Evening star., 1933-02-19

Continued From First Page)
hair that is black, fiat, incredibly sleek.
On his jowls and chin he exhibits
beard straggly and wayward and quite
white. He lolls in chair, shaking
that beard with loquacious comment
on life and on literature, and he might
seem only the elderly retired philoso-
pher. You look again at his eyes and
you see, still as the Lake Shore d
Michigan Southern once saw, a rash
youth bent on conquest.
The depression arrived and persisted.
Mr.. Loree did not join those VINO
thought it the end of all things.
Nor did he-nor does he-despair Of
the railroad industry. In the interval
between his round four and his round
five with the consolidation problem he
uttered many remarks on the problem
of railroading in general. On that
problem his right to some degree OF
utterance is admitted by all. His book
on transportation is standard. His
training in transportation is compre-
hensive.
He begins by being an engineering
technician. In his undergraduate DAYS
at Rutgers College his principal sub
ject of study was mathematics.
EXIerience Is Broad.
Upon graduation he proceeded TO eX-
plore applied mathematics in the serV-
ice of the Pennsylvania, Of the United
States Army Engineering Corps, OF the
Mexican National Railway, as leVeler,
transitman, surveyor, topographer. In
the service CT the Pennsylvania, ana
before he became president OF the Bal
tirnore g. Ohio and subsequently OF the
lo l,od Ctipa1 fpch-
nical as we'll as administrative ex-
perience of being superintendent Of a
division ard Of then being general man
aeer of the line west of Pittsburgh.
The prime interest of this railroad
craftsmanship is it's drastic realism.
Mr.. Loree would admit that much OF
the passenger traffic is gone forever.
It is gone because most Of 1t has passed
not TO the motor bus. which could con-
ceivably be curbed, but to the private
automobile, which no restrictive laws
can check.
In l930-Mr. Loree calculates-Amer-
lean railroads performed unproftap!e
excessive passenger train miles TO the
number Of 217,230,252. The cost CT
such train miles was S432 ,26S,2 ,2Ol. Ihey
should all be eliminated.
Thereupon Mr.. Loree would concen-
trate on freight traffic, and he would
concentrate on it where its own con-
centrations exist He would abandon
thin freight traffic to other agencies.
We have in the United States some
25o000 miles of first main railroad
track. Toward $4,000 miles Of this
trackage Mr. Loree is destructively hos
tile. The freight tonnage moving on
those $4,000 miles is only 2 per cent
of the total railroad freight tonnage OF
the country Very well. Tear up those
$4,000 miles.
Meanwhile We haye $4,000 miles of
first main ra.ifvad track carrying SO
yer cent of the total railroad freight
tonnage OF the country. Those $4,000
miles are only one-tenth OF our total
trackage, but they carry half OF the
total profitable business proceeding on
tracks. Upon them Mr.. Loree would
concentrate indeed. Upon them he
would spend $4,000 900, 900 of fresh
capital for improvement OF facilities.
With these views of abolishing weak
nesses and OF strengthening strengths
Mr.. Loree quite naturally is far from
embracing the consolidation theory
which would combine a strong railroad
with several weak railroads in order ID
arrive at success. 1T does not follow,
he says, that when you mix good eggs