Word: icc
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Last week ICC proposed to do something about the worst ailment that, throughout the depression, made U.S. railroads one of the sickest of sick industries. When business fell off, many a road collapsed under the monstrous overload of fixed charges represented by interest on its bonded debt. In its 57th annual report to Congress, ICC hinted that it may soon ask for legislation to convert all railroad fixed-or contingent-interest mortgage bonds into income bonds when earnings slump. Thus bondholders, like stockholders, would be paid only when earnings warranted, and the carriers would not be dragged into bankruptcy courts...
...would have been a few years ago. This year they plan to retire another $500 million of debt. Thus, by 1945 the backbreaking funded debt of $11.9 billion in 1930 will have been cut, through reorganizations and debt retirement, to $5.9 billion. Even if Congress refuses to adopt the ICC conversion plan, only a catastrophic depression year, far worse than 1932, could drive rail earnings under the $250 million needed to service this new streamlined debt...
...Although ICC praised the railroads for the job done, it also grimly warned: many accidents could have been avoided "if the urge to keep trains moving were not permitted to take precedence over safety...
...railroad reorganization wringer squeezed tighter last week. Stockholders in two once-bankrupt carriers saw their chances of participating in juicy war profits gurgle down the drain. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision barring any revision of ICC's plan to streamline the financial structure of the Chicago & North Western Railway. A Federal court in New Haven approved, with slight modifications, ICC's amputation of the top-heavy debt of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad...
...many investors the court decisions of last week seemed ironical. The reorganization plans were drawn up during depression years by a pessimistic ICC which set the limit on fixed charges at what the railroads could earn in lean years. But these plans now got the green light at the close of a year in which rail income hit an alltime high. Estimated C. & N. W. gross for 1943 is $165 million, net $25 million...