Word: railroadmen
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Under the Kennedy plan, all carriers, including the railroads, could cut rates as low as they wished, though not below their actual costs of operation in cases where such cuts were aimed at driving a competitor out of business. This delighted railroadmen who have long argued that they would be much more competitive if they were permitted to reduce their rates for bulk goods-which now account for 70% of all railroad tonnage and 90% of the tonnage carried on waterways...
Time For Self-Help. In Washington the betting is that the ICC will be favorably inclined toward the merger. Whether Justice Department trustbusters will agree is an open question, but given continuing truck competition and the fact that two other giant Eastern rail networks are in prospect, few railroadmen can see how a Pennsy-Central merger would create a danger of monopoly. Said one Washington railroad expert: "The Northeastern railroads are on the skids. If the Government can't or won't give them any relief, then at least they should be allowed to do something for themselves...
...REGULATORY AGENCIES. A major source of the business community's sense of harassment is the new aggressiveness of the watchdog agencies. Some railroadmen see nationalization coming on the heels of the Interstate Commerce Commission's recommendation for federal subsidies for passenger lines. New Chairman Joseph C. Swidler of the Federal Power Com mission, describing himself as "consumer-minded," says that he will cut natural-gas rates even if customers do not petition for reduction. Groans one Western corporation chief about the choice of Careerist Paul Dixon to head the Federal Trade Commission: "Kennedy appointed a career prosecutor...
Even among railroadmen, the plan did not win unanimous applause. In the East, where passenger losses are heaviest, railroaders were cautiously delighted; a spokesman for the Pennsylvania allowed that his line would be happy to take any money it could get from anybody. But in the long-haul West, stronghold of profitable railroading, there were bitter cries that what the railroads needed was not more Government intervention but less...
When the tuggers struck, many members of the big railroad brotherhoods refused to cross the picket lines-even though the conservative railroadmen have not always seen eye to eye with the fiery tuggers in the past. But to break ranks and submit to management this time, many of the rail unionists figured, would set a precedent affecting all the old featherbedding practices that presently cost the railroads a claimed $500 million a year. Example: by contract, diesel engines must still carry firemen...