Word: freighting
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...rapidly through the data on passenger trains. (Russell's undisguised opinion of passenger trains is that of 19th century Rail King James J. Hill: "A passenger train, sir, is like the male teat: neither useful nor ornamental.") But his eyes brightened when he came to the figures on freight. Inked across one page in bold, red numerals was the figure 444. It meant that Russell's railroad had delivered 444 consecutive trainloads of perishable produce from California's Central Valley to the S.P. terminal at Ogden, Utah-from where the cars move north, south and east across...
...ahead-and recoiling from what they see. In the 19th century, when they were the only practical means of mass transportation by land, the railroads thrust their iron tentacles into virtually every U.S. town, developed such vast capacity that today they could still carry all the nation's freight-and then some. But for more than a generation, trucks and buses, barges and planes have been biting into the business of moving goods and people, until now the railroads' share of total freight traffic is down...
...railroads suffer, too, from memories of the bad and fat old days when many of them arrogantly set their rates according to "what the traffic would bear"-a practice that not only opened the way for trucks to slip in and skim off the cream of the freight, but that also inspired the steady expansion of federal regulation of railroads. Nowadays, a railroad cannot raise or lower its fares, expand or contract its lines, merge or diversify its business without express approval of the slow-rolling Interstate Commerce Commission. Overworked and understaffed, the ICC itself harbors no illusions about...
...first 15 years with the S.P. Don Russell supervised track laying and train routing in the mountain passes where the winter snows piled to depths of 50 ft. Mingling unshakable loyalty to his railroad with hog-on-ice independence, Russell more than once made way for moneymaking freight by sidetracking other trains in defiance of orders from on high...
...Haven meanders through 1,762 miles of a New England that has been losing many of its base industries to the low-wage South. Furthermore, trucks have proven faster and more flexible to service the new lighter industries of New England. Result: the New Haven's freight revenues have been falling steadily, are off some 13% so far this year...