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Gone are the old mossbacks whose railroads ran by steam and tobacco juice. Today's operating man is younger and more flexible, an efficiency-minded innovator who spends his working hours figuring ways to apply 20th century technology to his 19th century railroad. A typical example is Downing Bland Jenks, trail-blazing 41-year-old boss of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. Says he: "You don't have to look 50 or 100 years ahead to see what railroading is coming to. We could operate our whole system automatically right now, if it weren't for federal controls and union problems."
The Rock Island's Jenks is no dreamer. As a research-conscious vice president, who moved up to the presidency last year, he installed electronic gadgets in freight yards to check and sort cars faster, was the first to use lightweight, economical (seat cost: $2,300 v. $3,800 for standard cars) "Jet Rocket" trains, which are equipped with radio communications so that trainmen no longer had to drop notes to station masters from speeding trains. Jenks has even put to work the U.S. Army's sniperscope, which uses infrared rays to see through darkness; a modified version keeps watch on car-axle journal boxes, flashes a signal when the box gets too hot. Coming soon on the Rock Island: centralized TV to keep an eye on crossing gates, plastic train wheels to cut down noise, electronic brains to handle railroad accounting chores.
RADAR & JETS
Other railroaders are learning to put the miracles of modern science to use—and are developing new ones on their own. Just as roads have switched over 90% from steam to diesel power, so they are now looking for ways to improve on the economical diesel itself. The Union Pacific was the first U.S. road to put to use a giant gas-turbine locomotive that burns a cheap grade of fuel oil, and can haul maximum-length freights (120 cars) at 65 m.p.h. Next year the Union Pacific will try out a newer model, which it hopes will burn an even cheaper fuel—powdered coal. Such roads as the Denver & Rio Grande Western are looking even farther ahead. Its staff of scientists has already developed an atomic signal lamp that will stay bright for twelve years by using radioactive isotopes, is also at work on an atomic-powered locomotive.
Because freight produces nearly 90% of operating revenue, the railroads are concentrating on ways to improve freight handling. The Pennsylvania, for example, is in the midst of a $34 million program to turn its 74-year-old Conway yard near Pittsburgh into the nation's most modern electronic freight system, handling 9,000 cars daily from remote-control panels. Electronic brains made by International Business Machines will sort, classify, route and guide all freight cars from an inclined switching hump to their proper tracks automatically; electronic signals will operate all switches; electronic scales will record each car's weight; radar-operated speed retarders will check the car's wheels to be sure that each coupling is made at precisely the proper speed. Saving to the Pennsy: up to 50% in the time for freight cars to clear the yards, plus millions in wages paid to yard crews.