The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-02-17

piles - per cent in busses, 99 per cent in 10000 prlvate cars. Pennsyl- fvania railroad runs right by the plant, but the railway management has said it would be impossible to provide the 10 locomotives, 100 coaches and 30 train crews that would be needed for the 60 trains day this mass movement of workers would require if there were no autos. At Ypsilanti, Mich, the still bigger l Ford bomber plant will employ 1 nearly 5O,OOO when in full operation. i There are no housing accommoda- i tions for this number in Ypsilanti, so most of the workers will have to come from the Detroit area. That will take from 10000 to 12,0O0 cars if they all go fully loaded.
 l Those two situations indicate the extent to which war workers must depend on private car transport. AS matter of fact, when the plant !, sites for mark of these war indus i tries were selected, it was deliber- ately planned that the labor force would ride to ana from work by private car on public highways to relieve the railroads. Approach roads and parking lots were con- structed accordingly. The thinking was done before Pearll Harbor and the resulting threats of rubber shortage.
 RAILROADS CAN'T HANDLE TT
 Drastic passenger transportation shortages like these are developing all over the country, according to U. s. Director of Transportation Joseph B. Eastman, who goes on to point out that shifting the load back 1 to the railroads it not the answer. The railroads have other jobs to do in troop movements and long hauls and a greatly increased freight load. Nearly 800 cities today have no other mass transportation than busses, and there are 48,000 com- munities in the country completely ! dependent on highways.
 Over the last 20 years, there has 1 been a mania for tearing up street car tracks. Admittedly, these munlc- 1 ipal railways were slow and blocked | traffic and couldn't be operated profitably. Competition from busses knocked the trolieys right off their | tracks and the tracks themselves were yanked up and sold for junk. ! Before this war is over, there Will be lots of communities that will wish they hadn't been so nasty. The trol- 1 lev car is due for temporary war time comeback.
 There being power shortage in the offing, through the need Of conserving electrical energy for war production, expansion Of electric railways may be out of the question. BAD FOR BUssEs
 Nor is the outlook for additional bus equipment encouraging, as all 1 the truck and bus plants are going 1 full tilt on war requirements. Dur ing March, the manufacturers 0f busses to carry 15 or more passen- gers are to be allowed unlimited production, though ln February 1 they are being restricted to 1000 busses, which compares with a pro- duction of 450 in February, 1940.
 Now, more busses may have to be built to save private cars, and these war busses may be so designed that they provide maximum space for straphangers, minimum space for | seats.
 There are today an estimated 400 bus line operators with a con- bined fleet of 6OOOO vehicles. In ad- dition, there Are about 93000 school busses and perhaps 2500 sightseeing jobs. Pooling all these, changing
 routes, staggering trips-aN these are possibilities. For instance, Dir | ector Eastman has suggested that school hours and factory shift hours in any community might be stag gered so that the same fleet of con- veyances could serve both loads.
 Consider those school busses alone. In the last 20 years, full emphasis of rural education has been placed on the consolidated school. Pickup and home delivery of pupils is an established practice at 44,000 of these modern institutions of learning. Wouldn't it be strange, if the school bus transportation system had to be diverted to war industry use, and we would go --.ck to the little red schoolhouse