Evening star., 1931-12-10
AUTO TRADE DROP
|. AFFEcTSRAAWAYS.
Revenues of Some Carriers
!" Decline From Lack of Ma
chine Shipments.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

NEW YORK, december l0.-COndl-
tions in the automotive industry, directly
and indirectly were a contributory
cause for the receiverships of the Wa
bash Railway Co. and the Ann Arbor
"a Railroad Co, which, like the Pere Mar
eluliette Railway Co. and the New York,
~ Chicago g. st Louis Railroad Co, are
oticlassed in Wall Street as automobile
~ssoads."
hr Although prosperity. or the lack of it,
-rtn the automotiye industry affects all of
these railroads, 1t does so In varying
degrees, due to differing trafiic condi-
actions and varying financial setups. The
s'present upturn, however, In automotive
Il production--even If the new cars and
rTtrucks are ''trucked" away from the fac
tory instead OF hauled out on freight
-Jcars-will add to the trafic Of these
.a7roads, because most Of the heavy incom-
ling factory traffic, In the form of raw
materials, Is carried by the railroads
October Production.
70 Production of automobiles and trucks,
as reported by the Department. of Com
1smerce, amounted TO 8o,142 units in Oc-
si'tober. This is the lowest figure since
October, 1918, when the total was so, 300
Truck and car output In October, 1890,
amounted to ,i54,40l, in 1929 to 38o0l7.
month of 1921 to 148000.
American railroads generally are af-
fected by bus competition, to the extent
that the buses take away passenger
business and by trucks TO the extent
that they haul less than-carload lots of
freight as well as other forms of trafic.
= The automobile roads" however, feel
the effects of reduced slutomotive manu-
featuring by the decline in raw mate
a. f< xxfn L..
tshed products taken from the factories.
in addition to the bus and truck COM
petition
The automotive traffic handled by the
e. 9Sautomobile roads" has never been thor
s.Ipughly studied, for the statistics give
only one side of the picture-covering
the products hauled away from the mo-
Tor factories by carrier and not the raw
materials going into them.
Four Classes of Traffic.
Automotiye traffic on the railroads
INCLUDE four classes: Passenger auto
d. mobiles, auto trucks, knock-down auto
and trucks and parts not other
e, wise. specified, and automobile and
truck tires.
10 Statistics for the Wabash road show
sharp reduction in all classes of auto
motive traffic over the last three years.
in 1929 this traffic formed ~ per cent
I of the roads total tonnage, In 1880 1t
twas So per cent and in 1881 1t was $40
per cent--the period covered in each
year being the first eight months. for
y which 1881 statistics are now available.
= I'm tonnage the decline I'm the Wabashs
: automotive traffic was from 1885, $50
!, tons In 1929 to 840,5l0 In 1880 and to
397 ,ee9 In the 1891 period
'--e These tonnage figures are reflected IN
shrinkage of the Wabash's gross reve-
J.. nues from automotive traf1ic as follows.
$1,000, 900 in 1929, 100000 In 1880,
and 81 zoo 600 in 1881.
Relatively the Ann Arbor road Is even
more dependent on the activity OF mo-
tor plants because 1t enters the heart
of the production field II was pur-
chased by the Wabash partly because
1T controlled ct the time some of the
Ford business over the Great Lakes
region and through the Northwest
Comparisons between the Pere Mar
Cannot be made too generally, because
IN the case of the former only about
$4,000, 900 of its 1880 gross of $32, ,779,-
,262 was received from automotive tratic
and only little more than 81 600 900
of Nickel Plates 1890 gross freight rcve-
nues Of s42,73o,oo2 was so obtained.
Raw Material Shipments.
Nickel Plate runs little too far |
south from the automotiye manufactur-
ing centers and Pere Marquette hauls |
,efnore raw materials to these factories, |
relatively, than 1t does their finished |
products. Incidentally, the recent up |
turn in Pere Marquette car loadings |
N was due largely to the speeding up OF |
- production schedules at Flint, Mich, |
automobile plant. .,..... |