386 



Popular Science Monthly 



A number of these big Russian locomotives of 5-foot gage, built in this country, are now 

 being adapted to our 4 ft. 83^2 inch gage and used on our own roads. Two hundred will be used 



expeditious movement of its particular 

 classes of commodities. The accom- 

 panying map-diagram, showing how the 

 nation's railroads converge at the At- 

 lantic seaboard, indicates how freight and 

 passenger traffic may be divided among 

 the various lines. The Lehigh Valley 

 road, for example, already brings to New 

 York more flour than any other railroad. 

 Its terminals at Buffalo and Jersey City 

 are equipped for the handling of flour on a 

 huge scale. The logical extension of this 

 existing condition will be to divert all the 

 flour traffic from other roads to the Le- 

 high, and if its terminals are insufficient 

 it can use the Lackawanna terminals, 

 which also have equipment for the re- 

 packing and handling at tidewater of flour 

 for export; for under the Government's 

 rulings, every road's terminal facilities are 

 open to the use of every other road that 

 needs them, just as the rolling stock and 

 motive power are interchangeable. Five 

 important railroad systems tap the hard 

 coal region of Pennsylvania. Some haul 

 coal from the eastern part of the field to 

 the West, others haul it from the western 

 part of the field to the East. This cross- 

 ing of coal shipments has been stopped. 

 The Norfolk & Western, for instance, 

 could be diverted entirely to coal traffic, 

 except for a small amount of short-haul 

 local passenger traffic, while all other 

 freight originating on its lines could be 

 well handled by other roads. Plans ten- 

 tatively proposed would make the huge 

 Pennsylvania system exclusively a freight 

 road, mainly for stool and its products. 



except for local passenger traffic between 

 points not well served by other lines. 



Car-loads are already nearly twenty 

 per cent heavier than they were, due to 

 the system of intensive loading urged up- 

 on the roads by the Railway War Board 

 before the Government took charge; 

 trains are ten per cent longer. Still 

 there is a great shortage of locomotives. 

 A list of questions sent to the heads of all 

 the railroads late in 1917, asking w^hat 

 their greatest needs were, brought forth 

 the almost unanimous response: "More 

 locomotives." Many of the roads had 

 not been earning enough to buy the loco- 

 motives they needed, especially at the 50 

 per cent increased cost due to war condi- 

 tions; all the locomotive builders in the 

 country, too, had been busy on huge 

 foreign orders, notably for Russia. 



Within a day after the Government took 

 over the roads 100 brand-new locomo- 

 tives, bearing the letters "U. S. A." on the 

 sides of their tenders were placed in ser- 

 vice on several Eastern lines. 



These locomotives were not built for 

 American service, however, but are part 

 of an order of 980 locomotives bought by 

 the War Department for use on the Amer- 

 ican roads in France which are being 

 constructed to transport men and sup- 

 plies from French ports and bases to the 

 American sector of the fighting line. 

 These Government locomotives are soon 

 to be supplemented by 200 locomotives 

 built for the Russian government, part of 

 an order of 2,075 all of which will be 

 completed in American shops by July. 



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