Evening star., 1947-11-23
Makes
Freight Space
By T. {. Apologize

NEW 1oI1kA- AnAC u AAth NOAAS
with mirrors, the railroads have
added the equivalent of $4,000
freight cars to their carrying ca
pacity, entirely aside from any new
equipment put on the tracks.
Fifty thousand freight cars would
transport 2,S4o,O00 tons of coal, or
e6 SOC, 900 bushels of wheat.
No mirror was used in adding this
capacity-amounting to about 3 per
cent of the total-at a time when
the carriers needed every possible
car to meet the years peak shipping
demands.
It was simply increased efficiency
the elimination Of IS years Of ef-
fort by railroad arrangements. ship
pers' advisory boards and the car
service division Of the Association
of American Railroads.
A few hours saved In switching
operations, q few hours less delay
in loading or unloading cars, use
of the most practical routing of cars
to destina tions-all these add up
to reduce the elapsed time between
loads.
Turn-Around Time Reduced
"Turn-around time" is the rail-
roads term for this interval from
the time q freight car Is delivered
for lading until it Is ready for its
next load, including its movement,
full or empty, and the time 1t spends
ON shippers sidings.
This turn-around time was re-
duced in the peak loading month of
October to q record low average of
slightly less than 1871 days, COM
pared with Is days in the same
month of 1916.
Warren c. Kendall, AAR ear
service chairman, describes this re-
duction as "the equivalent Of adding
more than $4,000 freight cars to
the available supply every day in the
month"
Despite all this, Mr.. Kendall notes
the peak loading period saw an
average daily shortage Of 80, ,430 cars.
The high level of demand for cars
will recede during the winter
months, but that 50,000-car increase
also will disappear, 1t being i'm
possible to maintain such speed OF
either loading or handling during
severe weather conditions.
Railroad men agree that the only
permanent cure for the freight car
shortage which has plagued expand
ing industry for more than a year
is more cars.
And they finally are seeing light
in that direction. September was
the first postwar month in which
new car deliveries exceeded retire
ments of wornout units by the rail-
roads. October output totaled near
ly 8,400 new freight cars as the pro-
duction program climbed toward It's
10 0O00-a-month goal.
But the net increase is a slow
process, and the railroads still must
depend largely on efficiency Of op-
erations to meet current shipping
demands.
Tonnage Record Studied
How well the railroads are sue
ceeding in this effort is pointed up
by a comparison of figures for car
loadings (recently at a 17-year-
high) and for revenue ton-miles "a
ton-mile is the transportation Of !
ton of freight for l mile).
For instance: Although a recent
AAR study showed total car loadings
in the 13-week period Of July Is to
October 1S, 1947, excluding the Labor
Day week, fell some 1000 short of
the 12,245, $50 cars loaded in the
like period of 1880, Mr.. Kendall esti-
mates the total of revenue ton-miles
in this 1947 period was about IS
per cent greater than the compare
BILE 1890 figure.
And this was accomplished with
nearlv 500 nO0 fewer freight cars
than the railroads had available IT
years ago.
The combined effect of these de-
velopments is that each freight car
added to rolling stock today gives
more of a boost to the freight-carry-
ing potentialities Of the lines than
1t would have q few years back.
And the Nations railroads have
more than 100, 900 new cars on order.
distributed BIZ the Associated Press.)