Red Lights

¶ Last week the Pennsylvania Railroad, busiest in the world, announced that it was obliged to retrench on expenditures for maintenance during September and October because fall business was not up to expectations.

¶ The Pennsylvania and five other roads announced that their net operating income for August was 11.7% under August 1936, though gross revenues rose 1.3%.

¶ It transpired that the Pennsylvania, the New York Central and the Baltimore & Ohio have laid off some 20,000 men since Sept. 1.

¶ In Washington the conference of railroad operators and five train unions remained deadlocked over the latters' demand for a 20% salary raise.

¶ For these and similar reasons railroad executives at a meeting in Washington of the Association of American Railroads decided to ask the Interstate Commerce Commission for a general boost of freight rates and passenger fares as soon as the I.C.C. settles the pending petition for higher rates for certain commodities. Reason: this has become the only solution visible to railroad men for the problem of zooming operating costs. Along the U. S. railroad right-of-way, signal after signal continued turning ominously red.