THE SIITURARY EVENING POST Founded A9D1 1728 by Benj.Franklin

$ 2.00 By Subscription Volume 207 ,5C. THE COPY PHILADELPHLE,P.R.,JULY 28,1954 (52 issues) Number 4

Illinois, the numbers increasing with the density of industry that, on the whole, has been and still is very population, until, on the last 200 miles, the crowds sick—yes, that; but much more it was a portent were enormous. of change and progress, and the first dramatized por- Provided a free and widely advertised sight, there tent of the kind since the crash of prosperity five need be no meaning in crowds. This was a free sight years ago. and it had been advertised. Yet it must have been It would be strange, indeed, if after all 'this time something more. Parents held out their infants in we had not among us a kind of instinct for progress arms, exhorting them to look. Women threw kisses together with an intuition of its terms. The very first wildly. Men leaped and waved their arms. Some term of progress is surplus exertion, meaning all who had come to make pictures saluted instead and manner of human activity above the level of neces- forgot to turn their camera cranks. The enthusiasm sity. And whether it is material progress one speaks was astonishing, even a little bewildering. And it was of or progress in civilization and culture, it is the not for anything they could see with their eyes, for same thing. Those great exercises of the mind that that, after all, was very little. A silver streak, a noisy produce literature, science, music, art, religion and blur, a technical apparition. The use of the eye was philosophy are not indispensable to life; neither is but to verify an excitement of the mind. monumental architecture or any habitation better By certain marks of behavior you may distinguish than a tent. To civilization they are indispensable. between a crowd that rises to see a sight and one that gathers to behold a sign. The multitude that stood The Spur of Surplus Exertion for more than 1000 miles along the Burlington's right of way from Denver to Chicago was not there to see UDDENLY in the last century there was no ab- a Diesel-engined, electrically driven, streamline train S solute necessity for steamships and railroads. go by, nor to witness speed. A streamline object is no Human society without them might have gone on for novelty, neither is any speed the Zephyr was likely thousands of years more, or, so far as we know, 0,0E2E7' to get up. There is more, overhead. As for a Diesel forever. Yet such progress as has occurred since in engine, not one in ten thousand could have said what the economic well-being of the world had been utterly the difference was between that and the spark-plug impossible without them. There was then no absolute GARRZTY engine under the hood of the nearest motor car. So necessity for telephones, electric light and power, the then, what was it this multitude went out to see, if internal-combustion engine, motor cars, radio or not a sign? And what was the Zephyr a sign of? aviation—all from the passion for surplus exertion. A sign of valorous enterprise on the part of an Even now life might dispense with any or all of N THE artificial world the advent of a new mechanical species is a sign of change and I progress. But a sign only. What will come of it is what people will do with it. Such a sign has just now appeared. One day last May a prodigious, silvery, three-jointed worm, with one stalk eye, a hoofish nose, no visible means of locomotion, seeming either to be speeding on its belly or to be propelled by its own roar, crossed a third of the American continent, from Denver to Chicago, a distance of 1017 miles, in 785 minutes, without a stop. This was the Burlington Rail- road's Zephyr, a Diesel-engined, electrically driven, streamline train, fabricated of stainless steel no thicker than the hide of a bull and yet as strong as a bridge. The Burlington is one of the fine old railroads of the West. It rests upon agriculture. In the fields that come down to the right of way, the cattle, the sheep, the horses, the mules, the pigs, are so condi- tioned by familiarity to the snort of a locomotive and the rumble of traffic that a passing train does not move them. If they are dozing, they do not wake up; if they happen to look, it is with no curiosity. But at the sight and sound of the Zephyr, every kind of animal in the landscape uprose and fled. I Crowds Watching the Zephyr Pass

HE opposite effect upon people was extraor- Tdinary. For more than 1000 miles they occu- pied both sides of the right of way. On foot and in motor cars they had gathered at every crossing; and not at the crossings only, but in the fields, on the hillsides and hilltops, in the trees and along the embankments, wherever the view was good. In the towns and villages they were massed at the street ends, on platforms and on the tops of flat buildings. They were there at daylight in Eastern Colorado. They were there all day through Nebraska and The World's Fastest Passenger Train, the Super,Streamlined Zephyr. Iowa. They were there in the evening through It Consists of Three Cars, Articulated So at to Appear as One Unit 5 6 THE SATURDAY EVENING POST July 28,1934

back for an all-night run. The importance of this will appear. Toward the end of the journey, a superintendent of railroad motive power, formerly a locomotive driver, who had been coming to it all day, leaned across the aisle to say: "I love the locomotive. God knows, I hate to see anything like this happen to it. But I'm a mechanic too. A machine is for what it will do. This thing skins the locomotive alive." This thing—what is it? There is yet no familiar name for it, and for want of one there is some con- fusion. Two developments are in conjunction. One is the train and one is the power—the worm and what moves it. The Zephyr is not the only streamline motor train. The Union Pacific has one made of aluminum. Others are building, like and unlike the Zephyr. In any case, there are these two considera- tions—namely: First, the radical application to railroad equipment of new technical knowledge touching the use of light- weight, high-tension materials, in order to reduce the weight of trains and streamline them for speed. Second, substitution of the internal-combustion engine for the steam locomotive.

Taking Weight Off Railroad Equipment

O ANYONE else, the idea of taking weight out The Solarium on One of the New High.Speed Trains Tof railroad equipment seems perfectly reason- able; to a railroad man it comes with a shock. He has been trained to believe in weight. In the typical them; that would mean to go back only forty or fifty figures. They were matching intervals of time with case he gloats upon it. Since the designs and specifi- years. It is progress that could not dispense with intervals of distance and calculating the speed. As cations that govern equipment of all kinds were them. fast as they made their findings they reported them crystallized, many years ago, metallurgy has discov- The second term of progress is momentum. Not to the passengers through microphones in the walls ered new alloys and technology has found new ways only is surplus exertion above the level of necessity of the train. of handling light-weight materials of high tensile indispensable to progress; the output must be con- Thus time was on everyone's mind. It was a time- strength—electric welding of them, and so on— tinuous and cumulative. There is no standing still. conscious company. Would you suppose, in that purposely in order to reduce the weight of a structure People may say, "There is no summit, the ascent is case, the hands of the clock would seem to move while at the same time increasing its actual strength. endless; therefore, let us rest." True, there is no slower or faster? Time was the measure of every- But a railroad man knew all the time what axles and summit. But people who stop to rest will not stand thing else. But what of the measure itself? After an wheels and cars and bumpers should weigh. All this still. They will go back; and there is momentum also experience in which we have been intensely inter- welded and fabricated construction might do very in going back. It sometimes seems that people are ested, we say time has passed swiftly; or after having well where it would do at all, but that was not on a obliged to stop for want of ideas. They have no new been bored, we say it has been endless. A unit of time railroad; for a railroad, weight was power, reliance, thing among them and, therefore, nothing to go on in which sensory impressions are many and vivid comfort, safety. So always heavier cars and heavier with. This means, of course, only that there is no seems shorter than one in which the impressions are locomotives to pull them, and then heavier rails and surplus or unnecessary activity of mind among them. dull and few. That deception is well known. But bridges to keep them off the ground, until at last No new thing arrives with a certificate of necessity there is a point with speed at which one has definitely equipment had to be absurdly heavy if for no other in its hand. Where at this moment is there any the sense of moving through space plus the stranger reason than to withstand the shock of its own warrant of need for more railroad transportation, old sense of moving also through or new? Most people would say our existing railroad time, and the time sense facilities are more than we require. That is true. The thereby is altered. Airplanes railroads are already equipped to produce much falling in with the Zephyr, fly- more service than they can sell. They have been tear- ing low and keeping step until ing up tracks on which it is no longer possible to run their ways parted, as they fre- paying trains. Their yards are full of idle cars. Their quently did, intensified the no- shops and roundhouses are crowded with cold loco- tion of two time dimensions— motives. Suddenly through this scene of disuse, the one outside, through which depression and obsolescence the Zephyr passes, leav- the train was passing, and the ing in its wake the suggestion of an appalling amount one inside, belonging to the of further obsolescence, as, for example, the possi- train itself, determined by its bility that the steam locomotive will be henceforth a velocity. vanishing mechanical species. The topmost speed was 112% miles an hour. The aver- The First Sprint of the Zephyr age for the distance was nearly seventy-eight miles an hour. UT where had there been the necessity for such The fuel was the cheapest low- B a thing to happen? Probably as little absolute grade oil, a kind of petroleum necessity as for the steamship to happen when already sludge, and the amount of it there was a surplus of sailing ships, or for the auto- consumed was less than two mobile to appear before there were any roads to run quarts per mile. it on, and nobody conscious of needing a new mode These facts of speed and of transportation. There may be a kind of necessity average time and fuel con- we define very dimly in these matters, if at all— sumption are astonishing and namely, the biological necessity of a new thing to break all records; nevertheless, bring itself to pass so long as the will to progress is they are comparable. The in- unbroken. This is not to be proved. It is something comparable fact is that, having one imagines and feels. And that would be a feeling run at that speed twice as far to account for the behavior of the multitude 1000 as a steam locomotive goes miles long that appeared to see the first Zephyr go by. without resting and ten times Inside the train were the men who made it— as far as a steam locomotive engineers, technicians, observers, railroad people, goes without stopping for coal credulous and incredulous, the crew, and, in the en- and water, this lustrous worm gine compartment, a specimen of the Rocky Moun- was neither tired nor hot. There tain burro that carried the first transcontinental was nothing it needed but to railroads into the passes on its back. have its fuel tank refilled. The windows were sealed. At front and rear were With that it might have been The Zephyr in the Stable Door Before start. log keepers who filled sheets of white paper with turned around and started Ing on its Run of 1017 Miles in 785 Minutes THE SATURDAY EVENING POST 7 impacts, one piece with another. To say that the is a velvet transmission, with infinite gradations of We speak of electric power. Strictly, there is no weight of passenger equipment might be reduced one- speed from zero to maximum, instead of three speeds such thing. There is wild electric power, as in light- half, with all that would mean to the cost of opera- and a shift of gears for each one when the drive is ning, but that is no good because we cannot catch it tion, is to be conservative. The Zephyr, for example, direct from the engine, as it is in an automobile. and tame it. For our purposes, electricity must be is intended for regular service in a fast daily run from The further advantage of the electric drive is that tame, and tame electricity has to be made by turning Kansas City to Omaha and back, where it will dis- the engine may run constantly at its optimum speed, a magnet inside a coil of wire. A magnet revolving place eight times its own weight of old equipment. so that you have your maximum power under all in a coil of wire is called a generator; what it gen- The weight of the old equipment employed in that conditions, even at the moment of starting the load. erates is electric current. But a generator cannot service—a train and two locomotives—is 1,618,000 Call it a gas-electric locomotive. That defines it. revolve itself, wherefore electric current cannot pro- pounds. The Zephyr weighs 200,000 pounds. Under And the first unlimited statement to be made about duce itself. There has to be an engine, called a prime pressure of many circumstances, the weight fetish it is that it represents power at the highest point of mover, to revolve the generator. By that means the here and there is beginning to break. Whatever else mobility so far, power of an engine is converted into electric current, happens, there is indicated for the railroads a loss of Ever since the inventive mind began to play with and in the form of electric current power becomes weight, and it will be very good for them. mechanical power, the problem of mobility has mobile; it will flow through copper wires, and, there- Substitution of the internal-combustion engine for taunted it. The first steam engines were immobile. fore, by wires it may be conducted away from the the steam locomotive is another matter, with impli- They were no more than substitutes for water engine to hundreds and thousands of electric motors cations very much more startling. What was it wheels; much more powerful, of course, and yet, like at a distance of miles, up to hundreds of miles, just moved the Zephyr 1017 miles in 785 minutes without water wheels, they were fixed. To get the power, you as water might be conducted from a dam through a stop? A Diesel engine. had to come to the engine. The limit of power trans- pipes to turn hundreds of little water wheels. Thus the At sight, the Diesel engine—so named for an mission was a belt turning pulley wheels. Thus, at problem of locomotion was solved; and then, instead otherwise forgotten man who first declared its prin- the beginning of machine industry, all work had to ciples—differs from the engine under the hood of be performed near the engine; hence the massing of an automobile in respect, first, of having no car- industrial labor in small areas and the rise and buretor and no spark plugs. The raw fuel is injected growth of industrial population within walking into the cylinder at very high pressure and in such a distance of the smokestacks. manner as to disarrange the molecules and enrage them. Compression then explodes them. Revenge Seven.League Boots for Power of the molecules for what has happened to them, exerted on the top of the piston in the form of an RESENTLY two problems were defined. One explosion, is what makes the engine go. One of the Pwas how to take power from the engine, break it merits of the Diesel engine is that it runs on very into sizable quantities and conduct it away, as water low-grade fuel. It would run, if it had to, on almost is conducted through mains and service pipes from anything—on powdered coal, on molasses maybe, on a distant source to where the uses for it are. The the residue from mountains of oil-bearing shale that other was how to impart to an engine the quality are yet untouched, and on alcohol, if everything else of locomotion—that is, how to make it get up and gave out—that is to say, on boiled cornstalks and cull walk, carry its own fuel and water, and become a potatoes. Beyond this, its three high qualities are beast of burden. doggedness, love of drudgery and a long life. The second problem seems much more difficult than the first. Intrinsically it was, undoubtedly. Since the Days of Water Wheels Nevertheless, the second was the first to be solved. The steam locomotive did it. HE Diesel engine is not geared to the wheels. For many years more the steam engine, for all in- TThat is to say, the drive is not direct, as in an dustrial purposes, was still like the water wheel. To automobile. The Diesel engine turns a generator, the get the power, you had to come to the engine, be- current from the generator is delivered by wires to cause there was no means whereby the power could electric motors mounted on the wheel trucks below, be conducted away or made to act at a distance. and these electric motors turn the wheels by gear. That problem was not solved until electricity was This is the electric drive. What it amounts to simply conquered.

Individual Seats and Indirect Lighting as Well as Great Speed

of factories built around engines, each factory with its own smoke- stack, you began to see enormous electric-power stations and over- head high-tension transmission lines to distribute power in the form of electric current over the whole of an industrial area, and great factories with no stacks at all. Next the gas engine was de- veloped, sometimes as a station- ary engine, or prime mover, in place of the steam engine, to re- volve generators and produce electric current, but particularly in forms possessing the quality of locomotion, as in the automobile. When the gas engine had been made to get up and walk, carry its own fuel and become a beast of burden, its advantages over the steam locomotive for certain purposes were instantly apparent. It could be made small and it carried its fuel in the form of liquid gas very neatly. Therefore, the gas engine, not the steam engine, was for the automobile. However, a gas engine deliver- ing its power to the wheels of a UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD, N, vehicle by mechanical transmis- More Than a Half Century of Progress in Locomotive Evolution. The One Was sion, through a gear box, leaves Built in 1867, the Other is One of the Latest Type Three•Cylinder Engines much to (Continued on Page 55) THE SATURDAY EVENING POST 55

(Continued from Pate 53) "Boat ahoy!" yelled fifty voices. big wagon like the Arcturus would be " Cast off an' row for yer lives,' I boat clusters and have the chief stew- The Arcturus' siren roared acknowl- a hundred miles out of her course by says. There's a squall comin' and we ard see that every cabin is lighted up! edgment. Then the searchlights focused it, what could you expect of a poor mustn't lose the ship.' Don't lose that boat!" upon the boat. tramp?" " 'Steady all !' says young Manly at With a whistle and sting of sleet, the She lay head on to the sea, riding Captain Clayborne unbuttoned the the steerin' oar. 'I'm givin' orders squall shut down on the Arcturus like a to a sea anchor, her people aft, a white, two top buttons of his overcoat and here. You're on the high seas, O'Neill; blanket. Nobody spoke a word, no- hunch-shouldered mass. The Arcturus sat down on one of the hospital chairs. ye've got no authority. No man,' says body moved, for fear the crackle of a crept cautiously over to her, and half "Listen, Pelorus Jack, of Sandy he, 'is in a bigger hurry than I to get frozen oilskin might just shut out the a dozen lines smacked into her at Hook," he began. "Have you noticed away, fer I'm to be married the morn's sound of a faint hail out of the thick once. Then slowly they drew her up the shoreward set of the current morning, and I'll have to go right from swirling to windward. Below, along under the side, where men in cradles lately? We nearly shaved the stem off the altar to the Casket if we're any the port rail, most of the crew hung from the Arcturus made fast lines to Block Island last night, it was so later.' " over, cupped hand at ear. the men in the boat, and then hoisted strong. But the one I have in mind is O'Neill cackled again at the joke. "Where was Manly, now, just as the them, bundles of spray-incrusted cloth- the one that nearly beached us both The Casquets are the first land one squall hit us?" asked Captain Clay- ing, into the warm depths above. like a couple of old hulks. Don't worry sees, Cherbourg-bound, after Sandy borne. "Had he got clear of the "All clear?" bellowed Captain Clay- though. You'll never run aground Hook. Somaten?" borne through the megaphone. "Re- while Jack Clayborne can pass you a "To be married! What do you mean? "No, sir," answered the navigator. leasing gear frozen? Never mind! line." Married to who? Manly to be mar- "He'll probably stand by her until it Stave her in and cast off ! To hell with "Are ye mad?" demanded O'Neill. ried?" gasped Captain Clayborne. clears. We could find the wreck again her !" Then he went down to the hos- "Or am I? Beached us? Beached "Sure," said O'Neill sarcastically. easily. That is, easier than we could pital to see the survivors. who? I've niver put keel in mud in "They stand up together, you know, find a boat." The first man he met was Captain forty year!" an' say this an' that. That's marriage. "I think he was clear," said the offi- Manly, blue-lipped, being chopped "The commission's ruling about It's safe to assume he's goin' to marry cer of the watch. "I had the glass on out of his frozen oilskins. pilots taking their turn!" hissed Cap- some young leddy. Says he to me, him. They were well away." "Good work !" said Captain Clay- tain Clayborne. " Wasn't that de- `I've had nothin' else in my mind since Night shut down, so that all they borne, grasping the other's hand. "I'm signed to put you ashore? But I sent I left New York. I was in that big a could see in the searchlight beam was glad you're back. I thought for sure a radio to the lines that I wouldn't hurry to get home I nearly put the the driving snow. The wreck, the you'd gone down with the other poor have it. That O'Neill would take the Arcturus ashore on Sankaty Head. Arcturus and the lifeboat would, if lads on the Somaten." Arcturus in, or I'd keep her out here When Clayborne said anything to me, they drifted long enough, eventually "I got 'em all off!" said Captain until he did!" there was a girl's face come between us drift together. This was all Captain Manly. "There were only four. The "No ! Did ye now?" said O'Neill an' I never heard him. But when I was Clayborne had to hope for. If Manly others had been taken off by a wind- dryly. Then to the hospital steward: off course beyont the lightship, he tried to row to find the Arcturus, he jammer. That's why she didn't give "Rub the other foot awhile, will ye, says to me, says he, "'Tis the man would simply wear out his men, and any more signals. The radio men had young felly, like a good lad? Sure, that's in a hurry at sea that goes to the perhaps wander so far they would been taken off. The captain stayed be- yell be down to the copper on that one eels before his time ! See now, ye never find him again. hind with an injured man and another in another second." He buried his face nearly had us on the beach with your Suddenly, out of the darkness, faint, hand to help him. The windjammer in the bowl again. rush!" So now we'll just heave over but clear above the moaning of the lost them. A squall blew her away." "'Tis the first hot stuff I've had for the lifeboat's sea anchor and ride to it stays, came a sound like water sud- " Who was the fourth man?" forty-eight hours," he explained. "I'd until we're picked up. We can't make denly running into a bathtub, fol- Captain Manly's blue lips parted in have drunk the flames of hell, I was the Arcturus before the squall hits us, lowed by a sinister crackling, then a a ghastly grin. "O'Neill," said he. that cold at eight bells. Clayborne, and Clayborne will ground on his own splashing, as though some marine mon- "The pilot. He'd taken her down the you were ever a fine lad for mindin' sardine cans before he'll leave us.' ster sported about. Then silence. river, and the storm was so bad they other people's business. That ruling "Wants to be married !" repeated A murmur rose from the crew along couldn't get him off again." was my own idea. Sure, to give the Captain Clayborne. " Why, I thought the rail. On the bridge, not a word. Across the room, where a hospital lads all an equal chance to learn the he was after my ship !" Everyone knew the meaning of that steward was rubbing his frostbitten profession with the big boats, as well " Divil a bit ! He thinks you're a clatter out there in the night. The toes with ice, sat an elderly, weather- as the little. I'm retirin' Choosday. fine man. Men in an open boat in Somaten had gone down. beaten man with a blanket about his 'Tis well I'd be out of it, there bein' wintertime say what they mean to Another hour passed in anxious wait- shoulders. too many pilots and I gettin' old. I each other." ing. Captain Clayborne went away "No, no grog," said the elderly man. have enough laid by. So you wouldn't Captain Clayborne heaved himself into the wing by himself and let the "I've niver touched a drop, and niver take the pilot they give ye? Ye'll need to his feet and buttoned his overcoat. storm stream iinto his ears. He should the worse for it. Hot coffee is better." no current to set ye ashore if ye keep "Well, I've got to be getting back never have let that boat go out. He Here he dipped his monkeylike coun- on that way !" to the bridge. Tell me, as long as should have stood by until daybreak. tenance into a steaming bowl. "What "That ruling was your idea?" stam- you're aboard, I don't care who takes He should have notified all the other in the name of the siven divils are ye mered Captain Clayborne. "It's lucky us up the river, but do you suppose I ships around there that he had picked doin' here with the Arcturus, Clay- I didn't know it ! If I had, I'd never can get anyone to take me in at all up the Somaten and asked them for borne? Are ye this far off course with have come banging down here all these this weather?" help. Meanwhile the Somaten would all your newfangled fiddle-de-lees miles, and you'd have gone to Davy a "Give me a little calk," replied have gone down anyway, but he would and your iron quartermaster?" few years before your time." His face O'Neill, "and call me when you raise not have lost his boat. If the boat had "What did you do with the Soma- sobered. " O'Neill, I thought I'd lost Fire Island, and I'll take you in. Sure, still been fast to the wreck, then they ten, you old penguin?" demanded that boat. Whenever it came into the we don't want to disappoint the lad on had gone down with her. If they had Clayborne, going over. "I should beam of the searchlight, I went ten his wedding. There'll be a shoreward got clear, they would have been sucked think that you would have sense years younger !" set that will carry us in nicely." under just the same. He had allowed enough to get him in out of trouble "'Tis no thanks to me," said Captain Clayborne crossed the deck Manly to go with that boat when it somewhere." O'Neill, having another go at the bowl. to where Captain Manly was being was not his duty to do so. He had "Bah! His agents ordered him out. "There were four of us on the wreck, rubbed with alcohol. allowed his personal feelings to over- He had no more money for to pay and the wind whistlin' out of the "Nice work, Manly," said he. come his judgment. He was no longer wharfage. He was mad to get an depths of her the way the bulkheads "When you get ready, turn in, and worthy of command at sea. offing, and what could I tell him to do? was collapsin'. Sure, I thought the don't think of anything until we dock. " Light-o ! Light-o ! Broad on the He took three seas over the bow that race of the O'Neills would soon be ex- Just to give you courage, I'm retiring port bow !" carried away his forward house, and tinct. Well, annyway, down comes the after the West Indies cruise, and I'm To port, glittering, flashing like a his forehold was full of water in ten boat and gets a line aboard, and we going to recommend they give you the diamond, a flare twinkled ghostily. minutes. 'Tis a grandfather gale. If a over the side into it. Arcturus."

TES ARTECLEZ OF PRO L2300

(Continued from Page 7! be desired. The power is not flexible would be probably as efficient as a does. It combines the power of the enormous power stations where fixed enough. Fancy that an animal, or that donkey is. But imagine an elephant machine with the locomotor qualities engines revolve generators to produce you yourself, had only one speed back- with one speed backward and three of an animal. Almost, it is an animal. electric current, then a transmission ward and three speeds forward—one speeds forward. Technically, it combines the advan- line to conduct the current along the to start with, one to walk with, one to What is the solution here? It is tages that may be possessed separately tracks, and, thirdly, the electric loco- run with—and that to get from one to quite simple. If the power of the en- by the gas-engine locomotive, the motive that is simply an electric motor another, it was necessary to throw out gine is converted first into electric cur- steam-engine locomotive and the elec- like the one in your ice box, only bigger a clutch, shift gears and let the clutch rent anti transmitted in that form to tric locomotive. and not screwed fast but mounted on in again. That is how mechanical trans- the driving wheels, then mechanical Compare it, for example, with the wheels, so that it moves itself instead mission works. With light vehicles and locomotion becomes suddenly as free electric locomotive such as you may see of standing still and moving the wheel small loads it is tolerable enough. A and flexible as animal locomotion. That running on electrified stretches of rail- of something else. The electric locomo- donkey with mechanical transmission is what the gas-electric locomotive road. In that system you have, first, tive takes the current, called also the THE SATURDAY EVENING POST July 28, 1934

juice, by means of a sliding contact Then at frequent intervals a trip to the weight of equipment, and all its knowl- with a naked transmission wire over- sanitarium for a general overhauling. edge reduced to infallible rules. head, or it may be from a naked trans- Technicians speak of the availability So would any institution, wherein it mission rail below; this current turns of a piece of locomotive equipment. is old and honorable and proud, resist the motor and the motor turns the How much of its lifetime is spent on the idea of sudden change. But even fHERMDs driving wheels. If anything happens duty? As such machines go, the avail- the executive who has the imagination to the juice, the electric locomotive is ability of the steam locomotive is very to see, and all the more because he sees, powerless. It cannot move. It has no low, maybe 35 per cent, whereas the will be uneasy and a little afraid. Why? PROVIDES A power of its own to move with. And availability of the gas-electric locomo- Well, suppose it were true, as it may what is true of one is true of all. Every tive, owing to the mulishness of the be. Suppose the steam locomotive were locomotive on the line is powerless if Diesel engine, may be as high as 95 per obsolete in fact as a mechanical species. Home anything happens to the current or to cent, which means simply that it takes Suppose railroad equipment, if you the fixed engines at the power station very little time off. should look at it in a reasonable way, that produce it. But a gas-electric lo- The gas-electric locomotive has yet would appear to be archaic, in view of Lunch comotive makes its own juice and is to meet the steam locomotive on flat what might be put in place of it. self-contained in its own mobility. It terms for decisive combat. That duel is Though he were willing to throw his is power station, transmission line and soon to come. The run of the Zephyr mechanical department out of the win- EVERYWHERE motor all in one. That is to say, it car- was a challenge only. True, no steam dow and tradition on top of it, what ries its own power station in the form of locomotive could have done it; on the should he do then about the capital 3 14 a gas engine, and its transmission line other hand, that was not a steam loco- that represents all of that obsolete is six feet of copper cable from the gen- motive's job. But the gas-electric loco- property? erator through the floor down to the motive is not limited to that kind of electric motor that turns its wheels. job or that kind of train. The engine The Changing Railroad World The electric locomotive is tethered to a that moved the Zephyr was 600 horse distant power station. Beyond the power; the whole Zephyr train weighed The cruelties of obsoleseence are not end of the juice line it cannot move, 200,000 pounds. There is now building to be taken lightly. They are unpre- nor to one side of it, whereas the gas- a gas-electric locomotive of the same dictable and remorseless. What can electric locomotive, making its own Diesel-engine type to develop 3600 happen to the steam locomotive? There juice, is tethered to nothing and may horse power; and its undertaking will it stands on the track, as grand and as run on two rails anywhere, like a steam be to put itself in the place of a steam useful today as it was yesterday. But locomotive. locomotive at the head of a trans- if a new and more capable locomotor continental train weighing, probably, mechanism has appeared in the world, The Romantic Steam Locomotive 2,000,000 pounds—a train of full stand- out of the nowhere, the economic value ard equipment—and pull it all the way of that steam locomotive is suddenly Then compare it with the steam lo- from Chicago to the Pacific Coast. One impaired, may even be destroyed, and comotive. At this point the senses are engine ! there is no help for it. Thus, the rail- Atherlite not to be trusted. Of all the mechanical Now the further implications begin road executive looks on the destructive cup — always cool species possessing the quality of loco- to appear. It takes from eight to ten side of change—on that side first—and to the lips. motion, the steam locomotive is the steam locomotives to haul a transcon- cannot avoid a sense of dread. Yet he most exciting, and so, if it should dis- tinental passenger train from Chicago knows very well that one deep reason appear, it would be remembered al- to the Pacific Coast. Suppose one en- for the economic sickness of the rail- ways. It has visible reciprocal parts. gine could do it; and suppose that were road industry is that it has too much Its exertions are revealed. It is full of an engine that would have to stop only dreaded change and once, in a solemn grunts and snorts and exulting sounds. once or twice to refill its fuel tank. and futile way, denied the power of It boasts of its power and is believed. What of all the water tanks and coal- change to touch it. Moreover, its background in pioneer ing stations and roundhouses and shops Forty years ago, to place it very American history is deeply romantic. that now serve and service steam loco- roughly in time, the railroads took high The gas-electric locomotive, in con- motives on the transcontinental-railroad cognizance of their estate and said: trast, is a featureless, dumb, cased-up routes? What of the people employed "This is the superb form of property, thing, with all action concealed and no on the steam locomotives that are as and it is permanent. Nothing can ever personality. In the case of a feather- ten to one against the gas-electric loco- supersede it." weight speed train like the Zephyr, it is motive necessary to perform the same So everyone thought at the time. small enough to be incorporated in the work, and of those employed at the Having arrived at that conclusion, the streamline design without bulging it in water tanks and coaling stations and railroads wiped out their sinking funds. AKE THERMOS the least at any point. From the out- roundhouses and shops, and so on back All at once the sinking fund disap- with you always and side there is no sign of its existence; to the coal mines that produce the coal peared from railroad finance. Tenjoy the real satisfaction inside, you may walk around it and see the steam locomotives now devour? Now, a sinking fund is a sum regu- of Home-Cooked foods larly set aside out of profits to extin- on picnics, hikes, motor nothing. And when it appears in a But such questions as these have trips, trains, at the shore much more powerful form, as a de- been asked and waived at every step of guish debt—specifically, in the case of —wherever you go. tached locomotive to be coupled to any our way with progress during the last the railroads, to pay off bonds as they THERMOS Bottles give train, like a steam locomotive, still 150 years. The only point of doing with came due. The assumption implicit in you HOT or COLD there will be nothing to see. Every- one engine the work of ten would be to the sinking fund is that all forms of Liquids when you desire thing about it will have to be imagined. cheapen the cost of transportation property are impermanent, wherefore them. THERMOS Food Yet for all its grandeur, or perhaps again; and never in the past has the borrowed capital—that is to say, debt— Jars keep food clean, ap- cost of transportation been cheapened must be paid back out petizing and at the cor- because of it, the steam locomotive has of profits before rect temperature. points of regrettable weakness. One of but in the end to increase, not to de- the property wears out or becomes ob- crease, the total of human employment. solete. But if property has at last Every THERMOS is tem- them is a gluttonous appetite. That is perature-tested for 24 what the technician means when he achieved a permanent form, never to hours. The name THER- says its thermal efficiency is low. In a The Electric Interloper be superseded by any competitive form, MOS is your guarantee week's work it will consume its own then of course there is no necessity to of satisfaction. weight in coal and water. It was for However, whether we will or not, set up sinking funds out of the earnings There is a THERMOS for some such reason, no doubt, that na- here are the materials of great change. to pay off debt. If the property is per- every need . . . . priced ture abandoned its mammoth creatures We are looking at them. The railroads manent, the debt is secure forever; it for every purse. See and let them perish. They ate too much did not conjure them up. The gas- is more than secure, since if the prop- THERMOS 34, with new electric locomotive was evolved on the Atherlite cup, always for what they did. Only about one- erty itself is permanent and cannot be cool to the lips. Model twentieth, or 5 per cent, of the poten- edge of the motor industry; the feather- superseded, it is bound to increase in 34A illustrated. Model tial energy in what a steam locomotive weight streamline train was produced value with the growth of the country. 34, dark blue, available devours is delivered to the wheels in by an outside manufacturing industry. iSto thh ee yr asi oo pap d esdb eplai eyvi en gd , also. Pint Size $1.25. the form of effective driving power. Its The railroad industry, to speak of it oaffndthb:irliedvienbgt Quart Size $2.50. Other generally, had been skeptical, timid, styles from $1.00 up. metabolism is bad. Of what a gas en- out of earnings. As bonds matured they gine eats, more than 25 per cent of the resistant and fearful. The gas-electric were not paid off; they were refunded. THE AMERICAN THERMOS BOTTLE COMPANY potential energy arrives at the wheels. locomotive and the featherweight train New bonds were exchanged for old Another weakness of the steam locomo- both have had to be driven first through ones, and the new ones were made Norwich 91 Connecticut tive is that for all its lusty magnifi- a railroad's executive department and longer and longer in term, up to ninety- cence, its nature is hypochondriac. then through its mechanical depart_ nine years; for if the property was THE ONLY Not that it is really delicate or chron- ment ; going the other way, or through permanent, so might the debt be, and ically ailing, only that its health takes the mechanical department first, they what was the sense of having to ex- a lot of minding. At the end of every were certain to be wrecked. If ere and change new bonds for old ones every run it has to be cooled and rubbed and there would be a railroad executive little while? It does not follow that put to bed. Once a month it takes time with the imagination to see it, but railroad debt became static. It did not. out, under rules prescribed by the In- never—almost never—a mechanical de- It increased. Besides exchanging new terstate Commerce Commission, to partment, with all its formulas based bonds for old ones, the railroads sold MENDS upon steam practice, all its faith in have its boilers thoroughly physicked. new bonds for new capital to increase THE SATURDAY EVENING POST 57 their properties, always, of course, in means of transportation were avail- the same superb form and always with able. What then? Having assumed un- the same assumption of its being per- limited moral liability for the railroad manent. capital structure as a whole, what shall Forty years ago, hardly anybody the Government do if the earning could imagine a competitive mode of power of that capital continues to fall, He has two mothers transportation. Hence the dread of higher rates notwithstanding? What railroad monopoly and the irresistible it did do, beginning in 1932, was to demand for Government regulation of employ public credit to save the capital the railroads, for laws to compel rail- structure as a whole, on the ground roads to compete with one another, that as a matter of public policy it and, at last, for Government control of could not be permitted to collapse. rates. Since then the Government has loaned The power to control rates is the to the railroads, roughly, $600,000,000, power to control profits; the power to for various purposes, one being to en- control profits is a power of life and able them to pay off embarrassing debt. death over capital. When, through the Interstate Commerce Commission, the The Toll of Obsolescence Government assumed that power, it assumed also an unlimited moral re- An enormous amount of obsoles- sponsibility for the security of railroad cence now appears in the railroad cap- capital. The Interstate Commerce Com- ital structure as a whole, representing mission was loath to face this logic. Yet the impermanence and lost earning there was no avoiding it, and when it power of property that was deemed did face the truth, the result was inevi- permanent, . representing locomotives table. It declared that as a matter of that are no longer intact, representing public policy rates should be such as to equipment that can no longer be run return a reasonable profit on railroad at a profit, representing 30,000 miles of capitalization as a whole. Thus, intend- track that the railroads would abandon ing at first only to control rates, the if the Interstate Commerce Commis- Government was obliged to go on and sion would permit them to do it, 20,000 say it would exercise that power both stations that the railroads' old cus- to limit profits and to guarantee them, tomers have abandoned without per- as a matter of public policy. In this mission of the Interstate Commerce position the Government, too, assumed Commission, and so on. The fact of that the railroad represented property obsolescence is nobody's fault, since in its permanent form, beyond the change does it; the liability consists in reach of any competition that might be not writing it off and calling it lost. trusted in a natural economic way to What is lost is lost, and all the Gov- limit its profits or divide its power. ernment's credit cannot save it. . . . but still he's lonesome Since then, what has happened? The demand for transportation has The entire civilized world, since then, not failed. All the time it has been ris- has been motorized. Since then in this ing. At the lowest point of railroad Johnny Rogers has two mothers. He sees his real country individual private transporter traffic during the depression the total mother for only a few moments each evening—be- tion in the new form of the automobile demand for transportation was prob- has become a universal possession. A ably greater than when the railroads, cause she has to work all day. great system of concrete highways has a few years ago, were at the peak of His substitute mother is organized charity, which been laid down. On these highways, their prosperity. Certainly, this would day and night, run motor busses and be true of travel. It has enormously does the best it can for him during the day. motor trucks, competing with the rail- increased. While passenger traffic on If Johnny's father were alive, things would, of course, roads for passenger and freight car- the railroads was decreasing three- riage. Forty years ago, no frenzy of fifths, travel by motor bus went from be different. But unfortunately he put off taking out fancy could have entertained all this, nothing to one-half of all the railroads life insurance; that is why Johnny's mother cannot and it is only what has happened on had left, and travel by private motor the ground. There is now, besides, a cars increased more than tenfold. That give him her full time now. transportation system in the air, flying is change. You may think this just couldn't happen to your passengers, light freight and mail, m To the suggestion that the railroads competition with the railroads. have stood aloof from change, or that child. Why not get the suggestions of an Equitable they have let progress go by, a railroad agent and make sure it won't? The Government and the Railroads man retorts with proper indignation. He offers the record to be examined, There is no such thing as a permanent and he may be proud of it. After the form of property, in a sense either phys- war, the owners of the railroads having The Equitable agent is trained to recommend a plan to fit your ical or economic. If ever a delusion to got them back in a used-up condition, requirements exactly. This is what is meant by The Equitable the contrary could have seemed ra- there was carried through a program of tional, it was at the beginning of this rehabilitationand improvement that Case Method. The special conditions of your case are con- century, when the railroads embraced cost up to a billion of dollars annually sidered—the ages of your children, your income, whether it as concerning themselves, the Gov- over a series of years. The railroad ma- or not you own your own home, and other vital factors. chine was thereby raised to a point of ernment and all common opinion sup- We shall be glad to mail a booklet describing this"made to your porting it; and yet this was on the eve effectiveness never before equaled here of change at a rate such as never before or anywhere. The benefits to business measure" insurance planning. Simply fill in and mail coupon. had been witnessed in the life of the and industry ini terms of service were ex- world. traordinary. The shortening of freight- That is true of all popular delusions. train time schedules and making them They touch the extreme of plausibility trustworthy had, indeed, a notable ef- THE EQUITABLE just at the breaking point. fect upon the capital situation of the The Government could decree that country, releasing funds that had been FAIR — JUST railroad rates should be such as to re- formerly tied up in large stocks of turn a reasonable profit on railroad stored merchandise. capital as a whole; it could not forbid That was progress, certainly, as the LIFE ASSURANCE change to take place, nor could it for- railroads say; and yet it consisted only SECURITY — PEACE OF MIND bid change to work its effects, one of in doing better what they already knew them being to make a great deal of how to do—not in doing a new thing. railroad property obsolete and un- And the limitation of it all was that the To the EQUITABLE Life Assurance Society profitable. As the earning power of cost of transportation was not cheap- 393 Seventh Avenue, New York City Please mail a copy of your booklet describing railroad capital, for that reason among ened. That becomes the crucial fact. the Equitable Case Method of Life Insurance others, began to fall, the Government For all the improvement in railroad Planning. 50 P could, and the Government did, de- service, traffic more and more took to cree that rates should be raised, in or- the highways because highway trans- NAME .. der that railroad capital again as a portation was either cheaper or more NATION-WIDE SERVICE whole should be reasonably profitable; convenient, sometimes both. Moreover, ADDRESS the Government could not oblige peo- in the face of competition, the cost of ple to pay those rates where cheaper (continued on Page 59) ACE Thomas I. Parkinson, President THE SATURDAY EVENING POST 59

(Continued from Page 57) else could it be added? As the regula- either cheaper or more convenient. But destruction of much fine old railroad railroad transportation has been rising. tion increases the cost of it increases, that is the superficial fact. There is property, much displacement of labor, Since 1900 the cost of moving an aver- and it has all to be charged sooner or much more traffic on the highways than much loss and litter. This could not age ton of freight one mile by rail has later to shippers and passengers in the the railroads have lost. What does that happen all at once. Such a process increased one-third; in the same time, form of rates. mean? It means that as the cost of takes time. In the process, the rail- the average cost of travel per passenger Then suddenly if shippers and pas- transportation was cheapened traffic in- roads would be creating new property, per mile has increased, roughly, one- sengers take to the highways and pat, creased. There, then, is the problem: new industries, new employment, new third. Which is to say not only that the ronize there an unregulated system Not how to divide what traffic there is, traffic, new profits. finest railroad machine in the world of transportation only because it is or how to restore it to those who first What of the profit? Here is another failed during thirty years to cheapen cheaper, is it fair? had it, but how to create much more. obstacle. To compensate not only for cost of transportation; it is to say that Having finished with the ashes, you At a time when this problem be- the loss of old property but also for the when suddenly it came to meet com- may go to the Interstate Commerce comes so acute that the Government risk of adventure, it is necessary that petition where competition had been Commission and ask the same ques- does not know what to do with the rail- there shall be the expectation of profit thought impossible, it was unable to tion. Why, with the finest railroad ma- roads and even the advocates of Gov- in the new thing. But a railroad is no keep its service from rising in cost. chine in the world, has the cost of rail- ernment ownership are weakening; longer sure that in the event of success road transportation been rising? There when the railroads, on their part, would it would be permitted to have the The Railroad Riddle you will have another kind of experi- almost as soon sell out to the Govern- profit. With the utmost protection, ence. Concerning railroads the Inter- ment as to go on as they are—just then profit is a fragile, fabulous result, and If you ask a railroad man why this state Commerce Commission has ac- invention says it is ready with the me- very liable. Now, suddenly, profit as is so, your first sensation will be that of cumulated an infinite amount of fact chanical means whereby the cost of such, the principle of profit, is in jeop- having touched a match to straw. In knowledge; owing to the profundity of producing railroad transportation may ardy for political reasons, and the profit the ashes you will find, besides the com- its knowledge, simple questions are be greatly reduced. In the past at such motive is slandered. It may be possible ments that would not burn, some very very difficult to answer. They may be, a juncture any new means would have to dispense with that motive. There is earnest reflections on the difficulties of in truth, unanswerable. Here are men been embraced in a spirit of adventure. a doctrine among us that says it shall conducting an industry that is neither who have grown old and haggard But at no time in the past was there so be dispensed with. Yet we know that public nor private. The fields of activ- thinking out the answers tq questions much luggage—and luggage is bad for all our advance in material well-being ity are three. In one the railroads have A and B. And now you come, wanting adventure. Besides the luggage of in- until now has relied upon it. We know but the responsibility to obey the Gov- all at once an answer to Question Z. ertia and tradition of which we seem to how it works and that it will work. We ernment's orders; in the second, mat- Between the Interstate Commerce have more than ever before, there is the have no experience of anything that ters are settled by friction and dispute; Commission and the railroads the rela- luggage of hindering laws, the luggage will work in place of it. in the third, which is narrow, a railroad tions are such as between a man and of obsolescence already existing in the Progress is not inevitable. With all may do more or less as it • will. On woman who have quarreled so long and railroad capital structure that the the materials thereto, still it is not in- services that no longer pay, but which bitterly that no simple questions are Government and the railroads are to- evitable. People may at any time stop, the railroads are forbidden to discon- left and they quarrel about quarreling. gether defending, and the luggage of a divide what there is, consume it and tinue, there is a loss of maybe $250,- The profit is for the lawyer. habit on the part of the railroads to repent. That has happened again and 000,000 a year. That has to be added Meanwhile there is traffic. If the look to the Government for aid and again in the world. There is a price to to the cost of producing transporta- railroads lose their traffic their troubles relief, even now for capital. Not the pay for progress. Grim disappoint- tion. The Interstate Commerce Com- will be over and the Interstate Com- Burlington but two other railroads are ments, great losses, crises, struggle, mission charged the railroads $145,- merce Commission will have to find borrowing money 'out of the public competition, insecurity, all the evils of 000,000 as their share of the cost of something else to regulate. It is not treasury for purposes of a limited ex- economic and political liberty preferred finding their capital value. The only merely a question of how the railroads periment with the gas-electric locomo- over those of the planned and regi- thing found was that the railroads are shall get back the traffic they have lost. tive and speed trains. mented life—such are the elements of worth what they are worth. But there If that were the question, much else the price. People who are weary of was $145,000,000 to be added to the would be hopeless. A struggle over how Paying the Price of Progress paying it will not progress; people who cost of producing transportation. First to divide what already exists belongs to are persuaded that they may have the people demand Government reg- no idea or theory of progress. Greatly to reduce the cost of trans- progress without price are deluded. In ulation of the railroads. The cost of It is true that much traffic has left portation and at the same time to open so far as now we may be involved in it to the railroads has to be added to the railroads and gone to the highways up fields of new service more belike that delusion, it is the only fact you can the cost of transportation. To what because highway transportation was the times would of course involve the imagine that may arrest progress.

COECHIING WM-11 CONNEE Mg=

(Continued from Page 11) never runs at the wrong time any more had been killed, because what he Huggins began to squawk to Umpire The other time was the result of a game than Babe Ruth. Such fellows last dropped into was the bottom of a con- Tommy Connolly. He conceded that the Athletics played at New York. longer in the big leagues because base- crete staircase giving access to a tun- our man on third had scored fairly. This was in the days when Baker, ball is a game of wits as well as skill. nel leading to the clubhouse. Phila- But Cobb and I, he insisted, should be Barry, McInnis and Collins were the That is the reason you will see Bucky delphia players rushed down to the sent back to the bases. Why? He said $100,000 infield. Harris standing out on the coaching assistance of what they feared was at that so many Philadelphia players had A ball was hit right through the line at third base when the Red Sox are best a badly injured man; so did our gone to the rescue of Grabowski that pitcher's box and I stopped it so far batting. He is there on the chance that trainer. In the grand stands 'and they had impeded him; that in trying back of second that I was out of po- some opportunity will reveal itself to bleachers horrified spectators had risen to help him, wittingly or no, they had sition to throw directly to first base. A his experienced eyes that might not, to their feet; but Cobb and I, accus- held him down, almost kidnaped him fellow on second was running on the quickly enough to be seized, be seen by tomed all our days to keeping our A fifteen-minute argument ensued and hit. I couldn't put the ball on him, but younger men. eyes and minds on the ball, were run- Umpire Connolly finally decided to let I did see a chance to flip it to Barry, ning, each yelling at the man on third me score, but ruled that Cobb would the shortstop. Bill Dineen, the um- Two Runs Scored on a Foul to light out for home, which he did. have to stop on third. That made the pire, was not expecting me to do that You see, when that foul ball went score 8 to 8. The game went to extra and got in the way; the ball hit him on I remember a game between the up, each of us, naturally, had no innings and eventually the Yankees the head and not a single New York Athletics and the Yankees on a holiday thought of running. We had kept close won. My satisfaction had to be taken be player stopped running to ask if he was in 1927, maybe the Fourth, may to the sanctuary afforded by contact later, when the rules were changed. hurt. Decoration Day; I've forgotten. The with the bases, but as soon as we real- We Athletics made a loud squawk score favored the Yankees 8 to 6. There ized that the ball had been caught, but Ground Rule on Umpires then, contending that the play ought was nobody out and we had the bases that home plate was completely ex- to be made over. Finally, when the full, with Cobb at first and me at sec- posed, we started our journeys. The Nowadays, if a fielder, after catching umpires decided we were right, the ond and someone else on third. Then man who had been on third scored; a fly ball, falls into a bench, dugout or New York man went back to bat to our man at bat popped up a high foul. then I scored, and Cobb had passed stand at any point, the base runner or try it again. This time he hit a fly that Grabowski, the Yankee catcher, threw third and was on his way home before runners shall be entitled to advance was caught, retiring their side. Since away his mask and with uplifted face Grabowski came to life. As he emerged one base and the ball shall be dead; but then the rule has been changed and ran close to the Athletics' dugout, from the dugout steps, ready to throw the rule provides that the fielder must now if the umpire is hit by a thrown which is guarded by a low iron railing. to home to stop the play, there was no- fall; if he should step into difficulty of ball, it is just too bad and the play goes The ball, as a piece of iron to a magnet, body there to receive the ball. The that kind deliberately, that would not right on. I suppose you might call that smacked into his glove. It was a good Yankees had permitted their minds to count. one a perpetual ground rule on umpires. catch and the batter was out at the be. diverted from the ball game. But They monkey around with football This lively ball, now; it is one of the instant it was made, but at that same Miller Huggins was a smart guy, al- every year trying to make a new game things that make it so difficult to make instant the catcher vanished! His legs ways, awake or sleeping. He simply out of it, but in baseball the rules are a comparison of players past and pres- had carried him against that dugout had to do something. Cobb's run not often disturbed; so I claim some ent that is anything more than one railing, so that he had plunged over it, would have made the score 9 to 8 and kind of a record for having participated man's opinion. I am not hedging on head foremost. For all we knew, he given us the game. in plays that changed two of the rules. anything I have said about Cobb or the