Doctoring the New Haven

No major U.S. railroad has wheezed through more investigations--or heard more advice--than the bankrupt New York, New Haven & Hartford. Creditors have poked, probed and counseled; so have state commissions and committees of weary commuters, whose fares have gone up 108% since 1955. It was probably inevitable that the Kennedy Administration would step in: after all, the Government has guaranteed $35 million in loans to the New Haven.

To help the most troubled railroad in the East, the Commerce Department last week tapped one of the best railroaders in the West. It selected Frederic B. Whitman, 63, president of the Western Pacific Railroad, to head a panel of nine top railroad men who will make a roundhouse-to-trestle study of the New Haven, propose how to get it back on the tracks.

Whitman is an experienced railroad doctor. He went into railroading straight out of Harvard ('19), rose to become chief of the Western Pacific in 1949, when it was only five years out of bankruptcy.

A smooth diplomat, he wangled permission from governmental commissions to slash money-losing passenger services, bought new equipment and attracted high-rate freight. Within a year, the Western Pacific was solidly in the black, and it has been profitable since then. Just last month Whitman reported that W.P. profits in 1961 rose 24%, to $5,000,000.

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