L NEXT MONTH AN ELECTRICAL ENGINEER ARGUES READER'S SERVICE We do not stock the following items, but as a reader convenience we can order Railroad Books Abandoned Railroad of Bedford. Sulzer, $4.50 Far Wheels, Charles Small. Great Burlington Strike of 1888. $9.00 Harry Bedwell, Donovan. Last of great rr. storytellers-illus. life & hist. -$3.75 History Mack Rail Motor Cars & Locos U. S., $1.50; Can. $1.75; elsewh $2.50 Ill. Central RR & Colonization Work. The г. enters land biz. $5.00 L&N Steam Locos. 128 pgs., 240 photos $1.00 Locos and Cars since 1900. A picture- $5.00 Locos of the GN. Review steam and electric to 1930's, illus. 36 Miles of Trouble. West River RR. of $6.00 Foreign Railroad Books Treasury of Railroad Folklore. Electric Railway Books Angels Flight Riwy., PRJ. Illus. history Denver & Interurban-Ft. Oollins Hawaiian Tramways. 32 pg. illus. trolley Trenton & Mercer County Traction. W. $2.00 Books Related to RRS Locos of the PRR 1834-1924. 80 pgs. Mr. Pullman's Elegant Palace Car, Beebe $3.75 Policy Formation In Railroad Finance. Steps in Burl. refinance Railroad Passenger Car. Mencken. History, early rr. travel $4.50 $5.00 Railroads in the Woods. Railroad logging $10.00 on the Pacific Coast. Records of Recent Construction, No. 79, 1914. Reprint Baldwin Works Pac. $2.00 Rights of Trains. Peter Josserand 480 pages, rules $6.00 Rocky Mountain Railway Guide 1906. Illustrated $1.00 Guide to Narrow Gauge Album. Whitehouse. 144 Reproductions No. Pacific 2626 (10"). Orig. Timken $4.50 Pennsylvania (10′′). K-48, I-1s, mtns. single & double headed $4.50 Potomac Edison (10"). Box motor $4.50 Reading 2124. Famous loco Iron Horse Rambles. Monaural $4.95; Stereo $5.95 Rio Grande to Silverton. Pass. and freight (Cumbres turn). Mono $4.95, Ster $5.95 Rods, Wheels and Whistles. PRR, K-4, $4.95 CNJ, N&W, steam & diesel The Silverton Train (10). N.g. steam both sides - SP-1 $4.50 Shaker Heights Rapid Transit (10). $4.50 Soo Line, IC Steam Power (10). $4.00 Main line run and switcher 9 N&W Sounds of Steam Railroading. $1.95 stm seq. U.S. & Can. $4.95; others $5.95 Southern RRS. (10). Steam, Graham $4.50 Co., W-SS, SR, GM Steam Echoes. 13 diff. scenes 15 stm. loco. U.S. $4.95; Can. $5.65; For. $5.95 Steam on the Five-Foot-Three. Steam locos at work in Victoria, Australia. $5.95 Symphony in Steam. 27-mile trip 2-8-2 Angelina Cty. Lum. Co. 5.00; For. $6.50 This is Railroading. Can. & Mex. steam, 3-cyl. U.S. $4.98; Can. & For. $5.70 Thunder on Blue Ridge. N&W frts. U.S. & Can. 4.95; For. 5.95; Stereo 5.95 $6.95 WOF&N and So. Iowa (10′′). Interurban trolleys The Empire State. Colored lithograph Comstock Mining and Miners. History Los Angeles County. Deluxe 1880 This Was Sawmilling. Saw mills, big Foreign RR Magazines Diesel Rallway Traction. Monthly trade Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee (10"). $4.50 Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range RR., $4.50 (U.S. and Possessions only) 350 ft., 8 mm. $12.25 Famous Trains of Western RR's. (18971903) Limiteds. 150 ft., 8 mm. $6.25 Georgetown Loop (1903). Ride the famous Colo. n.g. scenic. 110 ft., 8 mm. $5.25 IC Steam Scrapbook. 200' 8 mm. $7.25 Melodrama Rides the Rails. 200 ft. 8 mm. $6.25 On the Delaware & Hudson. 4-6-6-4's. 4-8-4's & 4-6-2's, 150 ft., 8 mm. $5.25 300 ft., sound, 16 mm. $18.25 On the East Broad Top. 3' Pa. narrow gauge 1952-54. 150 ft. 8 mm...$5.25 300 ft., sound, 16 mm. $18.25 On the Norfolk & Western. All steam in 150 ft., 8 mm. $5.25 Virginia mtns. 300 ft., sound, 16 mm. $18.25 On the Pennsylvania. Variety at Horeshoe Curve. 150 ft., 8 mm. $5.25 300 ft. sound, 16 mm. $18.25 Railroading in the East (1897-1906) 12 early trains, 200 ft., 8 mm. $7.25 Steam Trains Out of Dearborn. 175 ft., 8 mm. $6.25 Ten-Wheeler to Duplex. 300 ft., 8 mm. $12.25 Trolley Cavalcade. City & interurban a tion. 8mm, 200', b&w $9.50, color $19.50 Readers' Service Dept. 2387A, Kalmbach Publishing Co., 1027 N. 7th St., Milwaukee 3, Wis. Ι NEWS & EDITORIAL COMMENT edited / DAVID P. MORGAN "THE ALARMING THING" TWO contradictory, thoroughly alarming statements appeared back in the financial pages of the January 18, 1962, New York Herald-Tribune in a story by Fred B. Stauffer. The report centered about two speakers who had appeared at a national transportation institute the previous day at the Hotel Commodore in New York. President Jervis Langdon Jr. of Baltimore & Ohio told the audience that the railroads must halt traffic erosion to other carriers and urged withdrawal of minimum-rate controls to enable them to do so. "If the railroads are not successful in this direction," predicted Langdon, "there is no hope, no matter how successful they are in consolidating and co-ordinating their operations, eliminating duplicating facilities and services, and otherwise putting their houses in order. It would merely be a question of time before the debacle." Langdon went on to disagree with those who say railroading is indispensable, and said that if the country is completely unmindful of expense it can live without the rails, in peace or war. The other speaker was Representative Oren Harris (Dem., Ark.), chairman of the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. He told the same group that he does not believe a transportation crisis exists any more in 1962 than in the recent past, and simply said that some recent disturbing earnings trends must be cured to insure a healthy common carrier industry. We would think that both Jervis Langdon Jr. and Oren Harris are honest, sincere gentlemen and that neither would intentionally play the role of scaremonger or, conversely, declare there's no fire where there's smoke. Yet according to the Trib, the railroad president says that the rails are surely doomed without ratemaking freedom and the Congressman says that no transport crisis exists. Are we to understand, then, that either: (1) Congress discredits the reams of impartial, publicly sponsored research which bears out the railroad dilemma; or (2) Government has decided that the rails, no matter what their productivity and economy, are expendable? What other conclusions can be drawn from the Trib news item? At the B&O annual stockholders meeting in Baltimore November 20 Jervis Langdon pondered the heaviest net income deficit in his road's 135-year history on the one hand and Government's "persistent desire to protect barge and truck operations, no matter how highly subsidized or uneconomic, from rail competition" on the other. Said he, "The alarming thing is that no one in Washington seems to care. At least a dozen reports have painted the picture for them, but except for the brief appearance of Senator Smathers of Florida in sponsoring the Transportation Act of 1958, there is no leadership, or apparent desire to lead. It may soon be too late." J.F.K. joins the ranks Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and Dwight D. Eisenhower all asked Congress to impose usercharges on airways and/or inland waterways to reimburse the Federal Government in part for the construction, operation, and maintenance of such transport facilities. Now President John F. Kennedy, who earlier requested (and was rebuffed on) higher fuel taxes on heavy trucks, has joined his predecessors. As outlined in his fiscal 1963 budget, the President wants: (1) a 5 per cent tax on airline tickets and freight waybills; and (2) a 2-cents-a-gallon tax on all fuels used in commercial air transport, including jet fuels. So that the C.A.B. will have time to see what fare adjustments might be necessary as a result of these user-charges, he asks a January 1, 1963, effective date, meanwhile continuing the present 10 per cent excise tax on tickets and the 2-cents-a-gallon tax on aviation gasoline until year's end. "Users of the airways are not yet paying an adequate share of the costs," says Kennedy. “As airline traffic and earnings improve, airline passengers and shippers and other beneficiaries should be expected to pay their share of the heavy direct and indirect costs of providing these services, now borne largely by the general taxpayers." As for inland waterways, the President wants a 2-cents-a-gallon tax on all fuels used in transportation in order to "recoup a small part of the current Federal outlays" for construction, maintaining, and operating these channels. Simultaneously, the President asked for repeal of the 10 per cent excise tax on passenger fares of railroads, bus lines, and domestic water carriers. Now it's up to Congress. ONLY YESTERDAY SPEAKING of Electro-Motive's original freight diesel (as we do on pages 42-47), I can clearly recall the first FT's I saw, maybe because of their low numbers. The units belonged to Baltimore & Ohio, which originally numbered its 5400 h.p. jobs 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11. My first FT cab ride took place in 1948, on a 2700 h.p. tandem heading a Boston & Maine symbol freight from Mechanicville, N. Y., to Boston. We picked up a 2-8-0 helper out of Deerfield, Mass., to East Gardner, which was just as well because the booster unit cut out on the grade and without the Consol we surely would have stalled. Seems like only yesterday that the revolutionary FT was new, yet in reality a couple of decades have passed by since. Volume 22 Number 5 3B 8 12 WHAT KIND OF PHOTOS? Kalmbach Publishing Co. 1962. Title reg. Pat. Off. Published monthly by Kalmbach Publishing Co., 1027 BRoadway N. 7th St., Milwaukee 3, Wis., U.S.A. 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). MEMBER Daybreak on the ONE of the most storied as well as profitable railroads in the country goes by the long-winded corporate title of Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific; reaches neither the Crescent City nor the Lone Star State, much less the West Coast; operates trains 337 miles between Cincinnati and Chattanooga but owns no track of its own; leases its route from the City of Cincinnati, and is itself controlled by the Southern Railway. The city constructed the line in 1880, leased it to the CNO&TP in 1881. The last revision of the contract leased the Cincinnati Southern, as the municipality calls it, to CNO&TP for 99 years dating from 1928. This railroad has been a rewarding one for all concerned. Operating as a bridge line between South and Middle West, the CNO&TP receives 90 per cent of its traffic from connections, hurries it along with as many as four SD24's and a minimum of terminal delay and expense, and manages to produce 12 per cent of parent Southern's gross with only 4.5 per cent of its route-mileage. In recent years, though, CNO&TP has been bothered by its wasp-waisted "Rathole Division" from Danville, Ky., to Oakdale, Tenn., wherein lie 11 of the line's 13 tunnels - tunnels so tight as to render impossible conventional piggybacking as well as passage of trilevel auto flats. Soon, however, earth-movers will revamp CNO&TP's hour-glass figure in a 35-million-dollar rebuilding job financed by a new issue of bonds by the city which the railway will repay in the form of increased rents. Of the 13 tunnels, 9 will be bypassed entirely by line relocations; 3 will be replaced by new and larger bores; and 1 will be enlarged on its present site. Almost 25 miles of brand-new railroad will be laid, curves will be eased out by 50 per cent or better, and grades - which now hit 1.14 per cent - will be reduced. When the big job is done, Southern's vital bridge line will be able to accommodate any load on flanged wheels - and be able to move it faster. The size of the work may be gauged by the fact that Burlington's Kansas City Short-Cut cost 16 million dollars and Southern Pacific's Great Salt Lake fill project was budgeted at 49 million dollars. The CNO&TP has been - and is being revamped so much since steam that hoggers who wore gas masks in its tunnels and operated 2-8-2's (with smoke ducts) because 2-10-2's got inhumanely hot would hardly know the property. The Rathole Division will soon exist in name only when the bulldozers and dynamiters have had their way. I |