Stacked three-deep on new split-level flatcars, some 2,000 new Ford and Chrysler cars swept south from St. Louis last week on the rails of the St. Louis-San Francisco railroad. The shiny cargo represented the largest weekly auto shipments the Frisco had ever carried. It also signaled a comeback of U.S. railroads in the competition for automobile freight transport, which a few years ago seemed won by the trucking industry.
In 1929 U.S. railroads handled nearly 60% of all autos shipped. The truckers came on fast in the postwar period, by 1958 had taken all but 10% of auto freight away...
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