the strongest wooden cars that could be constructed. The next step, the steel underframe cars seemed to be the thing. They were built, and the best that could be constructed. Now they are being shelved, and the steel cars are in the same boat. But the percentage is in fact always a little ahead of general construction, I assume because of the pressure of the Post Office Department on us.

Senator MCKELLAR. And there was no law that required the other cars to be made all steel?

Mr. MACK. We built them on the Missouri Pacific before the law was passed at all. We recognized it was a fair thing to do. Senator MCKELLAR. The best thing for the public, for the employees and for the railroads, was it not?

Mr. MACK. Yes; but that did not apply to apartment cars.

Mr. VAN SCHOYCK. All of our main lines where apartment cars are used are fixed up with all-steel apartment cars. The line from Chicago to the coast, to Kansas City and to Omaha, when we get our steel cars ready, the cars that are in heavier trains will be taken out.

Senator MCKELLAR. When do you expect to have them ready? Mr. VAN SCHOYCK. We have until March 1, 1930, to have them ready, but we propose to do considerably better than that. I hope it will be shortly after the first of next year.

Since 1922, because of falling off in passenger and freight traffic, particularly on our side lines, we have found it necessary to replace passenger-train service with mixed-train service, motor-train service, amounting to approximately 4,000 train miles a day; and if business continues to fall off it is likely that we will have to look further into our branch-line service.

Mr. THOм. I will now ask Mr. G. M. Kimble, manager of the mail and express traffic of the Seaboard Air Line Railway, to make a short statement.

STATEMENT OF G. M. KIMBLE, MANAGER MAIL AND EXPRESS TRAFFIC, SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILWAY

Mr. KIMBLE. The preceding witnesses have described about all I have to say, but I have a short statement here respecting the Seaboard.

Since January 1, 1924, the Seaboard has bought and put into service 21 new all-steel mail apartment cars, and during the same period has retired from service an equal number of steel reinforced mail apartment cars. The steel cars mentioned cost the Seaboard approximately half a million dollars. The Seaboard now owns and operates 59 mail cars divided as follows:

Seven all-steel full postal cars; 30 all-steel; 3 steel underframe mail apartment cars; 16 steel reinforced mail apartment cars.

Senator MCKELLAR. You have no wooden cars at all?

Mr. KIMBLE. None whatever. The steel underframe and steel reinforced mail apartment cars are all operated in secondary or branch line trains at speeds ranging from 20 to 28 miles per hour, thereby removing practically all hazards.

The other four steel reinforced cars are held in reserve for use whenever cars of this type are shopped.

In many years no postal employee has been killed and none seriously injured while in mail cars on the Seaboard Air Line. A number of trains in which these steel reinforced mail apartment cars are operated are earning less than half the cost of operation and there is much uncertainty as to their operation being continued.

Should this bill become a law and force us to purchase 19 all-steel mail apartment cars to replace our 3 steel underframe and 10 reinforced mail apartment cars and later these nonrevenue paying trains are taken off, it would mean that the Seaboard would not only have these 19 new all-steel cars purchased under this law, if effective, but also 19 cars replaced by the all-steel cars, or a total of 38 mail apartment cars on their hands without use, as practically all of our trains have all-steel cars.

For this reason and those of the gentlemen preceding me, I feel that this bill should not become a law.

Senator MCMASTER. There are no proponents of the bill here at all?

Mr. KIMBLE. No, sir.

Senator STECK. If the branch-line railroads should put in the same class as the independent short-line railroads mentioned in the proviso at the end of the bill, would that meet the objection?

Mr. KIMBLE. As far as our line is concerned I think it would. I do not know how it would affect other lines.

(Witness excused.)

Mr. THOм. Mr. Chairman, I will ask Mr. Henry J. Hart, general counsel Bangor & Aroostook Railroad Co., to make a short state

ment.

STATEMENT OF HENRY J. HART, GENERAL COUNSEL BANGOR & AROOSTOOK RAILROAD CO.

Mr. HART. Mr. Chairman and Senators, I want to speak briefly on the effect this bill would have upon a small New England railroad that was built to serve and develop the agricultural territory of northern Maine and the first 150 miles of which road was opened for operation 35 years ago.

The main stem of the property runs from tidewater and Penobscot Bay to the Canadian boundary at the St. Johns River, about 240 miles. There are about 400 miles of branches woven through an agricultural and lumbering territory. There are only four towns served by the roads that have a population of more than 5,000 people a very sparsely settled territory throughout.

The passenger-train equipment and the operation of passenger trains were designed to meet the special situation of the territory and of the road itself and the requirements of service and of safety. Two trains a day in each direction are operated on the main stem in the summer time and three in the winter.

One and two trains are operated on the branch lines, and on the main line there are six and seven. On the branch lines there are generally three-car and two-car trains.

The time tables are so arranged that at 30 miles speed between stations on the main line the maximum speed is less than that of the branches.

The requirements of the post-office service call for the use of eight 15-foot apartment cars. The cars are 60-foot cars, one-fourth being assigned to post-office service.

Two cars are operated in each direction daily on the main line, and four cars are operated on the branch line, two making a circuit trip, and the others a one-way trip. Eight post-office cars are employed in the service. These cars are the heavy underframe steel cars, with heavy fish-belly plate steel. These cars are all constructed in full conformity with the Post Office Department specifications. Four cars are in daily service-we operate no passenger trains on Sunday. The other four cars are steel reinforced, and the branch cars are of the same type.

When the order from the Post Office Department, known as General 438, was promulgated, that was given careful consideration, and the operating officials, being unable to determine just to what extent they came within the provisions of the order, communicated with the Post Office Department, and were advised that the cars fully met the specifications, and were operating in the train in conformity with the order. That was in the fall of 1926.

Now in the 35 years that this road has been in operation there has never been a post-office employee killed, and never a post-office employee has received anything but minor injury.

Senator MCMASTER. Nobody else has ever been killed, has there? Mr. HART. Three times we have had accidents. Twice it was on account of a blinding snowstorm, and one carelessness, for which the employee was discharged and prosecuted. This bill would require the withdrawal of all these cars, require 10 new cars, and at a cost or expense of approximately a quarter of a million dollars. The cars have been inspected and declared O. K. by the Post Office Department.

This would, of course, entail a waste and cause us an unnecessary expense in light of the conditions of operation which I have mentioned. But we are serving an agricultural territory. We are not a passenger traffic road. In fact, this road has often been referred to as the potato railroad. Our business is essentially a freight business.

In 1910 we carried 743,000 passengers; in 1927 it had increased to 762,000; but last year it dropped to 427,000, a decrease of 45 per cent in a 10-year period.

Since 1921 the Interstate Commerce Commission has required the railroads to separate their operating expenses as between passenger and freight, and on the basis of that separation it has cost the Bangor & Aroostook Railway during the period of 1921 to 1927, $1.17 to $1.27 by way of operating expenses and taxes for every dollar it has taken in on passenger service. In other words, we do not pay operating expenses and taxes on our passenger business. Yet this bill would require an outlay of approximately one-quarter of a million dollars in new investment to provide the cars required.

L

This would increase our passenger expense, and the freight would have to make up the loss, and in this case agriculture would pay the

bill.

We have carried on, in cooperation with the State highway commission, a great campaign for the elimination of grade crossings, and we are doing everything we can now to eliminate the grade crossings. As you know, Maine is one of the playgrounds of the United States

in the summer time, and a great many tourists drive through the State, and we are anxious to eliminate the grade crossings.

And we are expecting to go from the 80-pound standard rail to a 100-pound rail, and we believe that the money would be better spent to provide the heavier rail and the elimination of grade crossings, when the history of the road shows there has never been an injury of a railway postal employee.

We are a Class I short railroad, classified by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and there is no relief in the bill for the peculiar situation in which we find ourselves confronted. In the light of our situation and record, and the cooperation with the Post Office Department, we feel that the status quo should remain.

Mг. THOм. Mr. Chairman, I have a short statement I would like to make, and then we will close.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well.

STATEMENT OF ALFRED P. THOM, JR., GENERAL SOLICITOR ASSOCIATION OF RAILWAY EXECUTIVES, WASHINGTON, D. C.

Mr. THOM. As common carriers of passengers and property the railroads have certain duties placed upon them which are broad and comprehensive in character. Having created the transportation facilities, it is their duty to keep those facilities reasonably adequate at all times. They must be operated with efficiency and economy. Not the least of their duties is that of safety. This requirement as to safety is not, however, confined to postal employees. The carriers must also conduct their operations with proper regard for the safety of the passengers and shippers they serve, their own employees and the public in general. Consequently, to arrive at a true solution as to the pending bill, it is necessary not only give consideration to the necessity for the enactment of this bill into law, but also to consider its requirements in the light of the relationship which these requirements would bear to the railroad problem as a whole.

It is obvious that there is a limit to the amount of money which is available to the railroads. The real problem, therefore, which confronts the railroads in matters of safety is how to spend the amount of money available to them for the purpose in a way which would accomplish the maximum of safety compatible with the public interest.

In recent years substantial progress has been made in the installation of automatic signals, automatic train control, heavier and longer rails, steel cars (including postal cars), electric lighting, highway protection, and other improvements.

It should be borne in mind that each of these types of improvement contributes to the safety of the postal employees as well as of the carriers' employees, passengers, shippers, and the public.

We undoubtedly owe a duty to the postal employees, but we also owe an equally important duty to our own employees, to the passengers and shippers we serve, and to the public.

Does the record which has been presented here lead to the conclusion that we have been negligent in our duty to the postal clerks? One fatality in train accidents in 1926 (and this was not in a wooden or steel reinforced car) and none in 1927 convincingly demonstrate that the contrary is true.

At this point I would like to repeat what Mr. Mack stated in his statement, that from figures obtained from the Interstate Commerce Commission for the first half of 1927, only two passengers were killed on all the railroads in this country; and for the first 11 months-the 12 months not being available only five were killed in collision, and 4 in derailments, or 11 altogether; and approximately 750,000,000 passengers were carried during that time. During the same period of time no railroad post-office clerks were killed. As a matter of fact, the postal employees stand in a better position as to matters of safety than the other classes.

There is no justification for the policy of picking out postal employees and according them special consideration over carriers' employees and passengers.

There is no need for additional law on the subject.

There is now on the statute books the following:

All cars or parts of cars used for the Railway Mail Service shall be of such construction, style, length, and character, and furnished in such manner as shall be required by the Postmaster General, and shall be constructed, fitted up, maintained, heated, lighted, and cleaned by and at the expense of the railroad companies. No pay shall be allowed for service by any railway post-office car which is not sound in material and construction and which is not equipped with sanitary drinking-water containers and toilet facilities, nor unless such car is regularly and thoroughly cleaned. (Part of par. (11) sec. 7482a, Vol. 7, U. S. Comp. Stat. of 1916.)

The Post Office Department recognizes that power is thus conferred upon it to prescribe the "construction, style, length, and character" of all cars and parts of cars used in the Railway Mail Service, and has availed itself of this statute. In its Postal Bulletin of May 18, 1927, the department published certain amendments to sections 1580 and 1583 of the Postal Laws and Regulations of 1924. The Postmaster General, in his Annual Report for 1927, on page 43, explained the purposes of these amendments as follows:

The Postal Laws and Regulations were amended so as to require that new apartment mail cars for service in fast or heavy trains shall be of all-steel construction, to require the operation of an all-steel apartment mail car in a train where a majority of the cars in the train are of steel construction, to forbid the operation of steel-underframe mail cars between adjoining steel cars or between steel car adjoining and the engine, and to forbid the operation of wooden mail cars where the majority of the cars in the train are of steel or steel-underframe construction, thus insuring better protection to the clerks and the mails. Electric fans are required in all new full and apartment mail cars and in such cars now in operation if deemed essential by the Railway Mail Service.

The validity of this exercise of power by the Postmaster General has been fully recognized by the railroads, and after conference with him they have agreed to comply fully with these amended regulations within a time which he prescribes, namely, two and one-half years from September 1, 1927. This will appear from the following quotation from a letter of the Second Assistant Postmaster General, dated August 15, 1927:

The Postmaster General has agreed to give the railroad companies not more than two and a half years from September 1, 1927, to comply with the Postmaster General's Order No. 5438 of May 13, 1927, provided each railroad company affected advise me in writing of their willingness to comply with same, and show their good faith by immediately arranging to take care of the situation within the two and one-half-year period; that is, at least provide a proportionate number of the cars each year that is necessary to meet the conditions set forth. 96574-28- -3