(See Cover) In peace, the U.S. railways, like the human circulatory system, are taken for granted. Only in war, when the crowded arteries pump hard, does the U.S. become conscious of their existence. Last week, the American people were conscious, as seldom before, of their rail system. The congestion, slowly worsening during four years of war, had reached the danger point under the heavy strain of troops deploying from Europe to the Pacific.
It had come much sooner than expected.
According to the Army plan, the great mass of troops would reach the U.S. in November, when the railroads must find room for 1,500,000 troops. The Army was caught up in its own efficiency; it was returning troops from Europe to the U.S. some 30% faster than it had expected. In Manhattan, the great grey Queen Elizabeth, the Aquitania and other transports docked last week. In two days, they disgorged 39,695 G.I.s, the biggest disembarkation of the war. As the troops climbed into long lines of rail coaches and Pullmans, and rumbled off to camp, many a battle-weary veteran bitterly resented the way he was forced to travel.
Many sweltered in grimy day coaches, slept on the dirty floors, jeered at the sleek streamliners which whizzed past as they waited for hours on sidings.
The Tool. But many a civilian was no better off. They too waited in long lines in railroad stations, were jampacked into coaches, slept where they could find room to curl up. There was this difference, however: for the G.I.s, things would probably get better. (The Army was already experimenting with a plan to have them sleep in eight-hour shifts in Pullmans, thus triple the number of berths.) But for civilians things could only get worse.
Last week, the Office of Defense Transportation made it plain how much worse they might get. It ordered U.S. railroads to pool all their passenger and baggage cars, so that they will be on tap to meet Army demands. This was partly scare talk, to keep civilians off trains. But it was also a plain warning that, from now on, civilians will travel only at the pleasure of the Army.
The Job. The railroads had already performed a transportation miracle. By working men & equipment to the cracking point, U.S. railroads last year hauled 740 billion ton-miles of freight, more than twice the 1939 total. Passenger-miles trebled in the five years to 96 billion. The railroads had no choice. Part of this back-breaking traffic had been the 3,500,000 troops—and all the materiél needed to fight in Europe—that were shipped from East Coast ports. The railroads had done the improbable; now they must do the impossible. Miracle must now be piled on miracle. In the next ten months they must move as many troops across the U.S. as they had done in three years.
And this time they could not spread the job evenly over a network of eastern roads. The enormous load had to be carried by the seven thin western lines which finger out from the midwest, snake through the high, twisting passes of the Rockies and drop down from the high sierra to the key ports of the West Coast, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland.