US average tons handled per loaded car: 24.31
US average tons per train: 611
[Daggett, pp. 668-69, via Annual Report, 1924, ICC, pp. 105-06]
US railroad employment: 1,626,834
US railroad compensation: $2,640,817,005
US average compensation per hour: .613
US average compensation per employee: $1,623
(Includes General and Divisional Officers)
[Daggett, p. 660, via Annual Report on the Statistics of Railways in
the United States, ICC, 1922, p. xxi]
1924
December 31
Estimated cost of the USRA is set at $1,123,500,000.00. [Daggett, p.
650]
NOTES:
Most traffic was eastbound, to Middle Atlantic States and New England;
German submarine campaign slowed and destroyed shipping; Foreign
merchant fleets recalled; US merchant fleet nearly nonexistent;
Coastal shipping affected; Operating revenues decline ten percent
between 1920-21; Railroad employment is cut 15 percent in 1921; Wage
reductions averaging 12 percent become effective July 1, 1921;
Operating ration declines from 94 to 82 in 1921, and average under 75
for the remainder of the decade. [Stover, p. 197]
''The Fuel Administrator for New England state that removing
coal-carrying vessels from coastwise service was equivalent to pulling
up a four track railroad in his section. This movement as compared
with rail and ocean, doubled the number of car days.'' [Loree, p. 284]
The total cost of coal and locomotive fuel nearly doubled between 1916
and 1918, although the total freight movement in the period increased
by only 11 percent. [Stover, p. 192]
[Average] operating ratio is 65.6 in 1916, 70.4 in 1917, 81.5 in 1916,
85.5 in 1919, and 94.3 in 1920. [Stover, p. 193]
COMMENTARY
I think the points
made, that the USRA was effective as a war-time expedient, but not
especially desirable for the railroad's owners, are well supported by the
evidence shown. The dispute between J. Krutschnitt and the USRA freight
car design committee underscores the problems involved in such an
undertaking. Krutschnitt's arguments may well be true--but these sort of
disagreements over design were long-standing. One of the problems with
standardizing safety equipment (grab-irons, end ladders etc.) in the 19th
century was the disagreement between railroad companies and car-builders
dragged on until it was resolved by the Safety Appliance Act of 1910.
Public calls for nationalization before 1915 seem to have been declining
as the Populists disappeared, and the more radical elements (socialists,
anarchists) came to be viewed by an increasing number of Americans as
dangerous subversives. However, we should note that in much of the world,
World War I was a watershed, with France and Great Britain moving toward
national ownership of railroads. In Britain, the war-time expedients were
followed by grouping the railways of the UK into four operating groups. A
similar proposal in the US did not come to pass--but proposals to group
the railroads of the US into a smaller number of large systems was
considered--as we have seen on this list. Private ownership of the US
railroads managed to perform efficiently during World War II, and after
the war, the railroads rushed to dieselize and modernize. In Britain the
war-time government under Churchill was swiftly voted out, and a
left-leaning government was voted in--and promptly proceeded to
nationalize the four grouped railways into British Railways. British
Rail's experiences are probably best left to one of our UK members, but
let me conclude by pointing out that fifty years later, privatization,
rather than nationalization seems to be the trend.
Is the United States better off with four (or two) large, genuinely
transcontinental railroads instead of one (the USRA?) Probably too soon to
say. But, much of the increased productivity gained under the Staggers
Act is probably attributable to changing the work rules on the US
railroads to fit the present technology more closely than that of the 1915
period. My final conclusion--the USRA was an effective war-time
expedient, but not any great savings to the nation's tax-payers. The
USRA locomotive designs were a success, the freight cars may have been
less so, though I suspect that given the conservative nature of most
railroad design engineers, over-design was likely. An interesting, and
often overlooked subject!
-Charles Mutschler, 30 Jun 1997, The Railroad List, RAILROAD@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
THE PLAYERS:
DAGGETT, STUART
Professor of Transportation, University of California.
Office: Berkeley, California.
Born: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, March 2, 1881.
Son of: George and Marion Chapin (Stuart) Daggett.
Married: Constance Dorothea De Ronden-Pos, May 19, 1910.
Children: Carlos (Deceased), Stuart, Jr., and Marion.
Education: Harvard University (A.B. 1903, A.M. 1904, Ph.D. 1906).
Career: Instructor, Harvard University, 1906-09; Assistant Professor,
University of California, 1909-14; Associate Professor, same school,
1914-17; Professor, 1917--. Dean, College of Commerce, 1920-27.
Author: ''Railroad Reorganization West of the Mississippi,'' 1908;
''Chapters on the History of the Southern Pacific,'' 1922; ''Principles of
Inland Transportation,'' 1928.
Clubs and fraternities: American Economic Association; Sigma Alpha
Epsilon. Unitarian. Independent politically.
Home address: 1427 Hawthorne Terrace, Berkeley, California.
p. 121
JONES, ELIOT
Professor or Railway Transportation, Leland Stanford University.
Office: Stanford University, California.
Born: Grinnell, Iowa, February 12, 1887.
Son of: Richard D. and Carrie (Grinnel) Jones.
Married: Amy Eleanor Jenckes, June 20, 1914 (died March 7, 1927); Mrs.
Isabel Charles, June 17, 1929.
Children: Eliot, Jr.
Education: Vanderbilt University (B.A. 1906), Harvard University (M.A.
1908, Ph.D. 1913).
Career: Instructor, Harvard University, 1912, since when he has been
engaged as follows: 1913-14, Instructor, University of Pennsylvania;
1914-16, Associate Professor, Iowa State University; 1916-17,
Professor, University of Texas; 1917-20, Associate Professor, Stanford
University; 1920--, Professor, University of Illinois; Summers, 1920,
1921, 1924, Professor, University of California; Summer, 1925,
Professor, University of Chicago.
Vice Chairman, Education Institutions Commission of Pacific Coast
Transportation Advisory Board, 1927--; Vice President, American
Economics Association, 1925; President, Pacific Coast Association of
Schools of Business and Departments of Economics, 1923; National
Council of National Economic league; Royal Economic Society; Examiner,
Federal Trade Commission, 1917; Expert, War Industries Board, 1918.
Author of ''The Anthracite Coal Combination in the US,'' 1915; ''The
Trust Problem in the US,'' 1921; ''Principles of Railway
Transportation,'' 1924; ''Railroads--Cases and Selections'' with H.B.
Vanderblue. 1925; and articles on railway subjects.
Methodist. Independent in politics.
Clubs and fraternities: Los Altos Golf and Country; Sigma Nu; Phi Beta
Kappa.
Home address: 611 Salvatierra Street, Stanford University, California.
p. 270
LOREE, LEONOR FRESNEL
President, Delaware and Hudson Co., and Chairman of Executive
Committee, Kansas City Southern Railway.
Office: 32 Nassau Street, New York.
Born: Fulton City, Illinois, August 23, 1858.
Son of: William Mulford and Sarah Bigelow (Marsh).
Married: Jessie Taber, January 29, 1885.
Children: James Taber, Robert Fresnel, and Mrs. David M. Collins.
Education: Rutgers University, (B.S. 1877; M.S. 1880; C.E. 1896; LL.D.
1917).
Entered railway service: 1887 as assistant in engineer corps, PRR,
serving in this capacity until 1879. His subsequent career has been as
follows: 1897-81, transitman, US Army Corps of Engineers; 1881-83,
leveler, transitman, and topographer on preliminary survey and
location, Mexican National Ry.; 1883-84, Assistant Engineer, Chicago
Division, PRR Lines West of Pittsburgh; 1184-89, Engineer, maintenance
of way, on various divisions, same lines; 1889-96, Division
Superintendent, same lines; 1896-1901, General Manager, same lines;
1901, Fourth Vice President, same lines; 1901-04, President, Baltimore and Ohio;
1904, President, Rock Island and Chairman of the Executive Committee,
same road; 1906--, Chairman of the Executive Committee, KCS; 1907--,
President, Delaware and Hudson, also president and director of 35 companies controlled
or affiliated with same; 1926-28, Chairman of the Board,
Missouri-Kansas-Texas; Director, Erie, National Railways of Mexico,
and Wheeling and Lake Erie; 1898-1901, President, American Railway
Association; 1913--, Chairman, Eastern Group, Presidents' Conference
Committee on Valuation.
Devised lap-passing track and improvements in train dispatching
system. Supervised intensive development of PRR Lines West to handle
great business following 1898 revival. Organizer of the first railroad
police. Developed system of disbursement accounting later standardized
by ICC. Inventor of the upper quadrant semaphore signal.
Member or Chairman of several boards cooperation with government
during World War, including the War Labor Board; 1928--, President,
Chamber of Commerce of State of New York; Trustee, Rutgers University
and New Jersey College for Women.
Author, Railroad Freight Transportation (1922) [written while
bedridden in 1920 and dedicated to PRR's A.J. Cassatt and UP's E.H.
Harriman ''It was my fortune to be associated upon terms of intimacy
with both these men, and to have rendered them some poor service.''].
Clubs and fraternities: Metropolitan, Century, Brook, Union League,
Midday, Bankers, all of New York; Baltusrol Golf, Short Hills, New
Jersey; Essex County Country, Orange, New Jersey; Rock Spring Country,
West Orange, New Jersey; Automobile Club of America [also founder of
the Newcomen Society in North America]. pp. 313-14.
SOURCES:
Jones, Eliot Principles of Railway Transportation New York: Macmillan,
1929
Loree, Leonor Fresnel Railroad Freight Transportation New York:
Appleton, 1922
Stover, John F. American Railroads Chicago [Ill.]: The University of
Chicago Press, 1961 Who's Who in Railroading Ninth Edition Simmons Boardman: New York,
1930
EPILOGUE: ROUTE OF THE GREAT BIG BAKED POTATO
For many years the Northern Pacific's Commissary Building in Seattle
was decorated with a giant diorama of the road's renown baking potato.
The designers of this unique advertisement included a giant fork, pat
of butter, and electric-lit 'eyes' that winked at passersby.
As World War One and nationalization loomed, Northern Pacific
Vice-President George Theron Slade killed the pride of the dining cars
and the road's self-made moniker. The potatoes were pulled for the
duration, as ''...An economic war measure.'' --Auburn, Washington Globe-Republican, May 11, 1917