The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-11-27
MOTOR TRUCKS AND
WATERWAYS TO LESSEN
- RAILROAD CONGESTION
Chicago Examiner

| The National Council Of Defense
has decided to supplant freight trains
with motor trucks for hauls less than
200 miles throughout the United
| States during the period of the war.
The council has appointed commit
tees to cooperate with the railroads,
steamship lines and inland waterways
to this end, and other committees to
coordinate the work of motor truck
manufacturers and the various state
road commissions.
The Examiner pointed out recent
ly that freight congestion, owing TO
war conditions. had reached a point
where the government had no option
but to mobilize every other possible
means of freight movement
For this reason the federal goy-
eminent, at the suggestion of the Ma
tiona1 Council Of Defense, asked the
various state governments to use all
possible dispatch in pushing internal
waterway improvements.
The utilization of self-propelled
trucks as freight carriers for compar-
atively short distances is merely a
later development of the same policy.
But, as the msrest iayman can re-
cognize. this latter is the birth Of a
new idea in transportation.
IL means that III Tie 0lCIHGuCS OIL
speed, mobility and continuity the
manent competitor of rail transporta-
ton for limited distances.
I The corollary of this ned idea is
hard roads.
1t means a complete revolution in.
( the policy of road building in the Uni
ted States.
1t means that hereafter the devel-
opment of hard roads for military
purposes in war time, and for COM
mercial and pleasure uses in peace
times will become a national, state
and local policy that will not stop
at any number of millions of dollars
in cost.
The star of the motor truck is only
peeping above the economic horizon.
The immediate mobilization of mo-
tor trucks, for the war period, neces-
sarily will be limited to those local.
tiles where the roads are perfect
enough to make 1t possible.
But the essential difference be-
tween the hauling of large volumes
by motor trucks is that in the first
instance the rights of way represent
private railway investments, while in
the latter the rights of way will be
public property.
This may seem a small matter, but
it means a tremendous difference in
the cost of transportation.
The railroads are not merely at the
limit of their carrying capacity. but
they cannot. increase that capacity
without enormous financial OUTLAWS
that must earn dividends for stock
holders.
The use Of trucks as freight car
riers on public roads means that the
rights of way are provided by the
people and that the investments ne
cessary for carrying equipment are
confined to the vehicles that do the
hauling.
The same principle applies to in
land waterways.
The people who furnish the rights
way, and the cost of transportation
-cessarily is much less than the cost
, transportation on railroads, that
ave to buy private rights of way.
The factor of speed in inland water
way transportation is of comparative
" small moment, as this method of
transportation is mostly confined to
,rge bulk freights and raw materials,
lch as coal, iron ore, building ma
srial and grain.
Speed is a large factor in war time
ike the present, but 1t IS the lesser
4ctor. The capacity to move freight,
nd to keep it moving continuously,
comparatively small cost, is the
larger factor.
War is bringing about a revolution
N transportation ideas.
1t already has proved beyond .cavil
that the people of the United States
have been leaning on a broken reed
when they allowed their railroads not
only to monopolize transportation, but
to discourage the development of in
and waterways as competitors.
In the present stress of war condi-
tons this antagonism to composition
has been modified through necessity
Indeed, the committees on water !
ray development formed by the NJ
ional Council of Defense compris