Director, for it, with almost no increase in force. I think we have only increased the force of that Bureau perhaps four or five positions since then. We are hoping to handle part IV, the distribution being in the same way that I spoke of as to part III, having our Tariff Bureau handle the tariffs and having the established bureaus of the Commission handling statistics, accounts, and other activities, as I have mentioned. Mr. FITZPATRICK. Do freight forwarders include rail shippers as well as water? Mr. MAHAFFIE. Yes, sir. Mr. FITZPATRICK. Was there not an act passed that brought them under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission? Mr. MAHAFFIE. The water carriers were brought under our jurisdiction. Mr. FITZPATRICK. Were not the freight forwarders? Mr. MAHAFFIE. Yes. Mr. FITZPATRICK. Those include rail shipments, do they not? Mr. MAHAFFIE. The freight forwarder is an animal of this character. He engages transportation, and he uses any facility that is available. Mr. FITZPATRICK. That is correct. Mr. MAHAFFIE. So while we are regulating the freight forwarders, it is a regulation of an agency superimposed on existing agencies, so far as the transportation is concerned. Mr. FITZPATRICK. I have always felt that the railroad companies could have handled that business themselves and give the difference in the cost of the freight rate to the people who were shipping. It seems now that the freight forwarders became quite an organization without any investment. They did not have any investment, as I understand. Mr. MAHAFFIE. Substantially that is correct, sir. Mr. FITZPATRICK. And they formed this organization, and by consolidating shipments they could get them at a lower rate, either rail or water, whatever it may be. That was a new act passed at the last session of Congress, was it not? Mr. MAHAFFIE. Yes, sir. Mr. FITZPATRICK. And you say it has not increased your work much? Mr. MAHAFFIE. I did not say that. I did not mean to give that impression. Mr. FITZPATRICK. You were able to handle it with your present force? Mr. MAHAFFIE. We have a lot of work as a result of it, but as I say we have undertaken to absorb that work in the existing forces of the Commission and so far have been pretty successful in doing it. We think we can continue that, but I would not want you to understand that it did not add to our work. Mr. FITZPATRICK. My feeling about that was in place of having some outside organization, which did not have any investment in the business whatever, the railroads themselves could have formed an organization, consolidated shipments, without having the shippers pay a commission to this outside organization. Mr. MAHAFFIE. I may say, sir, that the position you take had a great deal of support in discussions within the commission and I think to some extent in the congressional committees considering the matter. INCREASE IN NUMBER OF RAILROAD ACCIDENTS Mr. DIRKSEN. I want somebody to say a word about the matter of accidents, whether they are on the rise or on the decline, in view of the peak travel load. Mr. BARTEL. They are greatly on the rise, I should say, Mr. Dirksen. Mr. MAHAFFIE. They are very greatly on the rise, Mr. Dirksen, and it is a very alarming situation. In our annual report, the fiftysixth annual report, which only goes through October, however, there is an analysis of the accident situation which, as I say, I think is alarming. That is, I suppose, unavoidable when you throw such a great burden on existing facilities. We have got to figure that you are going to have an increase in accidents. It is just a matter of holding them down to as low a number as possible. That is all we can hope for. Mr. DIRKSEN. Do you assign the reasons for the accident increase in your report? Mr. BARTEL. Some of the accidents are shown-that is, the reasons for them. Mr. MAHAFFIE. I think this would be a fair statement, that the separate reports of the Bureau of Safety, the Director of the Bureau of Safety, which is made to the Commission and the report of the Director of the Bureau of Locomotive Inspection, go into a great deal more detail as to the cause of these accidents than we have in our report, which is rather a summary. Mr. BARTEL. But in our report, Mr. Dirksen, there is one paragraph on page 117 which says: The principal causes of the collisions investigated consisted of failure to obey meet orders, failure to clear the time of opposing superior trains, failure to provide proper flag protection for preceding trains, failure to operate following trains in accordance with signal indications, and failure properly to control speed while moving within yard limits. Mr. DIRKSEN. So it is personnel failure as much as equipment failure? Mr. BARTEL. Yes; it is man failure as well as equipment failure. Mr. JOHNSON. In addition to that, Mr. Dirksen, I discussed with Commissioner Patterson this question-he is in charge of the Bureau of Safety-and the fact is that the miles per locomotive failure have decreased very much; that is, the number of miles a locomotive makes before it fails to take its train into its terminus has been greatly diminished. Of course, that is quite evident from the figures. The revenue ton-miles now as compared with former years has increased above anything we ever dreamed possible. Locomotives are being run much faster and very much more constantly and greater distances. We are beginning to observe fewer miles per locomotive failure. (Listed below is a comparison of all train accidents, passenger and freight combined (not available separately), compared to revenue ton-miles and to passenger-miles, for the first 10 months of 1941 and 1942:) FIRST 10 MONTHS 1941 All train accidents (passenger and freight combined) - 7, 570 23, 977, 665, 432 391, 117, 9C5, 000 FIRST 10 MONTHS 1942 All train accidents (passengers and freight combined). 526, 054, 446, 000 Continuing for a moment with this other matter, there is one great eastern railroad that, as of a day or two ago, did not have a single surplus locomotive. They were working 100 percent. Now, when you get below 4-percent surplus locomotives you are approaching the danger zone. A railroad should have about 4 percent of its locomotives ready to take on an extraordinary trip; not an ordinary extra or a second section, but 4 percent of locomotives should be standing ready for work. That railroad a few days ago had none, not one locomotive in its whole system standing by. Mr. CASE. With reference to accidents, Mr. Mahaffie, was that conclusion that you gave as to the increase of accidents an increase in the total or was that a relative increase in proportion to ton and passenger miles? Mr. MAHAFFIE. My recollection is that it is an increase in the total number of accidents. I do not think we have worked it out on relative ton and passenger miles, so far as I recall. CONDITION OF EQUIPMENT AND ROADBED OF RAILROADS Mr. DIRKSEN. May we have a word about the deterioration of equipment and roadbed of railroads? Mr. JOHNSON. I do not think the situation is alarming, even if you did observe some low joints on the roads that you mentioned off the record. We are not alarmed about that. Brother Miller is more familiar with it than I. A more alarming situation is that with reference to the equipment that is being run practically to its capacity. Mr. MILLER. I might say this, that we have no definite figures, but the Commission has set up a new account called deferred maintenance which the railroads may charge to operating expenses. That is estimated maintenance for which they now cannot get the materials on account of shortages, to make replacements. Those accounts are getting to be substantial, but not very great. I do not know that all of the railroads have started making their estimates, but as you can see in the public press. the railroads want a great deal more allotments from the War Prouction Board than they are able to get, both in rail and in equipme... I cannot give you the figures in dollars and cents, but it seems to me a serious situation. million tons of rails for the year and they can only get one-fourth of seems to me that they would want a that, or some such amount,-nd there is no doubt that the rails are wearing out very fast. PRESENT NUMBER OF LOCOMOTIVES AND FREIGHT CARS COMPARED WITH 1918 Mr. DIRKSEN. Some time ago, a week or two ago, I saw a very arresting figure, that we have 22,000 less locomotives and 600,000 less freight cars than we had in 1918. Is that correct, or not? Mr. MILLER. I think that is about right. I cannot give you any definite figures. No doubt this deferred maintenance is getting serious both in road and equipment. Mr. MAHAFFIE. That figure is not as arresting as it would appear on the face, because you have to take into consideration the increased motive power of locomotives now in use and the increased capacity of freight cars now in use and set that off against the other figure. Mr. MILLER. I was going to refer to that same thing in a supplemental statement that I have for the Bureau of Valuation, that the Bureau will be called on to do a lot of work in checking up these deferred maintenance charges in this account that I have just mentioned. FINANCIAL CONDITION OF RAILROADS Mr. DIRKSEN. Mr. Mahaffie, I wonder if you will say a word about the condition of the roads from the fiscal sta idpoint; namely, with reference to bankruptcies and receiverships. Has there been some improvement? I think we had a statement on that last year. Mr. MAHAFFIE. Do you mean with reference to the work of the Commission? Mr. DIRKSEN. No; only insofar as the Commission knows what the receivership and bankruptcy condition of the roads now is. Mr. MAHAFFIE. There have been some few roads emerge during the past year. We have set that out in this annual report. Most of the large roads, however, have not emerged and we have been anxiously awaiting each Monday since October, when the case was argued in the Supreme Court, the breaking of the jam in bringing these roads out. If the Supreme Court decides the case in a way that they can be brought out without further reorganization proceedings, that will break that jam. Mr. DIRKSEN. I wonder if you could transpose that portion of your annual report to these hearings in some tabular form showing by mileage and by percentage the total miles still in receivership and bankruptcy, so that we may have it for the record. Mr. MAHAFFIE. We will insert a statement of that kind. Steam railways in the hands of receivers and trustees (excluding switching and terminal companies) 1 Miles of road are as of the close of the year 1941. Items omitted are not available. WATER-BORNE TRANSPORTATION Mr. DIRKSEN. Could you amplify your statement a little with respect to water carriers? I am curious to know whether there has been a very substantial increase in water-borne transportation on the inland waterways particularly. You would know now, of course, since you have been authorized by Congress to certificate water carriers. Mr. MAHAFFIE. We have in this report the latest information we can get as to the carriage by water. It is difficult to get anything that is satisfactory on that, because of the very large exemptions. An exempt carrier does not have to make any report to us and the best we can do on that is to get figures from the associations to which they belong. Take the bulk carriers, for instance. They are exempt from our jurisdiction. Their figures, therefore, we have no way of getting officially. But we have put up in this annual report the best information available and I thing we could readily transfer that information to this record. Mr. MILLER. I think the best information in that regard can be gotten from the Army engineers who keep those records. But here is something that I heard in Chicago just recently. I happened to be out there on a hearing. The inland waterways on the lower Mississippi were involved in this hearing. The traffic has increased comparatively little because the Army and the Navy, too, I believe, wish to patronize transportation that gets things there more quickly. That is hearsay on my part. But the Army engineers can furnish the best information in regard to travel. They keep all those figures. RELINQUISHMENT OF LAND GRANT RATES Mr. DIRKSEN. Mr. Mahaffie, last year Congress considered a bill reported by the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, relative to the relinquishment of land-grant rates. I assume you are familiar with what happened? Mr. MAHAFFIE, Yes, sir. Mr. DIRKSEN. The bill, of course, did not succeed. It passed the House. Is there any definite information available relative to landgrant holdings at the present time; dispositions; return on dispositions, and so forth? If such information is available, I wish in brief compass it could be set out in the hearings. Mr. MAHAFFIE. That is set out very fully and published in the hearings before the Interstate Commerce Committee. Mr. DIRKSEN. So it is, but it occurred to me that those figures are very much in controversy, and there were many sets of figures that were adduced at the time, and I am doubtful even now as to what the exact situation is. But it occurred to me that you could very well set out in the hearings a rather brief but reasonably conclusive statement as to the factual picture involved there. It is going to take on new significance with more troop movements and the movement of a lot of traffic, to avoid the so-called governmental rate. There is going to be more effort probably to secure repeal of the land-grant rates, and I would have no objection particularly so long as the parties to that |