Mr. CAVERLY. Mr. Chairman, I am Gardner Caverly, executive vice president of the New England Council. I am speaking here today on behalf of Robert Kidder, the chairman of the General Transportation Committee of the council, who regrettably was not able to be here in my stead.

I must confess, Senator, if I were to sit here for another hour and hear more testimony, everything would have been said that I could possibly say.

I think the mere fact we are gathered here today indicates that all of us realize the crisis that faces us, not only in Connecticut, Rhode Island and in Massachusetts, but all of New England.

I am sure that there is little need of taking up your time and your distinguished colleagues' time in reiterating the problems of the New Haven that have been with us now for quite some several years.

I do, however, want to stress one fact that has not been touched upon, that I do think is important.

It concerns the passenger service of the New Haven Railroad. Desirable though this is, without any question, it must, in my estimate, and I believe in the estimate of the Transportation Committee of the New England Council, be put second to the absolute necessity of maintaining freight service to provide industries with the necessary freight service here in this area.

Now, it is our feeling that we would not want to see this passenger service continued at the possible cost of the freight service.

We would urge upon you gentlemen here today, and I can assure this group here you need no urging, every one of you sitting here at this table, on many occasions, have done things over and above the call of your duty for your own State, and you did this for this New England region.

Personally, I rather question whether or not, or at least the extent of aid that might be coming from the Federal Government.

You are well acquainted with our needs, without any question. But I think it is going to be awfully hard, for example, to convince a distinguished Senator from South Dakota that he should vote money for the New Haven Railroad. If it is possible, more power to you. I am sure you will convince him, Senator, if anyone will.

But I think that the primary responsibility comes right back here at home, to our State government, because we are the people concerned. We are the people affected.

I do want to comment about the State of Connecticut, the State of Massachusetts, by way of the MBTA, the State, everyone, by way of past contributions and other help they have been to the railroad.

Of course, I agree with my gentleman friend over here on my left, that it is going to take a great deal more than that which has been coming, or, under the present program, is to be coming, if this problem is going to be solved.

But I do hope that every effort will be made to endeavor to divorce the support of the passenger service from the railroad service.

I think, gentlemen, this has not been touched upon to any degree up to this point.

I think that it is of utmost importance that this railroad be put into a position that it can logically be merged with the Penn-Central Railroad, because if we don't have that merger, and if we don't have

strength and knowledge of the system, I am not at all certain that the New Haven can exist even as a freight carrier.

And I am quite aware, by conversations I have had with the PennCentral officials over a period now of some 3 or 4 years, that they will fight like bloody hell before they will ever take on this moneylosing passenger operation.

I think there is a reasonably good chance that they would subscribe to the idea of taking the freight service of the New Haven, but I think support must come from elsewhere for the passenger service, to get that divorced from the freight service, to the end that freight service of the New Haven may be incorporated in the freight service of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

And with that particular comment thank you very much.
Senator PASTORE. Thank you, Mr. Caverly.

Mr. Rosan, I understand that you are going to be given all the protocol of a distinguished witness, and I am going to call upon your distinguished Congressman to introduce you.

Mr. IRWIN. Thank you very much. I am pleased to introduce Mr. Richard A. Rosan, who appears today on behalf of the United Communities for Railroad Action. Mr. Rosan comes from a group of people in the lower Fairfield County area, which is most immediately affected by commuter problems, and has been involved in them for a long time now, and has done a very conscientious and careful effort to educate their daily commuters and the public generally in Fairfield County, as to the real economic interest that we all must have in the preservation of this railroad system.

And I am pleased to introduce Mr. Rosan. I want to congratulate him and his friends for the work they've done, and they have been a tremendous help and an illustration of the grassroots work which goes into effective government.

Mr. Rosan.

Mr. ROSAN. Senator Pastore and other distinguished people, I want to say that I wrote this prepared statement yesterday afternoon. And in the meantime, so many things have happened it is almost out of date.

After listening to you, Senator Pastore, today, I realize a great deal of it is repetitious.

I would like to start the discussion and say we greatly appreciate the fact that you took the time and effort to come and hold this meeting here today.

You apparently were somewhat disappointed in the number of people that were present. I can assure you that through our organization we could have had over a thousand people here today. The only reason we didn't do it was that we have been observing the dedicated work of people like yourself, Senator Pastore, Senator Ribicoff, and Senator Dodd, and the hard work of the Representatives in Congress, and we thought it was unnecesary to try to have a mass demonstration here on something that seemed so obvious.

So I want to assure you that it is not because of lack of interest, that it was because we felt it would be an unnecessary demonstration. Now, our organization is relatively new, and yet we are already organized, and we represent organized groups in about 20 communities in Westchester and Fairfield County.

Only last night I attended a meeting where the Mamaroneck group joined us, and the night before the Darien group joined us.

And there is a growing awareness that you are going to have a disaster area, instead of a greatly rich area, and also a blight area, if passenger service is not preserved. This a fact, and the people are beginning to realize it.

But, finding support for our organization today is coming fromit is not the commuters, this is not a commuters organization. It is coming from the businessmen, the realtors in the communities affected.

In the town of Greenwich alone, we have collected approximately $8,000 from the bank and real estate people, because they realize the serious impact that the loss of the railroad services would have on our whole community.

In connection with holding this meeting here, so we could present our views, I want to say there was one little added feature, and I would like to introduce Bill Harden here, who is from the Greenwich High School, who has come here to observe a Senate hearing.

I think it is too bad there was not more publicity of this, so more of our schoolchildren could have attended this meeting, and I hope in the future, when you are going out into the hinterland, Senator, that you get a little better publicity for that purpose.

Senator PASTORE. Mr. Harden, we want to afford you all the courtesies. So, come on up and sit next to this gentleman. Sit right there. Mr. ROSAN. Senator Pastore, the one thing that I think is being misunderstood is that the crisis of the New Haven Railroad of discontinuing service is not something that is going to happen. It has happened. It has happened right now.

The best illustration I can give you is that the train that I have historically used out of my station in Riverside, Conn., to go to New York, has practically disappeared, because of lack of equipment.

It used to be a fine eight-car train, using 1954 equipment. Suddenly it turned up one day as a seven-car train using 1921 equipment. Gradually this 1921 equipment has been falling apart, so today if the train pulls in at all, it pulls in with one or two old cars.

We have subjected 25,000 people who use this train daily to some of the most intolerable services and delays. This has been going on for 3 years.

The crisis of the commuter is here today, and one of the reasons it is worse off is that for 6 months we had been hoping that the means would be found to order 80 new MU cars, and yet today, that order still is not in.

And this has something to do with two of the bills that are before you today.

Senator PASTORE. May I ask you a question? At this juncture, if the modernization of those cars took place, let's assume those 80 new cars came into being, would that increase the passenger rate?

Mr. ROSAN. I don't know whether it would increase it.

Senator PASTORE. Are we talking here about more profits or talking about a deficit of $6 to $7 million for maintenance?

Mr. ROSAN. I am just saying it is the only way you are going to be able to continue the service.

The petition by the trustees to abandon service in New Rochelle, Mt. Vernon and Pelham, involves 6,000 commuters. And the only reason I assume they are doing it is to get rid of 6,000 commuters at the lowe

end of their line, where they get the least revenue off it, and then they will have the new cars to take care of the other commuters.

The 80 cars are needed to replace these old cars which are breaking down, and so it is merely a matter of continuing existing services for existing passengers.

That is what the problem is, and if we don't get those 80 cars quickly, I don't care what the ICC orders, or anybody else orders, there won't be any service. This is the crisis.

Senator PASTORE. The point I am making is this, sir-I don't think we have, more or less, crystalized this.

Are you saying that because of the dilapidated condition of the cars, people are using their automobiles or finding some other media of transportation?

Mr. ROSAN. To a certain extent.

Senator PASTORE. Or, are you actually saying that it won't make much difference?

What we are talking about here is profit and loss. What we are talking about is lack of cash, not lack of comfort or more comfort. The point I am trying to make at this juncture, and I would like to get this into the record, there has been so much talk about these 80 cars. An application is being made under the Urban Mass Transportation Act, whereby the State of Connecticut will put up $5 million, the State of New York will put up $5 million, and the Federal Government will put up $10 million.

I mean, that is the proposal. Of course, if it will come to pass, we don't know yet, because the Housing and Home Finance Agency will have to make that adjudication.

Now, suppose the money is intended to buy new cars and to modernize the existing cars. Will this money have anything to do with eliminating the operating deficit?

Mr. ROSAN. I think it will help. It will reduce their operating and maintenance expenditures. It will help considerably.

Senator PASTORE. Considerably?

Mr. ROSAN. Surely. I am sure it will. But I know enough about business, when you get new equipment, that is what happens.

With this old equipment, every time it breaks down, it costs a thousand dollars to fix; it is going to add up in the operating expenses. Senator PASTORE. That is a very sage answer.

Mr. ROSAN. But the important thing is, of course, it would be by the end of 1968 in order to get this equipment, but I understand, for example, that under this program that is being worked out now, we are going to get about $42 million available for your operating deficits right now, for maybe 20, 24 months. This administration will have it in operation for about 4 months, before they will consider the $10 million for the cars. That is 4 months from now, and then it will be 18 months before you get the new cars.

And we are talking about 20 to 24 months. And, frankly, Senator Pastore, I don't believe we can now protect the people until that day. Something is going to break down.

There is another factor that I think is overlooked in this problem. In 1961 a study was made by the New York State Office of Transportation, and they hired an expert, and he reported the deferred maintenance on the New Haven Railroad in the year 1961 was somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 to $6 million.

This deferred maintenance has been going on for year after year before 1961 and since.

I daresay that the deferred maintenance on the New Haven Railroad today is somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 to $75 million, possibly. It is a safety program. We are running the risk every day, in my opinion—and I know the trustees disagree in this, but I ride the trains maybe more than they do-we are running a risk of having a wreck on that railroad some day with some of this dilapidated equipment. It is just going to break down, and there is going to be an accident.

This is a safety problem. And, when people saw those headlines yesterday in the New York World-Telegram, of having a member of the Commerce Department--and I want to make a distinction between bureaucrats and people like you are, elected representatives, and you are responsible for the people, and these others are the bureaucrats. If he can't understand that the public need is so great to save this railroad, that man really does not have a place in our Government as a bureaucrat.

This is a serious problem and it has been getting more serious every day.

I have been writing letters, Senator Pastore, to Governors and Senators for years about this railroad situation. So this is not a new problem to us.

In retrospect, I would like to talk about our program.

It is a simple program. It is on the back page here.

And all I care, Senator Pastore, is that somebody, and I hope you are the one, or somebody under your excellent leadership, will call a big meeting of the people, the Governors, the Senators, the Representatives from the affected area, the Chairman of the ICC, the trustees, representatives of the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad, and put them all in a big room, and ask them, "How are we going to do this? How are we going to solve the short-haul problem to keep this thing going for the next 2 years, until we solve the longhaul problem?"

Now, our problem simply is this, somebody has got to fork out some money for immediate short-term aid to keep the operation going, the operating deficit.

Senator PASTORE. That is the Ribicoff bill.

Mr. ROSAN. That's right.

Secondly, we need money right now to help rehabilitate existing equipment until we get some new equipment.

Senator PASTORE. That is already provided for by the Pell program. Mr. ROSAN. If we get it.

Senator PASTORE. To answer your question, Mr. Rosan, that is precisely what I have been trying to do.

I think this is the first time, in this critical problem of the New Haven, that we have brought into the same room all these divergent points of view.

The Governors, trustees, members of the ICC, I had them sitting together.

There have got to be negotiations in good faith. We have to sit down, as reasonable people, and say, well, this much of the operating deficit is attributable to the commuter service west of New Haven. Without the idea that we are going to take advantage of it here, and push the load off on somebody else.