Vagabond Editorials

Bv Jack Dionne

Not long ago I used most of my Vagabond space in one issue discussing the progress being made by the railroads in improving their public service. Since that time I have listened to a very up-standing railroad executive deliver a most forceful public address in which he plead for release of the railroads from crippling rules, regulations, and legislation which, he said, have long been ham-stringing the rails, and threatening their final destruction.

I very much agree with this railroad man. lfowever, I'm inclined to think that what the railroads need is prodding of a different character; prodding that will force them to go permanently into the business of searching out and creating improvements in their own business. For the railroads have been of that often discussed class of people who stand so close to the trees that they cannot see the forest. Most of their progress has come from people entirely outside their own ranks, business, and profession. rF tF**

The eight greatest strides the railroads made in the nineteenth century-the telegraph, the sleeping car, the autornatic-$ock signd system, the air brake, the refrigerator car,'lhe automatic ear coupler, the vestibule bufrer, and the electric locomotiv+-were all created by people far removed',from railroad service. fsn't that interesting?

Thgy used to couple their cars together with the primitive link and pin method, which started and stopped and ran the trains vvith torturing jolts. Eli H. Janney, a clerk in a dry goods store, saw that something had to be done about it, so he created and patented the first automatic car coupler.

A school teacher named Moses G. Farmer designed the first electric locomotive. We are inclined to think off-hand, that the electric locomotive is something new and modern. But this school teacher designed the first one way back in 1847.

*** tf*r|( rl. * ,k tF*rft rt*!t

A doctor who ran his own sanitarium, his name was Ifosea W. Libbey, invented another tremendous forward step in railroading when he created the vestibule bumper that made it possible to eliminate open platforms between cars, and which likewise served to cushion the jolts of starting and stopping.

Two of the most vital things in railroading are, of course, the telegraph and the automatic block signal system, both vital in dispatching trains, keeping them located, and preventing more than one train being on the same piece of track at the same time. The automatic block signal system was devised by Thomas Seavey Hall, a retired textile manufacturer, of Massachusetts.

You can hardly think of railroad service without telegraphy, can you? The land telegraph first found its widest use with the railroads. Its inventors were Wheatstone, an English professor of Philosophy; and Morse, the American, whose profession was that of an artist.

Westinghouse uras a 23 year old kid whose sole experience was fooling around his father's carpenter and machine shop when he invented the air brake. Prior to that time all railroad brakes had to be set by hand, which crude method was so terrible that the young rnan witnessed it a few times and was shocked into doing something about it.

Pullman, who invented the sleeping car with folding berths, was a street contractor in Chicago when he got the idea. He built several of these cars in 1859 and got the Chicago & Alton to use them. But it was another ten years before they were adopted as necessary train equipment. Pullman moved to Colorado and made a living managing a store during the time he was perfecting his car and getting the railroads to accept it.

The railroads have always been and are still today lacking in research facilities and activities. In the last generation research in other industries has built such tremendous industries as the automobile, the radio, aviation, telephone, electric, chemical, and others. In 1900 when the first automobile show was held in New York City, one third of the cars shown were electric, most of the rest were steam; little was thought of gasoline for motor fuel, and there wasn't a motor truck on earth. Think of that ! And look at the automobile industry today. And look at the oil industry which grew with and by reason of the automobile industry. Research did it.

*rftt

And when the first streamlined train appeared a few years ago to which the railroads pointed with pardonable pride and the public rushed to see, it was found that the streamlining was a result of aviation and automotive research; the roller bearings on the silent wheels were made by Timken, a famous automobile supply man; the qngine was built by Winton, a General Motors subsidiary. The train itself was built by Budd, an automobile body and wheel manufacturer, out of stainless steel developed by Henry Ford.

***

The motor vehicle is naturally frequently referred to as the chief and vital competitor of the railroads. True. Yet one of its greatest customers. In the past ten years the railroads have hauled no less than THIRTY-TWO MILLION CARLOADS of automobiles, trucks, trailers, parts, accessories, tires, road materials, gasoline and oil. Some business! The total revenue to the roads from this transportation was in excess of four and a quarter billions of dollars. Freight by and from the autornotive industry today represents about 13 per cent of the total tonnage the railroads carry.

But the railroads have gone into the truck and bus operating business themselves; and are going in deeper every day. Ten years ago the railroads of this country owned about 1,600 trucks or busses. In 1930 this had increased to 7,(X)0. Last year it was above 48'(X)O,'and increasing at