The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-12-17
COLD WEATHER IS GIVEN AS REASON FOR DELAYED TRAINS Railroad Men Advance Rea- sons for the Irregularity
 of Schedules-Trains
 Overdue TROOP AND MUNITION TRAINS STOP TRAFFIC Hotel Man Suggests That the Rail- roads Give Correct Information
 as to Late Trains for Bene-
 fit of the Public

The irregularity with which the
 trains on the several roads entering
 Birmingham are being conducted has
 beer the source of much annoyance and inconvenience to the public Many
 theories have been advanced as to
 the cause and many suggestions have been made providing remedy, but the fact remains that at present near
 ly all trains are running from one to fifteen hours later than the scheduled time.
 T attribute the majority of the
 cases to the extremely cold weather
 being experienced north and east of
 here, said E. T. Stovall of the Hi
 nois Central. "The man who travels
 will certify to the statement that 1t
 is mostly the southbound trains which
 are running upon such irregular sched-
 ules and that practically all of the
 northbound trains are arriving With
 no more delay than could be expected
 with the extraordinarily cold spell
 which has taken that section of the
 country unaware Yesterday the
 weather, even as far south as Ten
 nessee, was very cold In one polnt
 in this state the temperature reached
 5 degrees below zero. Some have ad-
 vanced the theory that troop trains
 and munition trains are delaying the
 traffic over the roads, but this work would hardly have noticeable effect in this section of the country
 HEAVY EXPRESS WORK J. II. Settle, district passenger agent of the Louisville and Nashville, in statement last night said: "The great est delays we have had on our lines is caused by the heavy mail and eX- press work which is being thrust upon us. The roads are under a contract with the government to do this work and it must be done Delays in the terminals in transferring the mail and express matter will soon amount to matter of hours. This is one of the
 heaviest seasons of this work that have ever known"
 .The second cause to Which attribute the delays in the trains is the unusually cold weather which grips the country to the north and east of us There is delay naturally caused in making up the trains and in the yard work. This all has tendency to retard the opera ton of the trains on scheduled ume, To partly overcome this delay, we are now running our trains in two sections, and hope to relieve part of the conges- tion in this manner. It is the sincere wish of the railroads to have the CO., operation of the public at this time, as they have never had it before. The rail- roads are going to prove to be great factor in Uncle Sams work, and it is only by CO., operation that the most efffi- cient work will result"
 TRUE REPORT NOT GIVEN The reports from all the roads were practically the same, attributlng the de- lays to a large extent, to the exceedingly cold weather north of here and to the great demands which are being made upon them at the present time.
 There has been much complaint heard about the lobby on the subject of the Iateness of the trains" said MT. DeJar- nette. the affable assistant manager or the Tutwiler. "The consensus of opin- | ion of the travelling men seems to be that the cold weather. combined with the preference that must be given to the troop trains and intuition trains, Is causing to no little extent tke varying schedule upon which the trains are now being run. Several opinions have been voiced within my hearing that. seem to lay most of the blame upon the troop trains. saying that instances have been noted where passenger trains have been sidetracked for as much as an hour to allow the passing of a train loaded with soldiers or munitions, and that much time Is lost in terminals while waiting fov trains which have been delayed for the same reason until finally the train which waits on several of them Is de- layed an unreasonably long period of time"
 "The worst feature of the whole thing seems to me to be the habit of only reporting an hour or so at a time when train is several hours late. know of one instance where 60 men were kept up waiting for their train all night | while this style of marking was being practiced. A great deal of the inconve- niences of late trains could be avoided | if true report of the total lateness was given in the first place."