Mellon Spur

At 8 a. m. one day last month, 200 laborers turned up for work on the last quarter-mile of a new railroad from Smiths Ferry, Pa. to Negley, Ohio. For more than a year they had been driving through the Allegheny foothills this spur that would cut the cost of coal in the Mahoning Valley 40-c- a ton. The laborers stopped to read some notices posted overnight by a U. S. marshal. No work was done that clay or the next or the next. The notices were a temporary injunction commanding Montour R. R. to cease & desist from all construction. Though few of the construction gang knew it, their work was halted by President Atleroury of Pennsylvania R. R. and his chief competitor, President William-son of New York Central. And the laborers were probably equally ignorant of the fact that the injunction was aimed not at the little 12- 1/2-mi. Montour R. R. spur but at Andrew William Mellon and his brother Richard, who together own working control of Pittsburgh Coal Co. As part of an extensive rehabilitation program, whose object was to restore dividends after an eight-year lapse, Pittsburgh Coal was building this spur to connect with water transportation on the Ohio River. This would shave the cost of hauling coal to Youngstown and Cleveland, perhaps enough to enable Pittsburgh to recapture markets lost to the low-cost producers of the Southern fields. Which meant, of course, that Messrs. Atterbury & Williamson would haul a much smaller chunk of Pittsburgh's 10,000,000-ton annual output. Five years ago the I. C. C. refused Pittsburgh Coal permission to build the 12- 1/2-mi. spur. But in the boardroom of Pittsburgh Coal it was finally decided that I. C. C. permission was superfluous; the spur would be a private road, not a common carrier. Last year construction crews were sent into the wild hills near Smiths Ferry. Into the courts marched the lawyers for orders preventing the contractors from throwing the Montour across county highways. The smart contractors threw their crossings on Sundays when legal papers could not be served. Pennsy tried to stop dredging for a barge terminal on the grounds that it endangered the piers of a Pennsy bridge. And for good measure Messrs. Atterbury & Williamson sought a Federal injunction against the entire project. Pittsburgh Coal merely sent in more steamshovels, kept them working winter nights under the glare of searchlights. When labors ceased last month, grading was practically complete, 12- 1/2-mi. of track had been laid. Fortnight ago Judge West of the U. S. District Court in Cleveland denied Messrs. Atterbury & Williamson a permanent injunction. ''It is true that some deception, or at least sharp practices, were resorted to by the defendant [ Pittsburgh Coal] to secure portions of the right-of-way," observed Judge West, "but the enterprise must be looked upon as a private venture. While the plaintiffs strongly suspected otherwise, they were unable to bring proof to the contrary." Last week the 200 laborers once more laid hands to pick & shovel. The Mellons would soon be hauling their own coal.

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