Unrealistic depreciation provided less than one-third of the cost of the new car. After all, these cars were necessary merely to stay in business.

The volume of our traffic was less in 1956 than it was in 1945. Yet depreciation failed to cover the two-thirds of the cost of staying in the business of hauling freight in freight train cars on our railroads. This deficiency of depreciation falls upon the railroad industry, with its huge investment in physical plant, with special severity.

The problem is intensified by the comparatively low rates of return for rail carriers even in times marked by prosperity on other segments of the economy.

The railroads are struggling against mortality tables of the past so far as depreciation of plant and equipment is concerned. Terms of 40, 50, and up to 100 years are not uncommon in determining the service life of roadway structures and lives up to 35 years for determining depreciation of equipment. These long terms mean very low annual depreciation rates and unnecessarily long periods over which railroads' investment in plant and equipment can be

recovered.

The railroads went through the depression thirties with very little modernization and replacement expenditures. Then, the period of World War II was one of scarcity of manpower and allocated materials when many needed improvements were practically impossible of accomplishment.

The postwar period of high costs, high taxes and low earnings, has found the industry without the financial ability to do all that it should in the way of replacing obsolete facilities.

Thus, we have had a long period of time in which many old facilities have been continued in service where they would have been replaced long since under more propitious conditions.

The taxing authorities look at these long lives of service without regard to obsolescence and require their use in determining current depreciation rates, not only on the old facilities, but they apply the low depreciation rates on current expenditures for new facilities.

The tax authorities in effect have said, because you have been poor and were not able to replace old facilities, we are going to adjust your depreciation rates and your financial ability so as to make you keep them 35 years or 100 years, as the case may be.

In a sense, taxing policies are responsible for perpetuating outmoded and ancient facilities, sometimes at the expense of high maintenance costs.

In other words, if the taxpayer must use the extremely long lives as the only way in which he can write off his investments, he does not have the wherewithal nor the inclination to make earlier replacements,

This situation is somewhat peculiar to the railroad industry because of historical conditions. The plant and facilities of other transportation have relatively short lives on depreciable assets.

The construction reserve would help in remedying this. It would enable management to plan ahead and undertake desirable changes in existing property and additions and betterments that are necessary to meet the transportation challenge faced by the railroad industry. If given a construction reserve, I am confident the industry, at

least that portion of it having taxable incomes, would do much more modernization and replacement and do it faster.

I believe the railroads would adopt new attitudes toward modern technologies and techniques if they were no longer forced by the taxing authorities to consider that the property on hand has a remaining life of such long periods. Congress could help in bringing about that change.

Congress provided treatment somewhat similar to the construction reserve in the Merchant Marine Act.

Everyone is familiar with the substantial public expenditures devoted to highways, waterways and airways.

I have observed that within the past week the Secretary of Commerce has placed before Congress a 5-year $2,783 million program aimed at modernizing the Nation's air traffic control and navigation systems. Without criticism of any of these programs, I mention them only for the purpose of making a significant contrast.

The railroads make the investment in their roadway and signaling and traffic control systems. They make it from their own funds or borrowing, all of which have to come from earnings, not before, but after payment of Federal income taxes.

In the postwar period, the Santa Fe Railway alone has spent $32 million for traffic-control systems, signals, and interlockers. We had to earn approximately $67 million before taxes to have the money to provide these traffic-control systems. I might add, as an interesting sidelight, that something over $5 million of the $32 million was spent on order of the Interstate Commerce Commission in its docket 29,543, titled "Appliances, methods, and systems intended to promote safety of railroad operations." That order was issued June 17, 1947, and required installation of automatic train control, automatic stop or cab signal systems on lines over which any train is operated at a speed of 80 miles per hour or more, installation of automatic block or manual-block systems on lines over which any passenger train is operated 60 miles per hour or more or any freight train is operated at 50 miles per hour or more.

While the Santa Fe has more miles of traffic-control systems than any other railroad in the country, we still have a number of places where additional installations would make for more efficient train operation and round out the program for the whole railroad.

These are costly installations. We have been doing some of it each year for quite a number of years; there just hasn't been enough available money to do it all at one time.

Still before us for consideration for future installation of trafficcontrol systems are several desirable locations where the cost would approximate about $15 million. If we had the ample earnings and were prepared to make all of these installations as rapidly as the work could be performed, it would mean the improvement of about $15 million to a fixed property on which depreciation is presently allowed upon an assumed life of 25 years. The tax of this depreciation would be realized in slow dribbles over a quarter of a century.

The justification for these projects and their earlier accomplishment would be greatly enhanced by the construction reserve. This same philosophy applies to many other important projects which have been already on the drafting board, but are temporarily shelved

because of the deteriorating situation with respect to earnings after taxes.

These include new freight-house facilities at Kansas City and Los Angeles, together estimated to cost approximately $8 million.

A desirable line change out in Arizona that would call for an outlay in the range of $12 million.

Proposed yard and freight terminal facilities at points in Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, and California, aggregating about $16 million. And, of course, the same thinking would apply not only on the Santa Fe, but on railroads, generally, with reference to carrying out an enlarged program of freight-car acquisitions.

In my opinion, there is no subsidy or Government gift at all attached to the construction-reserve proposal. No more than the cost of the property-less salvage can ever be recovered through depreciation charges. The actual cost is simply recovered sooner.

We speak of costs being recovered. Actually, that is a term that needs explanation. The so-called recovery is represented by a charge against income. There is no forgiveness or recovery of costs from the Government.

Depreciation, however timed, is an expense or a cost of doing business. It represents the annual estimate of value used up by wear and tear and obsolescence of property devoted to and used in the business. It is just as much a cost of conducting a business and just as much a deductible expense as wages paid to the crew that handles the equipment. But each dollar of depreciation, just like each dollar of wages, properly reduces the Federal income tax by 52 cents.

The railroads are not asking to take any more of a deduction than the amount they actually spend. There is no argument at all as to the amount of the deduction or the legitimacy of it.

The question relates simply to the period of time in which the taxpayer is allowed to take it. What he takes now, he cannot get later. What you may do about changing the timing by adoption of the construction reserve will neither increase nor decrease the amounts allowable for tax purposes. Certainly, there will be no long-term loss of tax revenue to the Government. Quite likely, there will be no immediate loss or sharp decline in tax revenue.

There may even be an immediate increase in tax receipts, as, conceivably, the adoption of the construction reserve could so stimulate capital expenditures as to put taxable income in the hands of builders and suppliers of railroad items and their employees right down to the source of raw materials to such an extent that the Federal Treasury would realize greater net tax receipts.

We have in the railroads an industry that is vitally essential to the economy and defense, which is desperately struggling against rigid regulation and stiff inflation, and earnestly pleading for a chance to become healthy and modern again.

It is asking no gift of the taxpayers' money. It is asking, simply: Won't you please remedy an enforced and continuing handicap upon our ability to improve our plant and efficiency so we can provide a better service to the public?

This can be done by the construction reserve, which amount to nothing more than a change in the timing of admittedly legitimate deductions, as any amounts used from the reserve fund would reduce

the basis for determining gain or loss and for depreciation, for the purpose of Federal taxes.

This stimulation of capital expenditures would have the definite effect of improving and stabilizing unemployment in the railroads and other supporting industries.

ICC authority over intrastate rates: One of the most serious problems confronting the railroad industry in the years since World War II has been their inability to adjust their rates, fares, and charges to keep pace with the rapid and steadily mounting cost of doing business attendant upon progressive inflation.

Subjected as they are to strict regulations by the Interstate Commerce Commission and the various State utility commissions, the railroads cannot increase rates to meet their constantly rising wage and material costs until they have applied for and received the necessary authority from these regulatory agencies.

Securing authority for a general rate increase is a time-consuming process involving the preparation of voluminous evidence, public hearings, argument, and decision, and, during this period, the railroads must bear the full brunt of their increased costs without any corresponding increases in revenue.

The adverse effects of this regulatory timelag are greatly accentuated by the division of authority between State and Federal agencies.

In more recent years, the Interstate Commerce Commission has made efforts to streamline its procedures to avoid undue delay in increasing interstate rates.

But corresponding increases in intrastate rates are subjected to additional and prolonged delays in many States, running from several months to as much as a year or more after the increases have been made effective on interstate traffic.

Often the State commission has granted only a part of the increase, or has denied it entirely on important traffic, and, in some instances, a State commission has denied any increase at all.

As a result, the intrastate traffic has failed to bear a fair share of the burdens of increased costs and the railroads have lost millions of dollars in revenue on this traffic during periods long after the increases in interstate rates.

Since 1920 the Interstate Commerce Commission has had authority under section 13, paragraph 4, of the Interstate Commerce Act to adjust intrastate rates which unjustly discriminate against interstate commerce. Thus where the State commission has denied a general increase in intrastate rates, the Interstate Commerce Commission has usually employed its authority to authorize such increase, but it has been reluctant to exercise its authority until the State commission has taken final action on the proposed increase.

This has often meant delays of many months, or even a year or more, after interstate rate increases before corresponding increases have been permitted in intrastate rates.

The extent of this time lag can be illustrated by the experience in the 10 States in which the Santa Fe system handles intrastate traffic in any substantial volume, namely, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.

powers over intrastate rates in proceedings under section 13. The need for such clarification stems from the recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company v. State of Illinois (78 Sup. Ct. 304), decided January 13, 1958, and Public Service Commission of Utah et al. v. United States et al., decided May 19, 1958.

Attorneys who have studied these decisions are fearful that they may be construed as preventing relief by the Interstate Commerce Commission from intrastate rates which discriminate against and unduly burden interstate commerce, unless the overall results of the railroads entire intrastate operation on all traffic, both freight and passenger, are shown to produce such a discrimination or burden, and that they may otherwise greatly add to the burden as well as to the delays in obtaining relief from unduly low intrastate rates.

In other words, it would not be sufficient to show that rates on a substantial part of a railroad's intrastate traffic were so low as to produce an out-of-pocket loss; the Commission could not grant relief except on a showing of the total results of the railroad's entire intrastate operations covering all types of traffic.

Such a policy would not only impose an almost impossible burden of proof because of the impracticability of segregating the expenses of intrastate and interstate operations, but it is wrong in principle to expect operations to show a loss before relief is granted.

There is, therefore, a definite need for the amendment proposed in section 3 to prevent the decisions in the Milwaukee case and the Utah case from being interpreted in such a way as to produce this result.

This proposal for a larger Federal role in general railroad-rate adjustments is in no sense novel. The Congress has assumed in the Railway Labor Act exclusive jurisdiction over the labor relations of the railroads.

The wage adjustments made under that statute form the largest single element of the increased costs, requiring rate adjustments.

Likewise, in the Federal Employers' Liability Act, the Congress has, for most practical purposes, preempted the field of the liability of the railroads for personal injuries of their employees.

The same is true of the Railroad Retirement Act and the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act.

The Safety Appliance Act, and related statutes, as well as the Hours of Service Act, occupy practically all of their respective fields. Mr. ROBERTS. Does that conclude your statement, Mr. Marsh? Mr. MARSH. Yes.

Mr. ROBERTS. Speaking for myself, you have certainly enlightened me on the situation with reference to the deficiency in depreciation rates. I can see where that would certainly be a tremendous handicap to the industry, as far as planning and as far as trying to replace existing equipment is concerned.

Now, in your annual report for 1957, you speak of the inflationary effect on your net income under the ICC accounting requirements as to depreciation of facilities covered by 5-year tax amortization certificates, and state for 1957, this amounted to $912 million for Santa Fe or 39 cents a share of common stock.

Is it your feeling that existing requirements have been proper or adequate to permit you correctly to state the amount of your annual income?