Railroad Trends and Prospects

Abstract

To emergencies the railroad industry is no stranger. Railroads have been coping with emergencies of various types during most of the century and a quarter of their history. Much of their progress and many of their most important achievements have grown out of efforts to meet and overcome difficulties. Within the memory of most of us, American railroads have been called upon for the major part of the country's transportation service in two world wars. From our entry into the First World War, down to the present, a period of more than thirty years, railroads have been traversing a series of sharp peaks and valleys. Between the two wars, the railroads, along with other industries, experienced a severe and prolonged economic depression. The impact of depression on rail traffic and earnings was particularly heavy, because of the dependence of rail transportation on economic activity, and because of the difficulty of quickly adapting rail service and costs to changing traffic and income levels. During the depression and since, new and competing modes of transportation have grown rapidly, fostered by large-scale public aid, and have diverted many profitable classes of traffic from the railroads. Despite these ups and downs, and to some degree because of the valuable experience they afforded, the railroads are today better prepared in many ways to meet the potential requirements of the present emergency than ever before.