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Show I Traffic Manager Vins Turkey Rail Rate Fight A new reduction in freight rates promises to be a boon to the turkey processing industry in the southern part of Utah. R. L. McDonough, traffic manager man-ager for the Utah Poultry and Farmers Cooperative, announced Saturday that effective about April 1, the cost of shipping dressed poultry and turkeys to eastern markets will be reduced an average of 21 cents per hundred hun-dred weight. Notification of the reduction marks the successful culmination of a three-year campaign to get the costs of processed turkey shipments east on the same level for Cedar City and southern Utah as for most other points of the state. Cedar City and most of southern south-ern Utah are located In "Transcontinental "Trans-continental Rate Territory" and have been tied to the Pacific Coast rates on dressed poultry shipments to the east. As a result. re-sult. Cedar City and southern Utah have become an important turkey producing area but the excessive freight rates have strangled the turkey procession. Three Year Fight Mr. McDonough started the fight to help Cedar City and the turkey producers in this area three years ago. As recent as Jan. 15, 1954, the Standing Rate Committee of the Transcontinental Transcontinen-tal Freight Bureau, issued a report re-port and recommended that the request for a freight reduction be declined. McDonough immediately immed-iately objected to the committee report, and produced new facts and figures and made a personal plea to W. T. Burns, vice president presi-dent of traffic for the Union Pacific Paci-fic Railroad at Omaha. Saturday, Mr. McDonough was notified that his original application appli-cation for a reduction of rates had been approved, effective on statutory notice which will mean in about 30 days. Thus, the Utah Poultry and Farmers Cooperative traffic chief has won a most Important victory vic-tory for the poultry industry. This change in rates will benefit bene-fit all poultry and turkey pro- ducers in southern Utah. In commenting on the favorable favor-able action, Clyde C. Edmonds, general manager of Utah Poultry, Poul-try, said: "It appears to me that this is a very important step in the economy of Cedar City and could very well be the forerunner forerun-ner of the adjustments which in due time could and should be made here in Utah." i |