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Show Railroads Ready For Defense Job Wilson McCarthy Convinced Cf Ability of Railroads to Meet Transportation Problems BJ'ef that Pres dent Roosevelt and Administration officials are thoroughly convinced of the abil- ty of American railroads to meet nil defense requ'rements and have r.o intention of placing the railroads rail-roads under government opera--m as durng the last World Var was cited at Denver Tues- ay by Wilsen McCarthy, co-usrt'.c co-usrt'.c of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and p esidtnt of the Denver & Salt Lake Railway Co. in addressing he 50th annual convention of the Fre.'ght Claim Division of the Assoc ation of American Rail-:oad3. Rail-:oad3. "Last May, President Roosevelt appo.nted RaJph Budd of tne Turlington as Transportation ..ommlseioncr on his AdvisoT Comnrssicn to the Council of National Defense," said McCar-'ny. McCar-'ny. "The manner in which our A.mer can railroads have held up eir end of the job during the year just passed since that office .as cieated, is common know--edge to all. Not once during L.iat period, wh ch has seen such r.c-avy demands placed upon the a ircads and so many so-called otilenecks develop in other in- ustries, has it been possible for iny iaj--mmded person to make .;.e s. g.itest accusat.on that our .a hoad industry was falling o An on the job. "The best evidence of this, I relieve, lies in the fact that just .en days ago the president terminated term-inated the work of the transpor-'.at transpor-'.at on division of the National Delense Advisory Commission, in its place he has ordered not :he taking over of the railroads oy the government but rather .ie creation of an office of Trans portation." MeCarthy urged all American rev lroad employes to get 100 per cent behind the newly-created '.vernment office of Transportation Transporta-tion and to "give without limit in terms of effort, cooperation and sacrifice." He called the convention's - at-ttntion at-ttntion to the tfreat progress made by railroads since the last iV'orld VVar. A total of 9Vi b.i-1 b.i-1 ons of dollars has been expended expend-ed for improvements since 1923, he sa d. All car shortages have been eliminated by placing in service more tnan 1,146,000 cars and 17,000 locomotives since that l time. Freight car capacity has I been increased an average of 17 Iper cent, and locomotives ea-: ea-: pacity has been increased 36 per-Icent. per-Icent. "These improvements, I aiong with general improvements I n operating methods, have resulted re-sulted in increasing the speed of movement of our trains by over i-O per cent while the efficiency of their operation as measured in tons handled per train-hour, has Increased over 100 per cent." Delegates will leave on a 10-ear 10-ear special Rio Grande train Fri-uay Fri-uay noon for a trip through the M-Jlat Tunnel to Glenwood Springs, returning via the Royal Gorge Saturday. L. F. Dicki.nson of Denver, freight claim agent of the Denver Den-ver and R g, Grande Western Railroad, is chairman of the convention con-vention committee. |
