Vol. 84, No. 3

Table of Contents Appears on Page 5 of Advertising Section

The Active Car Market

BY this time readers of the Railway Age are familiar with the behavior of the suddenly active freight and passenger car market at the end of 1927. The placing of a large number of orders at the last minute was amply covered in the annual report of orders placed published in the Annual Statistical Number. What readers may not be quite so well aware of is that the increased activity in the car market has continued. So far in the month of January orders for freight cars have topped 2,000. Moreover, inquiries out that have not yet been contracted for promise the continuation of this activity for a number of weeks. There are inquiries outstanding at the present time for about 5,500 freight cars and for over 700 passenger cars.

Motor Transport Division
Plans Immediate Activity

THE new Motor Transport Division of the American

Railway Association will hold its organization meeting at the Palmer House, Chicago, on January 25 and 26, preceded on January 24 by a meeting of the executive committee, which will draw up plans for the organization. This will not be a perfunctory meeting, called merely for organization purposes. Maintaining the precedent for hard work established by the division's predecessor, the Railroad Motor Transport Conference, plans have been made to have at the Chicago meeting, immediately following the formalities of organization, serious and comprehensive discussions by each of the three sections-motor coach, motor truck and rail motor car. The activities of these three sections will impinge on almost every department of the railroad. The advisability of each railroad being represented by several delegates, therefore, seems apparent. It is gratifying to see the new division planning to commence active work so promptly, since motor transport problems are now assuming even greater importance by reason of the proposed Interstate Commerce Commission report on regulation, the announced hearings on the report and the likelihood of regulatory measures being passed by the present Congress.

Summer Instruction in Transportation THE Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, as part of the program of wider usefulness. made possible by the recent gift of five million dollars by George F. Baker, has announced that it will conduct during the summer months of 1928 a special session for businesss executives. The curriculum for the summer session will include courses in business policy and business law, accounting, finance, marketing, etc., and, what is of most interest to Railway Age readers, a course in

railway transportation. Harvard and Yale seem to be co-operating in the last mentioned, because the course is to be presented by W. J. Cunningham and W. M. Daniels, professors of transportation at the respective institutions. Both are well known to railway men; not only because of their university activities, but also because the former was head of the Operating Statistics Section of the United States Railroad Administration and the latter, at one time a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission. As outlined in more detail in the news announcement which appears on another page, the course will be intended for junior officers and various operating and departmental heads of the railroad companies. It will treat of economics, regulation, valuation, consolidation, rate-making principles, railroad organization, the functions and inter-relations of departments, accounting and statistical analysis, methods of yard and train operation, personnel, etc., or, in general, of the broader aspects of transportation outside of the details. that come across the desk of the individual in the course of his ordinary work. One does not have to be unduly enthusiastic to agree that the establishment of a course such as this should prove to be one of the most important steps in transportation education that has been made in a long period of time.

South Jersey Roads

Conduct a "Referendum"

THE railroads serving Southern New Jersey are facing a crisis by reason of highway competition. Philadelphians and others resident in centers of population not far from the Jersey coast have acquired the "seashore habit," which has been fostered for decades by as excellent railroad service as is to be had in America. Now, however, in the absence of regulation of interstate highway transportation, fleets of motor coaches have gone into service, undercutting railroad rates for the singletrip and round-trip passengers, leaving the railroads the non-remunerative commutation business. It is patent that the railroads cannot long continue to maintain their excellent service for commuters alone. They must have a good measure of the higher rate traffic to continue in business. How the present tendency works out to the detriment of the railroads is illustrated by the trend at one station. At this station in the course of a year full rate business declined almost 40 per cent, while commutation traffic rose 47 per cent, giving the railroads about 20 per cent more passengers to handle with a decrease of 15 per cent in gross receipts. Now, in the effort to win back the round-trip passesngers, the railroads-the Pennsylvania and the Reading-have placed in effect reductions in rates for this class of ticket amounting to about 45 per cent. It remains to be seen what success they will have. The reduction the Pennsylvania refers to as a "referendum" to determine the public's choice between motor coach and rail transportation. In view of the inability of the motor coach lines to handle com