Solving the Car Shortage Problem 



We have enough cars, if we use them properly 



The regular trading unit of the sugar industry is four hundred bags, weighing 40,800 lbs. 

 Notice the waste of car space. Such wastage is largely responsible for the recent car shortage 



THE lack of sufficient cars is as detri- 

 mental to a railroad as a shortage 

 of guns is to an army. The scarcity 

 of cars which confronts America is thus 

 one of those present-day problems which 

 we must set ourselves to solve immediately. 

 For upon an efficient transportation or 

 service at home depend favorable condi- 

 tions abroad. 



Our shortage of cars reached its climax 

 in May, when so much material was tied 

 up that it would have taken an extra six 

 per cent of the country's total equipment 

 to move it. To add this amount of cars 

 when Russia and the rest of Europe will 

 tax our builders to the limit, would be as 

 difficult as it would be unnecessary. There 

 is a better way. 



Only about one-half or less of the car 

 capacity of the country is utilized. A 

 buyer used to order half a carload of goods 

 at a time. The shipper would order a 



car, and after perhaps several days', or 

 even a week's delay, he would load the 

 car and send it on its way. But the effi- 

 ciency of that car hovered dangerously 

 near to twenty-five per cent with such 

 tactics. And all industries were much alike. 

 Oil dealers, for instance, would buy the 

 regular sixty-five-barrel trading unit, when 

 nearly two and a half tinies sixty-five 

 barrels could have been packed in the 

 same freight car. 



The employment of such wasted space 

 in the trains of one railroad alone would 

 release one hundred and twenty thousand 

 cars for transporting the materials for 

 building ships, for instance. The prompt 

 loading and unloading of assignments would 

 add a great deal more. This more efficient 

 use of the railroad facilities in America 

 has already resulted from the patriotic 

 spirit. Figures show that the United States 

 has enough cars to meet all needs properly. 



A thousand bags of sugar weighing 102,000 lbs. can be loaded in the same car. The haulage 

 expenses are but slightly increased while the efficiency of the car is raised seventy -five per cent 



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