Evening Star Newspaper, October 18, 1931, Page 86

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., OCTOBER 18, 1931, QUEER RAILROAD RIDDLES BY DOROTHEA J. LEWIS. VER since the rickety and wheezy little locomotive known as the Stourbridge Lion, clipped off 10 miles an hour on a 16-mile run across Pennsylvania in the Summer of 1829 and gave America its first steam railroad operation, the railroad business has been turning out riddles for industry and government to solve. Some of these riddles, today, look rather quaint. Others look anything but quaint, and aroe engrossing the earnest thought of some of the best minds in the Nation. Even that first trip of the Stourbridge Lion on the line between Honesdale and Carbondale, Pa., offcred its riddles. Nearly everybody bui the engineer, for instance, half expected that the first trestle over a river would collapse un- der the en3ine’s weight. Luckily, it didn't, and American railroading got off to a geod start. Incidentally, an echo of that famous trin popped up only recently, when the Interstate Commerce Commission approved an applica- tion to abandon service on the line over whica the run was made. Born in 1887, the commission today is the body to which railroad riddles are referred. It gets nearly 5,000 of them each year, and in solving them it controls freight and passenger rates throughout the United States, details of competition, finaneial affairs and general con- duct of 21l lines in the Nation. Its chief riddle today is the question of ap- proving or rejecting the railroads’ application for a 15 per cent freight rate increase. In 1829, when the 16-mile Honesdale branch of the Delaware & Hudson Railroad was the longest road in this country—though several horse-pulled lines of less than 10 miles existed —the great railroad problems were: 1. Which will be less expensive and more practical—horse-pulled or some kind of engine- pulled trains? 3 Shall the railroads of the Nation be single or double track? 3. Is chain better than rope to attach to sta- tionary engines to help pull train ‘“‘wagons” up steep inclines? Is anything better than billow- ing sails tied to cars for stopping sudden descent down steep inclines? NE HUNDRED AND TWO years age, young Horatio Allen, pioneer railroader, met rail- roads’ problems by going adventurously t3 Eng- land to lpok at locomotives, coming back eager and enthused with four of them, and proving their practicality two months before the famous Rainhill trials did the same thing in England. Today the 11 members of the I. C. C. are toiling in the heat, sticking at their desks delving into decisions Sundays, holidays and late at night. They are used to great problems, though, these 11. Last year, amid thousands of major and minor decisions requiring $175,000 worth of printing and binding, they put out lengthy and involved decisions in the Western trunk line cases and the Eastern class rate investiga- tion, and also gave relief to farmers by lowering agricultural rates in the Western grain rale case. They carried on more than 30 investigations of great importance, including the problem of consolidation of railroads into a few great sys- tems and the problem of motor bus regulation. Yet not all ef their problems are grave and solemn. There is much that is humorous, many obscure but welcome complaints and cases, whigh, perhaps serious in themselves, become ridiculous to a disinterested observer. For example: What is the value of junk? Enough to cause a three or four months’ bat- tle of railroads before the commission conecern- ing the proper freight rates on shipments ef Jjunk, HE particular junk under fire was that shipped from points in North and South Dakota to Minnesota and Nebraska. The Da- kotas, primarily agricultural States, went on record as not being awfully good as collectors of junk-—and that was what the fight was about. / N A number of railroads proposed a compli- cated series of changes in junk rates. The of- ficial objection of the junk dealers was not One of the railroad riddles of e ceMury ago w Interesting Contrast Betzoeen the First Rail- road Lazvs of 100 Years Ago and the 5,000 Tough Cases Now Solved Annually by the Interstate Commerce Commission. ‘A locometive of a century ago. The famous “Tom Thumb,” which the Balti- more & Ohio put in service in 1830, and, in the background, a locomotive of the present day for comparison. ~ concerned with rates, but with the proposed minimun loading weight of 50,000 pounds. The Board of Railroad Commissioners of South Da- kota protested, arguing “it is impractical to make carload shipments of 50,000 pounds of junk accumulated normally in this territory. « « « Junk collects slowly here. . . .” Besides, the Dakota junk dealers had to coimpete with Kansas junk dealers and Arizona junk dealers and junk dealers in other States, who have a nice low minimum weight of 30,000 pounds—and that helped the fight along. Just what did the junk in question consist of? Oh, the usual sort of junk—bones, broken glass, horns, old cotton, old leather, old rope, scrap iron and just plain scrap and waste paper. Nothing was said about old razor blades. Imagine 50,000 pounds of that—or even 30,000! Then a group of transcontinental railroads desiring to play Santa Claus to Northwestern shippers nearly spoiled the last holiday season for many Christmas tree dealers in Maine, the Christmas tree State. They sought lower rates on Christmas trees, branches and bushes shipped from British Columbia, California, Idaho, Mon- tana, Oregon and Washington to New Eng- land. They're no longer sending coals to Newcastle. They're shipping pine trees to the Pine Tree State now. LL horses on the Western range do not grow into strong. sure-footed, trusty “Pintos” and “Bflver Kings.” Some, who eat too much of the grass and drink too much of the water that should go to grazing sheep, are labeled “good for nothing but slaughter” and shipped to North Central States to reach an ignominious end as food for royal silver foxes on fox farms. The commis- sion has received many complaints lately eon- cerning the freight rates these horses destined to make fat foxes and sleek pelts. ‘The abandonment of a short line of railroad, such as the Honesdale branch, is proposed on the average of one every two weeks, and though they lack the history and romance of that line, which crossed Moosic Mountain’ and wound through Rip Gap, each has its little tragedy or comedy lurking not so far in the background. One of the most interesting abandonments permitted during the past year was that of the Death Valley Railroad in California. It was constructed in the vague hope that in spite of the unendurable heat of the hellish * valley visitors might be attracted to the famous place: to say they had been there, to visit its borax mines and to feel its heat. A Summer hotel born of the same Tope gave up the ghost long ago. Very many of the proposed abandonments are not allowed because of a conflict with “the publie interest.” PATHETIC case is that of the little town of Fontana, Wis.,, which wanted a model main street and sought to have tracks removed from its principal thoroughfare so that it might be properly paved with cement. Yet the very existence of a sand and gravel pit on its outskirts, producing material used in cement, proved its undoing. For the owners of the pit decided to resume operations aban- doned years before and petitioned the railroad as whether cars should be pulled by locomotives or horsts, and‘in a race held in 1830 the horse won. Today the big riddle is whether giants like the one at the top of the page can boost their freight gharges 15 per cent. to continue the line, promising to ship 4,900 carloads a year. So, in spite of the Utopian pleas of the pres- ident of the little town, commercialism wen and the railroad withdrew its plea for abandonment. Dust still rises from the road beside the glisien< , ing tracks. These petitions for abandonment carry many tales of cut-down forests in once virgin timber land, of industries that failed, of deserted vil- lages and farms and of families and friends scattered from once prosperous, busy industrial territory. They tell also of the ever-growing competition of busses and trucks. They tell of worn-out tracks and of old-tiTte engines no longer able to make more than 20 miles an hour. EFINITIONS of terms are frequent and ime portant in the work of the commission, and one of the most unusual is the labeling of potatoes as fruit for shipping purposes. A question arose concerning the free transe portation of “supervisors or caretakers of poe tatocs”—to heat cars in the Winter shipping. It developed, according to the statute that only “caretakers” could get passes and the com= mission ruled that ‘“supervisors” weren't ‘“‘caree takers,” even if potatoes were ‘‘fruit.” A recent controversy concerned itsef with the similarity of tobacco, checkers, dominoes and air rifles—solely for transportation classifi- cation. And now peanut shippers come forth with the startling announcement to a waiting world that “peanuts really aren’t anything like cottonseed hulls.” In its capacity as regulator of wireless, the Interstate Commerce Commission has received a complaint asking $10,000 from the Postal Telegraph Co.—and, at the same time, Western Union is also the defendant in a case before the commission, though only to the tune of $16. The startlingly named company, Bad Girl, Incorporated, brought suit against Postal charg- ing that that company refused to carry ticket orders for iis show over the wires as cheagly as it carried them for other New York pro=- ductions. = The telegraph company had a prompt and adequate reply. The fight has not been refereed yet. AD GIRL, INC, is the producer of that frank and fameus novel. . Luhther Burbank's widow is the complain- ant against Western Union. It seems she sent an identical telegram asking aid for Burbank's successors to 16 Senators, all in the Senate Office Building in Washington, but Western Union charged the full rate from Oalifornia for each of the 16 messages delivered in the same building instead of getting co-operative about it. Prohibition has greatly increased the sale of ginger ale. That the Cloyerdale Springs Co. i3 ready to prove with faets, figures and freight loadings, but whether the increased shipments are taken straight or mixed with—well, some= thing else—doesn't seem to be an issue in a case before the commission. The company asserts that ginger ale should be given come modity rates such as are accorded bulk shipe ments rather than the higher class rates. Passenger rates are seldom in issue before the commission, but Wisconsin is being charged higher fares than its neighbors and doesn't like it. A transfer charge at Chicago is added to Wisconsin passengers’ fares and not to those of Minnesota folks. Take it away or add it to the neighbors says the Badger State. Nothing before the commission in months has been productive of crank letters and hu- morous objections, as well as serious pleas, as has the blanket freight rate increase proposal. Even the publishers of the detective, love, movie and home magazines on display on five and ten cent store counters, to say nothing of an under- taker in Michigan whe fears that incieased rates will restrict his caskets to local consump= tion, have filed protests. A Texan protests, stating that he is “probe ably a lone voice crying in the wilderness,” but anyhow is “agin it.” The lone voices, how= ever, are the supporters of the proposal. NE supporter comes forth with a prophecy of “brushing away the dark clouds of de= pression and substituting s beautiful raine bow of hope symbolizing the dawn of a new prosperity,” and this, according to its author, is “not flowery, just horse sense.” - Amid the protests even the prophet Nahum of 713 B. C. is quoted: “The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall jostle against one another, they shall seem like torches, they shall run like lightnings.” But a gentleman from Milwaukee is most outspoken in his ire. Railroad salaries musé be cut, for “those fellows” don't earn much, “water must be squeezed from railroad stock™ and bankruptcy court is the proper place for all roads. He concludes impressively: “You had better go slow, for the people will soon be in Washington with ropes.” To which the commission with its great calm, cool dignity and sense of humor replied: “Yours of the 13th received in regard to the railroad situation.”