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Every line is also at work on new families of specialized freight cars that cost up to $15,000 v. $5,000 for standard boxcars. The Santa Fe's new 3,800-car fleet will have everything from airtight, plastic-lined produce cars to specially compartmented D-F (damage free) cars for fragile products.
On every road, the maddening clickety-clack of the rails is fading away. All future track on the Santa Fe will be made of welded rail in quarter-mile lengths for a quieter, smoother ride (and greatly reduced maintenance). Everywhere the familiar gandy dancer (i.e., track worker) is dying out; in his place a single machine pulls and drives spikes, tamps the ballast and raises and shifts track automatically. The railroad tie that once lasted ten years now lasts 30 years with new preservatives. On the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific, the lengthy job of taking the flat spots out of wheels, a process that once meant that the entire assembly—truck, axle and wheel—had to be disassembled, is now accomplished by a $150,000 wheel-trueing machine that operates like a grinding machine set at track level, smooths out wheels in one swift mechanized swoop.
U.S. railroads are also spending millions to woo more passengers. The Union Pacific, the Santa Fe, the Southern Pacific are all buying new air-conditioned dome cars, while such Eastern roads as the New Haven, New York Central and Pennsylvania are experimenting with low-slung lightweight trains that zip along at speeds above 100 m.p.h. So far. mass-production orders for the lightweights have been slow in coming; most of the experimental models ride poorly, are troubled with mechanical bugs. Until they are ironed out, Budd Co. is trying the opposite tack with standard-size but lighter-weight (85,000 Ibs. v. 135,000 Ibs.) cars utilizing welded frames, stainless-steel skins and plastic interiors. Last week the Pennsylvania ordered six of the new Budd cars, said it might order 44 more if they prove as good as their promise.
As always, railroaders grumble loudly about the cost of passenger modernization, complain that even the best trains often lose money. But every railroader is also well aware that good passenger service builds up good will that cannot be counted in mere dollars and cents. Illinois Central President Wayne Johnston, who has cut his passenger trains from 228 in 1935 to less than 50 today, makes sure that the survivors are super-trains. Says he: "If somebody told me to take the Panama Limited off my Chicago-New Orleans run, I'd say, 'Don't insult me.' Any money we lose right now is made up by good will and advertising. It keeps the Illinois Central name before the public and gives them service they can't get anywhere else."
MONUMENTS INTO MILLSTONES