which man has created especially here in america to keep moving the giants of the race the trucks were coordinated rail trucks or the until they are removed by similar machinery at the port of destination here the cars are again placed on rails and speeded to their final unloading point another example of the american inventive mind and business enterprise working to provide america with the greatest transportation system in the world the backbone of the transportation system is the real the experience of a century during which mass transportation has helped to change the significance of railroads will increase in the years ahead american business is growing by leaps and bounds railroads are almost the only form of mass transportation which can offer an important reserve of already capacity to meet the growing demands of american industry and commerce railroads have been building for the future during the past few years billions of dollars have been spent on america's rail lines the rock island lines have been in the forefront of this building program during the past decade this railroad has rebuilt and modernized plants and structure more thoroughly than most of the nation's major lines this program of planned progress has  rock island occupies a strategic position on the railroad map of the nation its lines are forty of the most productive and diversified states in the u s eight thousand miles of modern steel rails are a fabulous empire this rock island wonderland which stretches westward from chicago st louis and memphis to the mountains of the west and through its friendly connections on the pacific because it reaches from the twin cities of the north star there are still hundreds and hundreds of available industrial size which offer the finest advantages of transportation adequate power supply and skilled labor throughout that empire the rock island now operates one of thousands of tons of free wheeling along a mile a minute modern bridges have been built to handle these tremendous load spectacular and rock island the bridge program is this great structure over the cimarron in western kansas all rock island main lines are genuine speedway curves and great have been reduced to a minimum over the superhighways of the rocket break and rockets passenger train travel with speed with safety with dependability far in excess of anything mass transportation you short years and improvements and more they are of course have been spectacular a modern diesel electric locomotive toppled by the rock modern rock are the most modern devices for traffic control ensure the swift saves and dependable movement of rock island trains on the busiest sections of the line centralized traffic control is an operation this system eliminates countless delays in the dispatching of trains unable in one man to see at a glance and to control the movement of all trains in his control area track to the work of two two tracks the work of four it sure is a continuous maximum flow of traffic in either direction with the us most  matter of minutes so that they may be made up in the trains for various destinations in these yards the car is moving highly by force of gravity their movement is controlled by skilled power men who handled with the utmost respect from the moment the railroad receives it until it reaches its final destination in the handling of package freight or in the loading and unloading of whole cars the emphasis is increasingly on mechanical methods on ways which will save time save costs for the ship or mobility is the most vital ingredient in america's system of mass production american railroads like the planned progress rock island are making it possible for us to expand the horizons of american business and to bring the good things of life to more and more people the golden horn of plenty moves on wheels and grea