During 1943, over 100 new heavy-duty freight locomotives were placed in service and more are being built. A number of very advanced locomotive designs, embodying improvements of many kinds, are at present under consideration by the Pennsylvania Railroad and promise to further the efficiency of operation. There is now being designed by the railroad's own engineering staff what it is believed will be the most powerful steam locomotive ever built. Most of the material for this locomotive is now on order. A steam turbine locomotive, designed jointly by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, the Westinghouse Electric Co., and the Pennsylvania Railroad's engineering staff, is under construction and will shortly be delivered for tests in experimental service. It will be the first direct-driven turbine locomotive to be built in this country, and we believe that its possibilities are promising. Specification designs have also been prepared for a powerful turboelectric locomotive, burning pulverized coal. This has been done in collaboration between the eastern group of railroads, the General Elec tric Co., and Babcock & Wilcox, and no doubt, this locomotive will be built in the near future.

Passenger equipment developments.

The value of the research being carried on by the railroad industry is par ticularly exemplified in the improvements made in recent years in the field of passenger equipment. These improvements are described in detail in answers to the questionnaire in the appendix to the statement previously referred to. It is important, however, to note the imposing list of the different features of passenger-car equipment which have been improved by study, consultation, and research of engineers and designers of the various groups of railroads, and manufacturing companies and committees of the Association of American Railroads. Each item of improvement required much more work of this nature than would be likely to be assumed. Air-conditioning for example did not suddenly burst full bloom as a practicable adjunct which could be ordered by the ton or cubic foot; years of experimentation in many fields preceded its first use on railroads. The first installations employing currents of air over water ice have already been supplanted by other schemes and the future holds great possibilities.

The application of sound-proofing insulating materials to car surfaces, walls, ceilings, partitions, etc., seems a simple matter, yet in fact acoustical treatment of steel cars presented problems not previously encountered in ordinary building construction.

Smoother riding appeared so easy to accomplish in automobiles it no doubt seemed a simple matter to the uninitiated to provide improvement in riding qualities of passenger cars, but the solution required years of study and experimentation. Some years ago the nonharmonic spring idea was brought out. This is a combination of helical coiled springs and elliptical leaf springs in the same truck, and since these two types of springs have different characteristics, one tends to break up the bouncing action of the other. More recently the allcoil helical spring truck has come into use. In this truck the free easy riding characteristics of helical springs are used and shock absorbers are employed to prevent bouncing. Also the use of rubber and other shock absorbing materials between metal surfaces, improved brake gear, better maintenance of wheel contours, contributed in no small degree to the improvement in riding qualities of modern passenger cars.

Reinforcing of the car structure to give protection to passengers in event of accidental shocks such as from collision, has been a subject for constant study and is now under particular scrutiny in view of the unforeseen conditions which were encountered in a recent train accident.

Exterior and interior appearances, interior decorations, lighting, floors, and toilet facilities, all have been improved and brought into line with current taste but here again the stylist and specialist requires months of study, investigation, and research; the end result does not indicate the difficulties overcome nor the amount of planning and designing involved.

Comfortable seats and convenient seating arrangements are constantly being sought; much has been learned from automotive and airplane manufacturers, this illustrating that the railroad industry is adapting to its use whatever may be developed in any line of endeavor.

Tight lock couplers for holding cars more tightly together is the recent culmination of years of preliminary work and, as has been mentioned with respect to many other improvements, the end result does not indicate the experimentation and research required in its development.

Freight-car developments.

In the same manner and to the same degree as mentioned in the foregoing with respect to passenger-car developments, an enormous amount of individual and cooperative research work has been devoted to freight-car development.

Decreased dead weight of freight cars has been accomplished in recent years by use of lighter models and changes in designs. Beginning about 1929 experiments were started on the Pennsylvania Railroad with the use of light-weight metal sheets in hopper cars, a total of 162 cars now being in active service under trial. In the construction of 1,900 gondola cars and 1,000 box cars, built in 194042, low alloy high tensile steel has been used to reduce dead weight.

Special feature cars designed for transportation of certain kinds of shipments have been developed by cooperation with shippers and consignees. Automobile racks, automotive part racks, cradles for gun barrels, and other similar devices have been installed to reduce the time and materials required to stow the shipments on cars and to facilitate unloading.

Covered hopper cars have been developed during the past decade after studies and investigations of the needs of industry for a new type of car to handle bulk commodities. Such commodities as aluminum ore, cement, clay, and the like are loaded through hatches in the cover of the car and unloaded from hoppers in the bottom of the car.

In constantly developing improved designs of high capacity flat cars the Pennsylvania Railroad has kept abreast of the increased weight and size of shipments being produced by various manufacturing concerns. Beginning with so-called depressed floor cars of capacity of 210,000 pounds in 1927, the capacity was increased, first to 250,000 pounds and finally in 1938 3 cars were built with a capacity of 375,000 pounds. In 1943 94 flat cars of 190,000 pounds capacity were placed in service for shipment of armor plate, and during the course of the war 50 similar capacity cars were equipped with gun carriage bolsters to operate in pairs to handle heavy caliber guns needed by the armed forces.

Improvements in refrigerator cars which have been recently effected illustrate the cooperative research that is being carried on between the Pennsylvania Railroad and associated organizations. The Pennsylvania Railroad engineers working in collaboration with the Fruit Growers Express Co. have produced new designs for refrigerator cars, investigated the use of dry ice as compared with water ice, and produced refrigerator containers to extend refrigerator-car service to the small shipper. As is the case with improvements effected in passenger trucks, freight-car trucks likewise have been the subject of investigation and research almost continuously since the earliest days of the industry. In 1943 cast-steel side-frame trucks replaced arch-bar trucks on all freight-carrying cars. Improvements of riding qualities of freight cars have been progressed within recent years and three different types of trucks have been developed by the Pennsylvania Railroad, one design making use of the existing standard freightcar truck, and the others requiring entirely new trucks. Combination helicalelliptical springs have been used in one of the schemes, and several other arrangements have been devised to improve the riding qualities of freight-car trucks. Many experimental trucks are in service on the Pennsylvania Railroad at the present time, and their performance is being carefully recorded.

A-B type air-brake equipment was tested out on the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1933. The benefits of better train slack control and better braking under emergency applications warranted the adoption of the new-type air-brake equipment, and a general program of application is now under way, 165,025 freight cars, or approximately 70 percent of the number of cars owned, have been equipped to date.

Electrification of seaboard lines.

In our eastern seaboard territory, comprising the lines of our railroad between New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Harrisburg, it became desirable some years ago, because of the great density of the traffic and the prospect for extensive growth of the industries and population served, to convert the entire operation to electric power. Previously most of the suburban lines in the Philadelphia commuting area had been electrified. The work of through electrification from New York to Washington was completed in 1935, and from Philadelphia to Harrisburg in 1938, so that the entire project was consummated approximately 1 year before the outbreak of the present war in Europe.

The heaviest railroad traffic in the world moves over portions of this electrified trackage, and its volume has increased almost incredibly since the beginning of the war, and especially since the entry of our country into it. It would be mis

leading, of course, to create any inference that this vast electrification project was undertaken with the possibility of another war in mind. Nevertheless, because electrification has greatly increased the flexibility and traffic-handling capacity of this outstandingly important part of our railroad system, the fact that it was accomplished and in operation at the outbreak of the war has been a tremendous factor in enabling the railroad to render successfully some of the most essential wartime service in the entire country.

Our seaboard electrification is the largest single project of the kind in railroad history. It involved many engineering problems, including the designing of a special type of construction for the overhead network carrying the conductors, the working out of suitable alloys for the conductors and supporting network, and the production of a new type of extremely powerful electric locomotive especially adapted to hauling long trains and making high over-all speeds in a territory where major cities are close together, requiring comparatively frequent stops. These problems were worked out and solved through research carried on cooperatively by the engineering staff of our own company and those of the great electric and equipment companies.

The great majority of our New York-Washington trains operate on fast, over-all schedules, the quickest of them covering the 226 miles in 215 minutes, with five intermediate stops, and with top speed limited to 80 miles. Taking into consideration the number of intermediate stops, together with high over-all speed of 63 miles per hour, these are quite possibly the most remarkable train runs in the world at the present time. They could not be made except for the rapid acceleration and deceleration of the specially designed electric locomotives.

It is also noteworthy, and I think reflects most creditably upon the foresight, courage, and faith of our railroad's directors and executive officers that this electrification work was carried out during the worst years of the great depression, that is, from 1930 to 1938. In 1933, when the project was well under way, normal channels of financing became completely closed, but the railroad arranged for loans from the Federal Government to tide over the emergency and was thus able to continue affording employment to thousands of men who had been out of work. I may add that the loans were long ago repaid in full.

AGE OF EQUIPMENT AND RENOVATION OF OUTMODED EQUIPMENT

It is hoped the subcommittee will carefully consider the answers to the questions of the questionnaire on this subject which are included in the appendix previously referred to. Particular attention is also directed to exhibits 1 and 2 of the appendix, which show graphically the trends of traffic, ownership of equipment, and operating results between 1917 and 1944.

These questions would seem to imply that the railroads were unprepared for their huge wartime responsibility. This is definitely disproven; in fact, the answers are just as applicable to a more friendly and obvious question frequently expressed in many quarters, "How have the railroads of this country been able to perform the miracle of wartime transportation?”

Between the First World War and this war was a period of catastrophic falling off of railroad passenger carrying business. The number of passengers handled between 1929 and 1933 on the Pennsylvania Railroad declined so rapidly in these 4 years that by 1933 more than half of the traffic had disappeared. In 1929 the traffic was 84 percent of that of 1917; in 1933 it was 40 percent; in 1940 it was 68 percent, and then came the war, and in 1943 it was 241 percent. During this period the number of cars owned and their seating capacity were not materially reduced; in 1929 the seating capacity of cars owned was 89 percent of that of 1917; in 1933 it was 82 percent; in 1940 it was 79 percent; and in 1943 it was 84 percent.

As to locomotives, the number of locomotives owned in 1943 was practically one-half the number owned in 1917, however, and this is most important, the tractive power of the locomotives was decreased only about one-fifth. This means that during the period 1929 to 1940, there was an enormous surplus of passenger engines in relation to the passenger traffic to be handled. With this brief explanation the situation may be summarized that the reason the Pennsylvania Railroad had less passenger cars and locomotives at the beginning of this war than at the beginning of the last war is that it had no need for them. With more cars and locomotives on hand than there was actual or foreseen need, it would not have been sound business sense to continue to maintain unnecessary old equipment or build new equipment. No other policy could possibly have been justified on any theory of efficient management.

With respect to freight equipment, between 1917 and 1943 the total tractive power of freight locomotives was increased 3.6 percent and the number decreased 31.2 percent. The carrying capacity of freight cars was decreased 2.5 percent and the number decreased 12 percent. As was the case with passenger equipment, efficient management required the current adjustment of ownership and capacity of equipment to the actual and foreseen demands.

The management of the Pennsylvania Railroad was fully justified in its action in these matters by the results the railroad operations achieved during the presen. war period. Every obligation to handle the war load has been completely fulfilled. Two and one-half times the 1917 passenger load and one and one-half times the 1917 freight load is the score for 1943.

And how was this accomplished? The ability of our railroad, which is typical of the railroads in general, to haul far more traffic in this war than in the last war, with materially fewer units of equipment, is not due alone to the fact that the equipment today is much better, cars larger, and engines more powerful. Another element is the fact that new and greatly improved methods of utilizing the equipment have been developed. Engines, and consequently trains, are operated many more miles a day. Locomotives, because of improved design, spend less time in engine houses for attention. Quick turn-around of trains at terminals, especially in the passenger service, increases the utilization of equipment. Trains carry many more cars and the cars are more heavily loaded. Shippers have cooperated splendidly in reducing the time required to load and unload cars, and in loading cars to capacity whenever possible. As a result of these and other helpful factors too numerous to mention, every unit of equipment is producing at the present time far more service than was possible with the equipment and methods of 1918.

Our freight cars in 1943 were making two round trips between shipper and consignee in less time than was required in 1917 to make one round trip, so that every car was handling twice as much freight in a given length of time as 27 years ago.

The most important single test of efficiency in the handling of freight is the gross tons of freight and equipment moved 1 mile for each hour of train operation, because that directly measures the amount of work done in any hour by a freight train and its crew. In 1943 this more than doubled the performance of 1917. If the improvements in equipment and operating techniques that have been achieved since 1917 had not been made, we would have required, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, in order to handle the freight traffic of 1943, almost four times as many locomotives as were actually used. Such a number of locomotives, of course, could not have possibly been obtained, and the amount of service we would have been able to perform would have been greatly reduced, to the most serious detriment of the war effort.

The developments which I have just outlined have all come under my personal observation. As superintendent of freight transportation, between 1928 and 1933, I participated in the work of running out the remaining mileage of engines and getting them to the scrap heap. I sat in at conferences and discussions on ways and means to improve freight locomotives and cars so as to adapt them more closely to shippers' requirements, and at the same time make them capable of hauling larger pay loads and at lower costs for each ton carried 1 mile. Before that, as superintendent and trainmaster, I helped to devise ways of getting trains over the road more quickly, by passing yards, and in general hauling increasing tonnage per train at increasing speeds.

Answers and supporting data relating to lightweight cars, the extent to which they have been introduced and to the amount of equipment it is contemplated will be maintained after the war are shown in the appendix in considerable detail and will not be discussed further at this time. Sufficient to say, that in general, research and development work on the Pennsylvania Railroad will continue to be advanced, as in the past, in the interest of providing the most satisfactory and efficient passenger service possible.

In the answers to questionnaire contained in the appendix referred to previously it was stated no answers were given to the questions under this heading as they did not apply to an individual railroad.

As chairman of the committee on operating rules of the Association of American Railroads, and of the system train rules committee of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the subject is, however, of particular interest to me. The question arose in

my mind as to the reason for including these questions in this manner. It is to be inferred that it is believed a railroad cannot be operated safely without a block system under any circumstances. If this is the inference to be drawn from these questions, it would be incumbent upon me to attempt to dispel the misconception because I am confident it is not true of many portions of railroads throughout the country. If the rules and instructions which have been developed by individual and cooperative study, consultation, and research of the railroads and the Association of American Railroads are invoked and obeyed, trains can be safely operated without a block system anywhere, although with dense traffic it is obviously impracticable in many instances. Block systems of various degress of dependence upon machines are properly being employed to afford safeguards against mistakes and failures to obey the rules on the part of railroad employees and to facilitate railroad operations on lines of railroad where the density of traffic and other conditions justify them. Under many conditions block systems are a practical economic necessity but under other conditions there can be no justification for block signaling either in the interest of safety or of efficiency.

AUTOMATIC BLOCK SYSTEMS AND AUTOMATIC TRAIN CONTROL SYSTEMS

As shown in the answers to the questionnaire in the appendix to the statement previously mentioned, the Pennsylvania has an investment of over $25,000,000 in automatic block and cab signal systems, exclusive of interlocking plants, many of which are an integral part of the block and cab signal system, and represent an investment of about $30,000,000. Somewhere between $55,000,000 and $60,000,000 are invested in signaling on the Pennsylvania Railroad, the maintenance of which costs almost $5,000,000 annually.

As to program of extension of automatic block systems, it should be emphasized that the 2,000 miles of line proposed to be equipped with automatic block systems at a cost of over 91⁄2 million dollars is already operated under a different form of block system and no question of safety of operation of trains is involved.

SWITCH LOCKS, ROLLER BEARINGS, IMPROVED AIR BRAKES, COMBUSTION

The answers to the questionnaire in the appendix previously mentioned and the testimony of other witnesses for the industry as a whole are believed to adequately cover the subjects of switch locks, roller bearings, improved air brakes, and combustion, and no further comment is therefore offered.

RADIO COMMUNICATIONS

On February 11 Mr. William S. Halstead appeared before this committee in the capacity of a manufacturer of radio apparatus and testified with reference to the development of radio traffic control for use on railroads. His discussion carried particular interest because, at that time, certain radio commentators and columnists were erroneously imputing remissness to the railroads in not equipping trains with radio telephone apparatus. This charge was specifically related to two serious accidents, one on the Atlantic Coast Line and one on the Pennsylvania, the opinion was voiced that both of these wrecks could have been prevented had the radio telephone been available. Mr. Halstead expressed the same opinion in his testimony, especially to the effect that the wreck of the Congressional on the Pennsylvania could have been avoided had radio been installed in the cab of the freight train, the engineman of which noticed something wrong with the Congressional as it passed his train just before the accident occurred.

RADIO AND RAILROAD ACCIDENTS

I believe the views of Mr. Halstead and of the commentators and columnists are unfounded, both as to the Atlantic Coast Line accident and the one on our railroad. In the case of the Congressional, the accident occurred about 60 seconds after the freight engineman noticed fire and smoke issuing from one of its axles as it passed. It is not within the realm of reasonable possibility that he could have done anything quickly enough to have been of avail.

In the case of the Atlantic Coast Line wreck, three cars on the end of a southbound train were derailed, broke loose, and came to a stop, fouling the adjacent track. The remainder of the train continued on behind the engine for approximately half a mile. In the darkness, neither the conductor nor the engineman 84949-44-pt. 15—13