DINING CAR AUDIT CONTROL WITH ACCOUNTING MACHINES The principles of the cash register have been used in the development of an accounting machine to improve the audit and control of dining-car revenues, and at the same time facilitate the work of the steward in charge. These machines, styled diner-registers, have a key arrangement in the form shown hereunder : Actual use of a diner-register on one run developed a saving of approximately 90 percent in the time formerly spent by the steward in manually preparing the several dining car reports. Also, the tremendous increase in volume of business done on the diners has been handled in the central accounting office, without any increase in office personnel by reason of the speed and accuracy with which the machine tapes can be audited. While war controls have limited the production of diner-registers, the use made of the limited number available is indicative of the potential benefits. THE USE OF MICROPHOTOGRAPHY IN RAILROAD OFFICES The microphotographic camera has been adapted by railroads to serve many useful purposes. Primarily, the benefits are due to the speed and accuracy with which documents may be copied and the savings which may be made in space required for the storage of records. The camera works at a speed of at least 50 pictures a minute. The film record of 3,000 letter-size sheets may be filed in a receptacle 4 inches square and 1 inch thick. This takes about 5 percent of the space that would be required for the original documents. Some of the purposes to which the railroads have adapted the microphotographic camera are: Photographing passing reports (copy of waybill), less-than-carload billing, cashier's reports, consist reports, traffic reports, photographing customers' shipping order forms, special application. The film record has proved particularly helpful in speeding up the movement of traffic through large terminals. There it is possible by the use of microphotography, to copy the waybills quickly and accurately and release the cars without delay. In other cases, accounting and statistical data have been recorded on films at outlying points and forwarded to the central offices, where the data are transferred to punched cards. This eliminates the handling of large packages through the mail, as well as errors in transcription. EXHIBIT No. 391 REPLY TO QUESTIONNAIRE OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE COMMITTEE ON MILITARY AFFAIRS SUBCOMMITTEE ON WAR MOBILIZATION SUBMITTED BY THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS RESEARCH Question 1. What amounts have been expended for research (a) by the various member roads and (b) by the Association of American Railroads itself, in the past 30 years? Break down these expenditures by decades, and, since 1940, by years. 84949-44-pt. 15-9 Answer. It is impossible to give complete and reliable information as to the amount which the various railroads have expended for research over a period of 30 years, because of the nature of railroad research and of the organization through which it is carried on. Railroad research differs widely from that carried on by companies manufacturing articles for sale. It calls not only for laboratory investigation and work within the four walls of a factory building, but also for extensive field and service testing under a wide variety of conditions. Much of the type of work ordinarily designated as research in other industries, therefore, is not so segregated and specifically labeled on the railroads, where testing and research are carried on in connection with actual operation. To a large extent the same qualification applies to the cooperative research and development work of the railroad industry carried on through 174 technical committees of the operations and maintenance department, Association of American Railroads. These committees are made up of specially qualified and selected railroad men, whose services are contributed by their respective railroads. The officers of the Association of American Railroads, in answering the second part of the question, have used their best judgment as to that proportion of the association's work which is properly attributable to research, broadly defined as efforts directed to the improvement of the art of railroading, as contrasted with efforts involved in carrying on day-by-ray operations. The Association of American Railroads was organized November 1, 1934 and from the period of January 1, 1935, to December 31, 1943, expended for research work as described above the sun of $6,320,374.20. Expenditures by years in this period were as follows: Question 2. What proportion of current revenues is being set aside for research (a) by the member roads and (b) by the Association of American Railroads? Answer. As stated in reply to question 1, we are unable to answer for member roads. The Association of American Railroads budget for these purposes in 1944 is $1,035,957.50, which is 17.7 percent of total budget. Question 3. What is the number of persons currently employed on research (a) by the member roads, and (b) by the Association of American Railroads? What percentages of total employees do these figures represent? How do these percentages compare with the percentages and number in 1935, 1930, 1920, 1918, 1910? Answer. (a) The number of persons currently employed on research by the member roads is not known, nor can it be determined with any degree of exactness. (b) The total number of employees of the Association of American Railroads is currently 825, of whom 207 are employed on research work, as defined in the answer to question 1. For the year 1935 the total number employed by the association was 367, of whom 126 were employed in work which may be classified as research. The association was not in existence in 1910, 1918, 1920, and 1930. Question 4. What provisions do the member roads make for the reporting of new technological advances? What provisions does the Association of American Railroads make for the dissemination of this information, as well as information developed by the association itself? Answer. The technological work of the association is carried on primarily by standing committees of railroad engineers and technicians, with which technicians of the supply manufacturing companies cooperate. The committee members are in contact with all technological advances of consequence, which are reflected currently in the reports made available to all member roads of the association. In this way developments of all sorts, whether worked out on individual railroads, by the Association of American Railroads' staff, or by outside manufacturers are made available to all those interested. Question 5. In planning of research, what provisions does the Association of American Railroads make for the participation of shippers, farmer, labor, consumer groups, inventors, and manufacturers in initiating projects, and for their continuing cooperation? What provisions do the member roads make? Answer. The railroad industry, both through the Association of American Railroads and through the activities of individual railroads, has taken effective steps to secure and make use of information and suggestions from the public and from employees as an aid to the development of improved transportation conditions and practices. Outstanding in the field of customer research is the work of the regional shippers advisory boards, organized as a channel for the exchange of information and suggstions between the railroads and their largest customers, the shippers and receivers of freight. The quarterly car loading forecasts of the shippers advisory boards, upon which the railroads largely rely in organizing and marshalling their car supply to meet anticipated traffic, have come to be regarded as among the most accurate and practically useful of business forecasts. A check of the loadings predicted for each quarter of the past 13 years as compared with actual loadings, shows an average accuracy of more than 974 percent. Suggestions for improvement of transportation practices are referred to and followed up by the executive committees of the boards, composed entirely of shippers. Working with these shippers are contact committees made up of transportation officers of the railroads serving each of the several shippers board territories. The first of these boards was organized in 1923. There are now 13 such boards, covering the entire country, and a national association of the boards, formed in 1935, to deal with subjects which overlap the territories of single boards. Their membership includes nearly 22,000 regular shippers who, among them, direct the movement of probably 90 percent of all the freight which moves in the United States. As part of their organization, during the war, there have been formed 578 local car efficiency committees, covering 808 terminals, to promote the most efficient use of railroads during the emergency. The railroads undertake to secure the benefit of suggestions from passengers as well as shippers, both through contact of railroad passenger representatives with travelers and also through surveys of passenger opinion and reactions, taken by the scientific cross-section sampling method. Those surveys, conducted by the Association of American Railroads, are broken down by regions and made available to all railroads. In addition, individual railroads make their own surveys, while all railroads give consideration to what is learned of passenger desires and attitudes in determining the sort of equipment to be secured and service to be offered. An example of a special survey of passenger preferences is found in the research on air conditioning of passenger cars conducted by the Association of American Railroads in the early stages of this development. Laboratory work was done at the Ohio State University and thousands of actual instrumental field checks were made of temperature, humidity, draft control, bacterial and dust count, etc. Recognizing, however, that the final test in matters of this sort is one of passenger preferences, each of these instrumental field checks was accompanied by questionnaires of the passengers in the car as to their reaction to the condition of the air as measured by the instruments. Most railroads encourage suggestions and ideas from employees, especially those who are in position to observe the actual working out in practice of developments. Several roads have established organized suggestion systems. One such road, in the past 5 years, has received through its suggestion system more than 100,000 suggestions from employees, of which approximately 14,000 have been adopted. To the employees making the suggestions adopted, the railroad has paid $150,000. The railroads are open also to suggestions offered by outside inventors and manufacturers. Part of the regular work of the technical divisions and sections of the Association of American Railroads is to subject all suggestions that appear to have merit to further investigation and research. In addition, the technical divisions and sections of the association keep in close touch with other industrial organizations interested in improvement of the materials and appliances used by the railroads. Question 6. What types of projects are financed directly by the Association of American Railroads? To what extent do the member roads finance Association of American Railroads projects? Their own projects? Answer. The expenses incurred by the Association of American Railroads in carrying on its research work are a part of the general expenses of the Association, all of which are paid by the member roads in proportion to their gross revenues. Essentially, therefore, no research projects are financed directly by the Association of American Railroads as an organization separate and apart from its members, for the Association of American Railroads has no such existence. The projects which are financed from the general treasury of the Association of American Railroads are those of such general application as to justify the expenditure of the money of all railroads, in proportion to their revenues. They include, to name but a few of many, such projects as the further development and improvement of steel rail, rail joints, locomotive design, and designs of freight cars and all their parts. In addition to the research carried on by the railroad industry through the Association of American Railroads, the individual railroads maintain their own laboratories and research projects on subjects in which they are especially interested. No part of the expenses of these projects is borne by the Association of American Railroads. Question 7. What other means have been adopted by the association to stimulate research on the part of member roads? To sponsor the projects of individual inventors and manufacturers of equipment? Of engineering groups? Answer. Research in the railroad industry originates with the recognition of a need and a possibility of improvement in material, design, or operating practice. More often than not, this need and possibility is first recognized by some man or men engaged in railroad work. Sometimes it is recognized by a staff member of the Association of American Railroads, sometimes by outside inventors of manufacturing concerns. Wherever first recognized, the need for and possibility of improvement may be presented to the research offices maintained by the mechanical, engineering, and other divisions of the association, or to some member or members of the standing committees charged with special responsibilities in technical matters. Through these committees, the association offers a means for the investigation of devices and improvements developed in response to need, or suggestions by inventors and manufacturers. In addition, these committees are in contact with various groups of manufacturers including such bodies as American Iron and Steel Institute, through its various committees. American Railway Car Institute, committees on freight car designs and tank car design. Chlorine Institute, committee on tank cars and tank car devices. Coupler manufacturers' mechanical committee. Compressed Gas Manufacturers' Association, committee on tank cars. Four-wheel Truck Association, engineers committee. Locomotive Institute. Rubber Manufacturers' Association, committee on mechanical rubber goods. Technical board of the wrought steel wheel industry. Radio technical planning board. Through its committees, the association is continually pressing upon manufacturers and suppliers of materials the possibilities of improvement in their products. Manufacturers of railway equipment and specialties are continually studying the needs for improvement presented to them by the Association of American Railroads. Engineers and technicians representing manufacturers and suppliers are given the opportunity to cooperate in all research projects affecting the products which they manufacture and sell. Question 8. What major research projects are now under way in the industry and what findings have been made with respect to these projects? Question 9. What funds are currently earmarked for each of these projects? What funds have already been spent? How many persons are employed on each? Question 10. What recommendations has the association made to member roads with respect to any of the foregoing innovations? Answers. To avoid unnecessary repetition, the following list and description of projects are given in answer to questions 8, 9, and 10. The projects are typical of the sort of work carried on in the Association of American Railroads research program. Some of these have been conducted for many years, others have been started recently. Where the projects have progressed to findings and recommendations, these are indicated. Information as to the number of men engaged in each of these research projects is shown where it is available. The number of men working on any partic ular project, however, varies from time to time, and association research personnel are not ordinarily assigned exclusively to any one particular project, but may, at any one time, be engaged in work connected with several. In addition to association personnel, there are also engaged in these projects numerous others, some of whom are assigned to the work by individual railroads particularly interested, and others by manufacturers cooperating in the tests. Members of the appropriate Association of American Railroads committees interested in the testing programs also participate. 1. Interrelations between track and rolling stock. A. Locomotive counterbalance.-Extensive tests have been made on three designs of locomotives for high-speed service, the results of which furnish necessary information leading to the establishment of design practices for the balancing of the locomotive without undue impact effects upon the track and bridge structures. B. Study of maximum allowable wheel loads.-The purpose of this investigation is to determine maximum allowable wheel loads that can be placed on wheels of various diameters without undue damage to the rail and wheel. The investigation so far has given definite indication that there is a relation between cold working of the steel in rail and wheel in relation to the intensity of bearing pressures and it is believed that this investigation will result in definite recommendations on the desirable amounts of bearing pressure. C. Dynamic effect of flat spots of wheels. In service operation flat spots are 'occasionally developed on car wheels as a result of emergency brake applications or defects in the brake equipment. This investigation is for the purpose of determining the impact effects on the rail and wheel as a result of flat spots of various lengths and at all operating speeds for the purpose of establishing necessary precautions in the operation of wheels which have been so damaged. Most interesting development in investigation has been that maximum impacts from flat spots occur at low speeds. Total item 1: Expenditures to Dec. 31, 1943. 2. Rail. $116, 152. 75 37, 500.00 A. Cause and prevention of internal transverse fissures.—Transverse fissures develop inside the rail without visible exterior indication. In 1931, a cooperative investigation of the cause and cure of transverse fissures was started by the rail manufacturers, the association and the University of Illinois. The cause of transverse fissures has been determined and effective means recommended for their prevention by the controlled cooling process added to rail manufacture. After 7 years' experience with controlled cooled rails no true transverse fissure failure has so far developed in service. Association of American Railroads expenditures to Dec. 31, 1943---- $194, 544. 72 Funds earmarked for 1944_ 12, 500. 00 B. Detection of defective rails in track.-In 1925 the American Railway Association arranged for the development and construction of the first transverse fissure detector car. Rail-fissure detector cars have increased in number and in use until today virtually every mile of main line track is tested periodically. Since the development of the first car, continued efforts have been expended toward improvement of the performance in the detection of transverse fissures and other types of rail defects. Very beneficial results have been secured. Total expenditures to March 31, 1944: For equipment_- Development work... Operation and maintenance_ Total Number of Association of American Railroads employees 1944. 1 As required. $109, 294 79, 343 276, 260 464, 897 14 (1) C. Cause and prevention of shelly rail.-This is a comparatively recent investigation which was started as a result of a shelling condition developing on the gage side of rails on curves. Considerable work has been done to determine possibilities of change in the rail contour and experimental rollings of rails so |