Evening star., 1946-12-18
Czech Rail Industry
Recovering With Aid
|0f UNRRA Equipment
By WiIIiom McGoffin
Foreign Correspondent Of The Sfor ond
the chieoqo Daily News

the Chicago Daily News
PRAGUE, Dec. 18. Most of
Czechoslovakia's trains still run
blacked out. The shortage Of dyna-
mos has made interior lights a
luxury on nearly all except Ameri-
can-style streamliners and interna-
tional fast trains.
Dynamos are not manufactured
in this country and other more inn
portant equipment must be brought
in from abroad.
But the inconvenience of passen-
gers who must ride without lights
is an infnitesimal pinprick on the
impressive record of railway recon-
Struction which has been accom-
plished in this country in the year
and half since its liberation.
UNRRA Helps Reconstruction.
UNRRA has been of considerable
help to the Czechs in overcoming
two of the hardest problems Of re-
construction-lack of bridges and
locomotives. Seventy-five locomo-
tives and 1,343 freight cars were de-
livered from America and England
up to the end of October. And
nearly $4,000 metric tons of bridge
building and communication equip
ment were brought in.
In their own factories, the Czechs
have built so freight locomotives
since May of 1945 and plan to build
passenger train locomotives. They
have plenty of wood for railway ties
and are able to forge rails in their
own foundries.
The result is that you can take a
trip from Kosice, near the Slovakian
capital of Bratislava, to the Russian
frontier and find it difficult to be-
lieve that this was one of the worst
damaged section of railway in the
country. Slovakia's railways, in gen.
eral, were much harder hit than
any others in the country because
of the heavy fighting here between
the Germans and Russians. Ger
man seorched-earth tactics took
care of those stretches of railroad
which bombs and shells did not get.
Communications Restored.
Tracks. bridges and telephone
poles have been restored. But the
debris of former stations, ware
houses and factories stacked along
the tracks shows the German eff
cheney in destruction.
Some of the factories must await
rebuilding till more essential con-
struction is completed. At Slanec,
for example, an attractive new pas
senger and freight station is being
built. But across the railroad is a
Quilted factory for hardwood floors
which will not be rebuilt for some
time.
Elsewhere along the line my pri-
vate car flashed past more new sta
tions and warehouses Cnow more
than so per cent restoreO and-as
we neared the Hungarian border
some of the old camoufiaged pill
boxes of the defensive little Maginot
line of the First Republic. The
Hungarians, during their occupation,
tried without success to blow up
these tough little ortresses.
Slovakia Rail Damage Heavy.
Between 5000 and 5000 laborers
are reported to be concentrating on
repairing one important stretch of
railway in Slovakia. Hand labor
replaces machines in most cases.
And locomotives still are SO scarce
that I saw fiat carloads Of bridge
girders being pushed Jlaboriously by
nand.
In Slovakia, where railway tracks
suffered the heaviest damage, 96.2
per cent Of the trackage had been
repaired, according to official fig
ures Eight hundred railway bridges
were totally destroyed in Slovakia
and 730 in Bohemia and Moravia
All of them have been sufficiently
repaired to support traffic.
Bailey bridges from UNRRA are
being used in various places, but
many are necessarily temporary.
Czech transport officials estimate it
will be Is years before all the tenn
porary bridges have been replaced
with permanent structures.
The Czechosloyaks wisely-and of
necessity-put freight service res
toration ahead of passenger service.
Freight traffic has now reached an
average of go per cent of its prewar
volume with only SIS per cent of its
rolling stock, according to the min
lister of transport. The railways are
short 5000 passenger coaches, or "A
I per cent of preWar, the minister said,
but the transport actually function
ing amounts to rs per cent of what
it was in 1887.
Copyright, 1946)