Failure in '43?

The price for one bad piece of rail last week was 72 lives (see p. 20). Next year on the railroads, the highways, and in the air, the price of neglect may be higher. In a fact-packed report on transportation the Truman Committee last week bluntly warned WPB and the Services that no further miracles could be expected from the overworked, undersupplied carriers. Only a generous quantity of new equipment and replacement parts can prevent a critical transportation breakdown in 1944.

The Rails. The railroad plant is wearing out faster than it is being replaced. Half the freight cars and passenger coaches are more than 20 years old, locomotives are limping along without major overhauls, roadbeds are rough and many are dangerous. Yet WPB has consistently cut down the allocation of materials the railroads have set as their minimum needs. Thus the rails' plea for 2.1 million tons of new rail in 1943 was slashed to 1.5. Result: derailments are dangerously frequent. Anticipating the 15% increase in freight ton-miles in 1943, the carriers begged for at least 80,000 new freight cars, finally got less than 28,000. Total expenditures for maintenance this year will be $200 million less than the railroads wanted to spend.

The Truman Committee reasons that there is little sense in producing war materials next year if the railroads are unable to deliver the output.

The Highway. Even more illogical to the Committee is the vast horde of trucks held by the War Department, while the 4,500,000 civilian trucks are rapidly falling apart. This year civilian truckers got only 54,000 new trucks, about one-tenth their 1941 truck replacements, and only 31,000 vehicles are left in the reserve pool.

After much prodding, the Committee got word that in 1943-44 the War Department will procure for its own use and that of the British and Russian forces, 1.4 million new trucks. The report, tactfully but to the point, suggested that nearly a million and a half trucks, added to "the very substantial numbers" now in possession of the armed forces and the Allies, was "a tremendous number of trucks." The Committee then warned the War Department to "maintain an accurate and up-to-date inventory" of its trucks, with an eye on how many ton-miles of use they are getting. (This resulted from stories of vast stores of unused trucks.)

But trucks are only part of the trouble. Tires are a critical shortage. The Committee found that, despite glowing reports on synthetic rubber production, there will be a deficiency of about three million truck tires in 1944, and that heavy-duty tires made 70% of synthetic rubber will not stand up in service. To the tire industry the report said sourly: "The Committee is disappointed that the synthetic rubber tire manufacturing program has proceeded so far without solving the problem of making satisfactory heavy-duty tires for trucks and busses."

The Air. The airlines will not be able materially to increase their business next year unless they get back more planes. When the Air Transport Command grabbed 159 commercial planes in 1942, the airlines kept right on increasing their traffic by getting more miles out of their remaining 165 planes, and loading them more heavily. Pointing to this record of efficiency, the Committee cracked a whip at ATC, said that the return of only 16 planes (five of these to replace commercial planes destroyed) "is not creditable."

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