The evening herald. (Klamath Falls, Or.) 1906-1942, 1919-09-18
CAR SHORTAGE
DUE TO CROPS
District Railroad Administration Di-
rector Says Heavy Crop ship
ments Cause Serious Shortage of
Rolling Stock

SAN FRANCISCO. Sept. 1S-lm
provement in the car supply will
the prospect that for the balanc,
of the season the situation will b(
easier, is seen in statement isSueC
to-day by District Director William
Sproule of the U. S. Railroad Ad
ministration.
Pointing out that the situation
was not so much Il case of car short.
age as of crop surplus, Sproule gave
some interesting figures on the pro.
duction and movement of perish
ables.
For tie past three months of this
year shipments from California
are almost fifty percent greater than
last year. and during the first twelve
days of the current month. the Pac-
, ific Fruit Express alone furnished
II percent more cars for fruit and
vegetables in California than during
the same days in 1917, and &C per-
cent more than in 1916.
About shortage OF refrigerator
cars to move fresh fruits and vege-
tables from California much has
been said, declared Sproule, upon
the assumption that the railroad
administration has failed somehow
to provide in advance the cars to
boplla tha huciposs
The Pacific Fruit Express has
$4,000 refrigerator cars for this
business, and the Santa Fe Refri-
gerator Despatch, about 10000.
Through the efforts of the Railroad
Administration, about 5000 other
refrigerators were sent to California
for this service and kept in it until
the demands from other states had
to be met. The Administration mas
been and is alive to the public needs.
THE fruit and vegetable crops
throughout the United States haze
been very large and shipments very
heavy. Every car that could be had
anywhere has been pressed into this
national service. Not only is the
fruit run in special trains; special
service is also given the refrigera-
tors returning, in preference to
every kind of freight except live
stock. 1t has been suggested that
meat cars, and beer cars, also, could
be loaded with fruit, but this cannot
be done. Meat cars have fixed meat
racks, hooks and brine tanks; beer
cars have no tanks Of any kind.
Shippers would not load fruit in
such cars.
Let us remember that although
is the great fruit and
vegetable growing state, it is only |
one of the many states growing such |
perishables for quantity for market |
The productions of fruit supplies |
was greatly stimulated during the
war, but during the war refrigera-
tor cars could not be built. This
Emulation is still felt and it nat
urally creates acute demand for
each refrigerator car in this year
when the crops requiring such cars
are heavy everywhere from Califor-
mia to Georgia, and from Florida to
the Pacific Northwest. 1t is crop
surplus rather than a car shortage.
For the past three months of this
year, shipments from California are
not far from fifty percent above
what they were during the same
period last year.
"At present there is added the
,all for refrigerators that grapes
may be shipped to other markets
which in previous years were used
ocally to make wine, and of these
,arlots there are thousands. This
Kind of movement we may never
nave again, yet it may well be that
because of it the states will dis
,over grapes that they like for
able use, and thus new markets
nay be created to the benefit of |
his state. 1t is a demand for j
which even in normal times cars
'ould not be built, if only for the
eason that the contingency of
Prohibition could not be forejudged.
THE car situation is summed up
n this: First, all the cars that could
'e had have been at the service of
he shippers; Second, the car supply
S improving, and for the rest of the
eason is likely to be easier than
Turing the past couple of weeks.
All that is possible will be done to
accomplish this