The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-01-18
- rnANK wILLIs BARNETT

Sunday I walked from Mountain Ter race through the Avondale district and counted about 50 carloads of coal on side tracks.
 Yesterday I set out to try and get at the bottom of the trouble and write story that would show the callousness of corporations and the inefficiency or those who were intrusted with seeing to it that the householders got their fair share. I felt that I had big human interest story and that l would be anie to uncover a situation that would pring relief to the people.
 set out to get the facts, and l put in whole day In seeing the operating heads of the railroads entering Birming- ham. and in talking with some of the heads of the great industrial concerns and with perplexed and harrassed man ufacturers and users or coal in commer- cial enterprises.
 DIRECT TO RESPONSIBLE HEADS
 I had made up my mind to go direct to the responsible heads of the roads and ask them for the information, and see if they were willing to cooperate. WI and records were shown and nothing left to guess work. and where the inior- nation was not up to date yard mas ters. purchasing agents, and other rep- resentatives were ordered 10 report over the telephone or send in statements. ln | no instance was there the slightest dis I position shown to hide the true facts l In the office of one general agent I ran across the superintendent witf I headquarters out of the state and asked. what are you doing here?" He l laughingly answered T have come te | Birmingham to beg. borrow, or stea | coal to keep my trains moving" was | surprised to find the operating heads | of the various roads just as anxious 1 about getting coal as any distressed heae l of a family, who was afraid he woule have to quit using his furnace and fec l to a hotel. I could give a lot of sta l tistics, but believe it or not there ism l a railroad in the Birmingham distric l which has more than two days supply l of coal on hand. One has only 24 hours l and yet another has only F hours stocl | ahead.
 A TYPICAL CASE
 | Now I got the actual number of car
 on hand for all purposes from all l the roads, but will simply take the cas- of one of the biggest lines as typica | of the others. In the yard of the com pany are:
 For Birmingham consumers, 2i cars 1 fo- furnace companies, 36 cars to b distributed at nine or 10 consumini points on the road. fl cars; going t I connecting lines for distribution thruogh 1 out the state, 69 cars; to be forwarded consigned to private parties, public util ities and for use of steamship lines car l rving United States mail, l62 cars. Nov
 these 329 cars were received within 7 hours and will be distributed within tn
 next 24 hours.
 Coming in over the Twenty -secon
 street bridge and looking up and dowl
 the tracks it is easy any day to SC
 carload after carload of coal on tn
 tracks, This is also true of many yard that can be easily seen from the car
 coming in from the suburbs.
 A big coal operator jumped on su | perintendent of one of the railroads
 saying "t is a shame you people kee 50 or more carloads of coal in you l yards You needn't deny it, for l ca
 see them every day frcm my room i
 the American Trust building" Now h
 ought to have known better. It is tru | that each day he saw the cars of cos
 but they were not the same cars w
 used the tracks to place the cars tha i, we had to supply our needs from sai the railroad man.
 CARS IN A. E. & A. YARDS l MT. Whitaker of the Atlanta, Birmins ham and Atlantic said the gentlema
 who wrote the card about seeing cars on their tracks in West End, WE
 mistaken in saying that they had bee ! there since Thanksgiving Day. but tn; l , 1t was easy for him 10 have done s (Continued on Page EighD