Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-06
RAILROAD MERGER
POLICY EXPECTED
|. C. C.May Determine Basis
for Various Combines
Sought by Carriers.
Special pispatch to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star
NEW YORK, September 6.-Out of
the muddle in which the Eastern rail-
roads have become involved through
jealousies, competitive buying of smaller
lines and the inaction of Washington
authorities, there may come within a
few weeks some relief in the way OF a
constructive proposal for consultations
sponsored by the Interstate Commerce
Commission.
Before the commission adjourned to
take its Summer recess, drafts Of the
outline OF the major mergers are under
stood TO have been handed to members
OF this body by Commissioner Porter,
who has been studying the situation
since last Winter. It is hoped the
on the general features Of the plan
and make 1t public this Fall.
Various Applications.
Obviously the rearrangement of the
railroads Of the country into groups by
the Interstate Commerce Commission
would be tantamount to an answer by
this body to the various applications
that are now before 1t for the right to
secure or hold the control OF railroads
such as the Western Maryland, Wheel
Pittsburgh; Wabash. Lehigh Valley; De-
troit, Toledo g. Ironton and Buffalo g.
Susquehanna, all of which are more or
less pawns in the game of railroad
strategy that has been played for sew
eral years without any great advantage
so far to any one carrier.
The form of the consolidation set
up to be announced by the Interstate
Commerce Commission would also sug-
81 n0tl,a he to-
believes in, or is opposed to, the appli-
cation of the Great Northern, Northern
Pacifis and Burlington for the right to
bring these three lines into one great
system. If the commission has found
1t advisable to relate them in a North
western group in its plan it could not
very well do otherwise than approve the
petition in behalf Of these roads which
has been before it since last January.
The delay by the commission in
reaching conviction as to what roads
should merge with this or that group
has been extremely costly to American
ly estimated that $1,000.000,000 had
been lost by deferring action on con-
solidation applications. One factor in
this Is the great advance in the price
of all railroad securities in the last
few years, which makes the cost OF
purchasing control from SO to $50 per
cent higher than 1t might have been.
say in 1924. Another serious loss to
the business of the country comes from
the postponement of improvements and
extensions, which railroad executives
are not willing to enter into so long
as they cannot see clearly what their
status may be under a consolidation
plan eventually to go into effect.
Tentative Plan.
The original tentative plan of rail-
road consolidation was prepared under
the direction OF Prof. William z. Ripley
and published in August; 1921. Much
of It is now out of date, due to changes
railroad world and sanctioned by the
Interstate Commerce Commission. It
would be necessary to depart radically
from many features of the Ripley plan
In order to adapt the railroads of the
country not only to their present own
erShip, but to the economic changes
that have occurred in the United
States in the past eight years.
Under the Ripley plan there were 10
systems proposed. The largest Of those
in the East represented the New York
Central, Pennsylvania and Baltimore &
Ohio. Since 1921 the Nickle Plate
group has come into being and is now
one Of the four major Eastern lines
having control of substantial portions
of systems and in the Ripley clan,
which included the Erie, Nickle Plate.
the old Glover Leaf" and the Wheeling
& Lake Erie. System had to do with
the Chesapeake g. Ohio and the Hook
ing Valley, which are already under
Van Sweringen auspices.
In the Ripley plan there was no sug-
gestion that the Pennsylvania should
have either the Wabash or the Lehigh
Valley, which it has recently acquired.
The wabash was to go to the Erie and
the Lehigh Valley was to merge with