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Show WORKIN' ON THE RAILROAD Car Shortage Passes Peak About the only good thing that can he said concerning the railroad freight car shotUge Is that the worst Is probably over, but the present pres-ent Inadequacy will hang on for a long time. Despite Investigations, programs and promises for several years, there are actually about 41,000 fewer freight cars now than there were at the end of the war. Attempts to place the blame for the situstlon seem to be futile. American railroads have had 100.000 cars on order for some time. Car builders have declared that steel was not available. A program formulated formu-lated In February of this year called for an output of T.00Q new cart monthly by June and 10.000 by September. Sep-tember. The quota wss not met; and, although al-though the steel Industry says that It has supplied the necesssry steel, car builders contend that the shortage short-age still has not been completely cured. There wss one sign, however, that might indicate a turning of the tide. In September the railroads reported 7.182 new Installations, which wss 6C8 more cars than were retired during that month. Small as It was. It was the first net gain in 23 months. CoL J. Monroe Johnson, director of the office of defense transportation, transporta-tion, said he Is proceeding under White House directive to obtain k rate of 19.000 cars monthly by July, 1948, almost double the present output out-put He said he had commitments from the Iron and Steel Institute for a 22 per cent increase in steel allotments allot-ments for new car production. The car shortage hss slowed down the country's economy. At the peak of loadings In October the average daily shortage wss 39.430 cars. Cur-rently Cur-rently It Is about 33.000. Despite these shortages, the railroads rail-roads are handling more carloads of revenue freight than they have since August 1030, when the number of available cars was 500.000 (Tester than now. |