1958 - Editorial - Railroad's Plight: It's Time for Action

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Roanoke Times - March 13, 1958

Editorial - Railroad's Plight: It's Time for Action

   A Senate subcommittee several weeks ago held extensive hearings on 
the financial condition of the nation's railroads. A procession of 
witnesses agreed that financial and other problems of the roads are 
steadily worsening.
   The story by now is a familiar one: Railroads are engaged in a 
struggle for survival under the handicap of discriminatory taxes, 
mounting costs, excessive regulation, and subsidized competition. 
Such facts have been cited in various studies previously. Two years 
ago a presidential commission headed by Commerce Secretary Weeks 
recommended a measure of relief for the rails. The principal proposal 
called for relaxation of Government regulation to allow the roads 
some leeway in fixing rates competitive with other forms of transportation.
   Present indicators are that little of a substantial nature will be 
done at this session of Congress to relieve the hard-pressed 
railroads. Failure to take prompt action would be unfortunate. 
Railroads are a national necessity. It is not a case of doing a favor 
for their stockholders but of keeping an industry healthy and 
vigorous for efficient service to the commerce of the whole country. 
The public interest is deeply involved.
   Railroads are vital for defense as well as for the national 
economy. In the event of war, the fate of the nation could well hinge 
upon the efficiency of its rail transportation system.
   Primarily, what the railroads are asking is less regulation. 
Regulatory practices at national and state levels are outmoded - 
hangovers from the days when rails were a transportation monopoly. 
Today there is scant justification for most of them. As for federal 
regulation, the situation is succinctly stated by the Shreveport, La. Times:

     The ICC attitude toward rail freight rates us one that in many 
instances simply does not make sense - in fact, in some instances it 
is downright silly. Railroads offering to carry freight at much lower 
rates than the ICC sets, are told by the ICC that they must charge 
higher rates. These higher rates invariably are higher than the truck 
lines charge. The result is that the federal government, through the 
ICC, forces the railroads to lose business on which they could make 
money, and, in effect, forces business away from the railroads and 
into the hands of a competitor - a competitor which receives many 
governmental perquisites at the federal and state levels that are not 
permitted the railroads.

   We could not do without the railroads. They are entitled to make a 
fair profit and to be allowed to operate without unreasonable and 
unrealistic restraints that prevent them from meeting competition on 
equitable terms. There has been ample investigation of the problem so 
that there is no doubt about what ought to be done. What is demanded 
of Congress now is action.

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[It would be 18 years before Congress would pass the Railroad 
Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act in 1976 and 22 years before 
the Staggers Rail Act would be passed in 1980.]

- Ron Davis, Roger Link