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Show NO SUBSTITUTE FOR RAILROADS "There will never come a time when railroads and their cquip-.nent cquip-.nent are not necessary to the commerce com-merce of the nation," said Alfred E. Smith recently. The growth of other forms of transport has served to emphasize, rather than dim, the service provid ed by the railroads. The truck systems sys-tems perform a valuable service in certain fields, but when it comes to mass hauling, the rails are preeminent. pre-eminent. Buses likewise are a( transportation asset, but the average aver-age traveler has a growing appreciation appre-ciation of the speed, comfort and safety of the railroad train. Airplanes Air-planes have an important place in the transportation scheme but they certainly do not replace rail service. It is an interesting fact that we hear less than we did a few years ago to the effect that the railroads are out of date, and are approaching approach-ing oblivion. The truth is that they were never more essential to the public. And they were never more progressiv. The improvement that has been made during the last decade de-cade in bettering road beds, adding to the comfort of passenger trains, speeding up both freight and passenger pas-senger schedules, reducing accidents acci-dents and damage to freight, and so on, is nothing short of revolutionary. revolu-tionary. It is reliably forecast that the railroads will be "fairly prosperous" prosper-ous" this year, although the average aver-age line is still far from earnding a reasonable return on its investment. invest-ment. The Booner the rails attain substantial prosperity, the better for all of us. |