The Morgan City daily review. (Morgan City, La.) 1916-1920, 1917-10-02
Committee On National
Defense

UefenSe
Washington, D. C.-Fairfax Har-
rison, Chairman of the Railroads
War Board, authorizes the follow
ing:
Reports just compiled for the
Railroads War Board indicate that
the travelling public in general and
the shippers in particular are giving
the fines. kind Of cooperation to
the railroads in the handling of the
increased traffic that the war has
produced. What this cooperation
means may be CLEANED from these
facts.
Since May lst, the railroads, aided
by the loyalty and understanding Of
the public, have been able to reduce
their passenger service by approx
mately 25,OOO,OOO miles. This has
released thousands Of train crews
and locomotives for use in the
freight service and cleared thousands
of miles Of track thereby facilitating
the moveemnt of coal, food products
and supplies needed by the Govern
ment.
In addition to the foregoing saving
of equipment and trackage, the ship
pers, big and small, have rallied SO
splendidly to the slogan MAKE One
Car Do The Work of Two, that a
saving of close to half million
freight cars has been accomplished.
This saving Of freight cars has en-
ahled the railroads to move approx
imately 25 per cent more freight
since the war was declared than dur
ing the same period last year
Intensive loading and a general
increase in the size Of the trade
units" used by the various industries
has rendered possible the saving Of
car space.
Cotton, for instance, which was
formerly moved in units of fifty
bales, now moves only in units Of IS
and IS. AS there are 100000
bales to be moved by rail each sea-
son, the increase in the trade unit
in this one commodity alone has pro-
duced saving Of anywhere from
$4,000 to 1850 cars.
Sugar, on which the carload min
imum from the South was formerly /
only $4,000 pounds per car now
moves only on 10000 carload mini
mum.
The producers of manufactured |
food products, especially the can
ners, have also come to a realiza-
ton of the value of intensive load
ing virtually Of their cars to ca !:
pacity.
Coal, which has been loaded be-
yond capacity on most lines since the
beginning of the war is also moving
freely now, although labor trouble
in some parts of the country is tend
ing to counteract the efforts of the
railroads to meet the abnormal de-
mand for fuel. During the past
month the supply of cars on the
Take coal lines has been increased
rs per cent and there has been some
increase in the movement of bitumi-
nous coal to the lake ports, but it
has not been proportionate to the
increased supply of cars as labor
rouble has tended to decrease the
nine production.
Although excellent results have
'een achieved to date through the
Of the shippers, the trav-
ling public and the railroads, it will
y necessary for all concerned to
xert renewed efforts as the alb
FORMAL demands upon the railroads
the movement of both troops and
upplies 10 constantly increasing,
nile the securing Of new equipment
} virtually impossible.
From now on, $500 cars a day
III be required by the Government
move food and supplies to the
len in training at the National
rmy, National Guard and other en-
while the demand of the
lies for cars to carry export goods
the seaports will be practically
,ubled.
An Of this additional traffice must
moved by the railroad although
ey have only 8 per cent more :
Iuipment than they had at this time 8
4 year.
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