Rocky, Great Northern's Goat, says.. Some Prices Are Going Yessir, this is ol' Rocky speaking-the same goat you see toein' the top of that peak inside Great Northern's trademark. And believe me, traveling all around the U.S. on our freight cars sure helps a guy sharpen up on his economics. Anyways, it seems like faster than you can say "Cost of Living Index"-the prices we pay for things have jumped again. Cutting the cost of moving things around But take it from me, some things are going down in cost. And one of 'em is the cost of hauling certain kinds of freight on Great Northern. Here's a few "for instances": grain moving across the Rockies to Puget Sound; feed grains like corn and milo from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest . . . and back east again with carloads of forest products; and automobiles (we stack 'em up on tri-level carriers) moving every which way. Then there's all that cement we haul from up around Duluth, Minnesota, into North Dakota and other nearby states and salt from the Williston Basin... plus iron and steel products made in the Midwest, South and East and used in areas served by Great Northern. "How come?" you ask. "How can Great Northern hold down the cost of shipping while other things are going sky-high?" Well, first of all, we've learned how to transport things at peak efficiency. So naturally, whenever we can, we pass the savings along to shippers-who pass them along to you and you and you, their customers. Helping our shippers stay competitive And not only that. GN sets freight rates that help people on its line ship out a huge bulk of agricultural, mining and forest products to areas where there are lots more people but lots fewer farms, mines and timberlands. That way these states can stay competitive with producing areas located a lot closer to final markets. We started doing this nearly 100 years ago, and the habit is just as strong today. Finally, the plain and simple "economics" of the matter is that it costs less to ship by rail than most other forms of transportation. So Great Northern has an inherent (25¢ word) advantage. And, within the regulations that bind us, GN lets shippers have the benefits of its better way of doing things. Checked rail freight rates lately? Looking a Century Ahead and a Century Back! Off to a fast, fun-filled start is the Seattle World's Fair. . . and you can see all the fantastic things ahead for us in the Space Age. Some 12 million folks are expected to attend... and we'll be much obliged to take you direct to Seattle on GN's incomparable Empire Builder or Western Star. This year is also a 100th anniversary for Great Northern. It seems hardly yesterday that our pioneer locomotive, the William Crooks, chugged from St. Paul to St. Anthony (now Minneapolis). The date: June 28, 1862. Work we like...for Great Northern's service stripes Now we're busy againhauling in cement and other construction materials for missile bases near Great Falls, Montana and Minot, N.D. We use our coordinated shipping services-GN's unique way of teaming up rail, piggyback and truck. Do you have a shipping need that lends itself to our coordinated services? Let's talk it over! Port luck! Dinner by reservationone of the delights on GN's Empire Builder A real joy of traveling between Chicago and Seattle-Portland on Great Northern's incomparable Empire Builder is the great food you're served. Great Northern enjoys the good fortune of linking more ports East and West than any other railway. And that makes us a great choice for freight to be transhipped by water at Great Lakes and Pacific ports. I like fan mail... You simply tell the steward when you'd like to have dinner ... stroll into the dining car at the appointed time... and your table's waiting. You sit back, relax and order from a menu of superb meals-just like you were dining in one of the nation's finest big city restaurants. It's one of the many, many little extras that add up to a great way of going when you go on GN's luxury streamliner -the Empire Builder. NEWS & EDITORIAL COMMENT edited / DAVID P. MORGAN LIKE NO OTHER PRESIDENT I IN just the 18 months since he took his oath of office, President John F. Kennedy has exerted a greater influence upon railroading than his two immediate predecessors did during 15 cumulative years of White House occupancy. Whether by intent or circumstance, he has now engaged the railroad dilemma on three fronts. First and foremost, he dispatched to the Congress on April 5 a Message on Transportation whose germ lies in the sentence, "I am convinced that less Federal regulation and subsidization is in the long run a prime prerequisite of a healthy intercity transportation network," and whose enactment into law would secure the survival of the industry. In only 16 typewritten pages the message says what is obvious: that we cannot ascertain true transport costs so long as those modes which operate over publicly provided rights of way pay inadequate, if any, user-charges; that we cannot regulate the rates of certain carriers and exempt others; that regulation must not wipe out the inherent strength of one mode in favor of another. No other President has ever sent such a message to Congress. Those controversies which surround the President and divide the electorate over such issues as U. S. Steel's prices, Medicare, urban renewal, and agriculture should and must not be allowed to obscure the incontrovertible evidence of this April 5 message that he has diagnosed the boil of transportation and urgently requested Congress to lance it. The President, under threat of strike and/or in defense of his hotly debated productivity-oriented wage policy, has also injected his high office into the railroads' relations with their employees. From Eisenhower he inherited the report of a Presidential commission on workrules appointed a few days before the election, a report which in general supported the industry's contentions that diesels have made existing crew districts and certain jobs (notably the fireman's) obsolete. Granted, the President accepted the report in a noncommittal manner which denied the industry specific White House endorsement of its recommendations, yet when management-labor talks on it stalemated a few weeks later Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg stepped in and got both sides to accept Federal mediation - "in the national interest," of course. What matters is that the workrules report is still alive, is still the subject of management-labor negotiation,* and is in the view of this Administration - a negotiable document. And if the ultimate settlement resembles the Goldberg-influenced pact between the *On June 22 the railroads broke off negotiations again on grounds that the unions continued to refuse to discuss work-rules changes. flight engineers and T.W.A., which will Simultaneously, however, we just Regardless, the summer of 1962 is no time in which those concerned with railroading should make final judgment upon this unprecedented Presidential impact upon the industry. Nor is it any time to lump railroading and steelmaking under the general heading of "business" and to confuse the White House attitude toward one with its pronouncements on the other. Passenger points News on the passenger front of railroading in mid-summer 1962 was constituted of brevities: Parties were staged and cakes were cut in New York and Chicago June 15 to celebrate the 60th birthday of New York Central's 20th Century Limited. On its first run in 1902 Continued on page 7 Он, you should have heard the loud lamentations back in the '30's when steamminded but Zephyr-stung railroads began to streamline their 4-6-2's and 4-6-4's! It was as if the late Dior had asked to gown the Venus de Milo. To be sure, some backshops didn't comprehend the new trend. The inverted bathtubs that shrouded UP 2906 and 7002 as well as NYC 5344 were especially disastrous, and NC&StL unconsciously achieved a parade float look with a Pacific it rebuilt for the Dixie Flagler. Ah, but what talent could do! For instance, Loewy's T1 for the Pennsy and Kuhler's 1380 for the Southern and the rarest jewels of all: J-3a Hudsons 5445-5454 styled by Henry Dreyfuss for the Central's Century. Volume 22 Number 10 NEWS Kalmbach Publishing Co. 1962. Title reg. Pat. Off. Published monthly by Kalmbach Publishing Co., 1027 N. 7th St., Milwaukee 3, Wis., U.S.A. BRoadway 2-2060. Western Union and cable address: KALPUB Milwaukee. A. C. Kalmbach, President. Joseph C. O'Hearn, General Sales Manager. Ward Zimmer. Advertising Manager. TRAINS assumes no responsibility for the safe return of unsolicited editorial material. Acceptable photographs are held in files and are paid for upon publication. Second-class postage paid at Milwaukee, Wis. Printed in U.S.A. YEARLY SUBSCRIPTION, $6; 2 YEARS, $11; 3 YEARS. $15. For life, $60. Outside the Americas, 50 cents a year additional (for life, $5 additional). GEORES TO PR BYU MEMBER |