infra) gives these statistics from January 2, 1907, through 1917.1 This table indicates the ability of the railroads to furnish equipment in various years and during certain seasons of the year. It will be observed from the column marked "Net Shortage" that conditions were acute in January and February of 1907; that the net shortage disappeared in July, 1907, and appeared again in September of that year and continued until the latter part of November. No net shortage appeared again until November of 1909, and then only to a minor extent. Not until the fall and winter of 1912 was there another net shortage, which was only a little less severe than that of the corresponding period of 1907, but it continued somewhat longer than in 1907. With the exception of a slight scarcity for about a month in the fall of 1913, no further net shortage appeared until the first of March, 1916. This continued for that month only; but was followed by another shortage beginning in September, which has continued since with varying degrees of intensity.

Examination of Table I and Chart I (based on data in Table I) shows that it is unusual for any car shortage to occur in the spring months and that it is heaviest during the autumn. The figures show that in April, 1908, there was a surplus of equipment of 413,338 cars; that from November, 1913, to March, 1916, there was a continuous surplus of equipment, the number reaching 200,000 even in the month of October, 1914, when the American Railway Association as an economy measure discontinued its statistics. When the Association resumed the colistration has not continued these statistics. See Proceedings National Association Railway Commissioners, 1908, p. 43. The figures in Table I have been taken from American Railway Association Bulletin No. 6, February 6, 1917, and from various later bulletins. Many valuable statistics also in Proceedings American Railway Association, vol. vii, pp. 522–575. See also House Report No. 1553, 64th Congress, 2nd Session, to accompany H. R. 20352, pp. 1-12.

1 Statistics as given in Table I have not been continued since the railroads were taken over by the government.

lection of statistics on February 1, 1915, the surplus amounted to over 279,000. The shortage after the spring of 1916, as is well known, was coincident with a heavy war traffic.

Statistics of car location indicate that certain sections of the United States suffer much more than others on account of car shortage. For example, box cars considerably in excess of ownership were on the lines serving what are known as New England, Southeastern,

Trunk Line and Central Freight Association territories, represented on Map I 2 as groups 1, 2, 3, and 4. All the other groups were deficient in this class of equipment in comparison with their ownership. Southern, Southeastern and Trunk Line territory, represented by groups 2, 4, and 5 on Map II, are the sections that had less

1 Car location statements are given in Proceedings of American Railway Association, vol. vii, pp. 524-575. More recent statistics were presented by F. B. Dow, attorney for Interstate Commerce Commission in Hearings on Senate Bill (636), May 3, 1917. Statistics formerly published by American Railway Association are now published bi-monthly by the U. S. Railroad Administration.

2 Maps from testimony of Dow, ibid., loc. cit.

CAR LOCATIONS

MINOR
CARRIERS

ALL GROUPS

CAR LOCATIONS

CARRIERS

ALL GROUPS

2

gondola, coal and coke cars on their lines than they owned. In 1916 the state of Nebraska memorialized Congress to enact legislation which, among other things, would insure the return of equipment to the roads in that section.1 Conditions were so bad in Illinois about the same time that the Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission of that state made a trip to the seaboard to try to find out why railroad equipment of western lines was being detained in the East. He maintained that grain elevators in Illinois were full and that some elevators had received but one empty car a week, in some cases but one car per month. On a tour in March, 1918, through seven states of the far West and Northwest for the United States Department of Agriculture, to stimulate a greater acreage of spring wheat, President Thompson of Ohio State University found that many of the alleged violations of the rules of the Food Administration in that area were due to the shortage of cars and transportation service. Areas that had much wheat could secure no substitutes; many small places were reported to have received but one car per month; potatoes were rotting in Idaho because they could not be marketed; live stock in some areas were almost starving, while but twelve hours away by rail, hay was rotting that could be transported.

In view of such unequal distribution of equipment among railway systems, it is not surprising to learn that the Interstate Commerce Commission discovered in its investigations in 1906 that in furnishing cars, railroads stipulated that their equipment should not go beyond their own line. If the shipper did not care to consent

1 For copy of memorial, see Hearings before House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 64th Congress, 2nd Session, on H.R. 19546 and H.R. 20256 and H.R. 20352, hereafter referred to as "Esch Hearings."

2 Esch Hearings, p. 41.

3 Kansas City Hearings, pp. 192, 196; Minneapolis Hearings, p. 137; St. Louis Hearings, pp. 3, 4, 7, 8, 36, 117, 118. See note 3, p. 139. See also Railway Age, April 26, 1907, p. 683.