THE RAILROAD TO RUIN
Aggressive, Tough Southern Railway President Heads Firm Up Track To Success
By RAY CRO.MLEY
NrM-spaprr Enterprise Assu.
WASHINGTON NEA This is!
how one man on one road is beat
ing some of the problems that
face the railways.
When I went to see D. W. Bios-
nan, president of the Southern
Railway System, I remembered
what a union official had said Bros-
nan had told him in the midst o!
a labor dispute:
"1 intend to manage this rail
road." Two and a half hours with
Bill Brosnan left me no doubt he
means just that. He's aggressive.
tough and stubborn. He's not go
ing to give up.
This is the secret of his success
He kept ramming and ramming
government regulations until lie
made a major breakthrough on
rales.
He has kept ramming ,at "fea-
thcrbedding" or "work rules." He designed them in his own shops.
has told the unions he's not going
to put lircmen on all his freights
he'll drup firemen by attrition
dune this while other railroads are
till negutiatin
7hT . ,
SOU T; HERN
I 7 5
When he couldn't find anyone to
design some of tile big new money-saving
freight cars he wanted,
he rammed through anyway and
An engineer from Georgia Tech.
Brosnan began his railroad career
in IH26 as a track laborer on the
as they retire or quit. He has southern. He became president of
the system in February, 12.
Brosnan's office is as no-non-
sense as he is. Though it's just
been redecorated in "early coloni
al" style, its furniture is modern
Behind Brosnan :s a sign
"Yt'SFSOYA" mearning "You
Can t Sell Freight Sitting on Your
i ir'-iMfuvn ! ' '. mui oiosnan ami ins loimci doss.
tK&bf'r-'-itT---, "V - a 0?-''' WXL?" 12 3 I Butts, saw Southern in-
- ---- M.--wwynjftefifi4p fciM Wm il iilcijr jiiai mi.uit no .mil
as eompeiitiors looK the new
I haul business. They saw itinerant
truckers walking away with 6fi
per cent of the grain shipments'
into the Southeast. They saw
truckers hacking away at lumber.
cement, chicken feed, vegetables
and a fist full of other profit
able freight.
Brosnan and Dp Butts sought
out five industrial engineers.
teamed each with an experienced
railroad operating man in five
free-wheeling research teams,
Each has free access to design,
cost and rate experts.
A research team seeking to find
why Southern was losing lumber
haul business to truckers discov
ered that trucks were cheaper
lo load and unload than box
cars. It cost less to prota t
lumber from damage in the
trucks. The team loui.d it could
convert uoodrack rail cars into
easy - loading cheap to - protect
lumber carriers.
A team of Soul hem men fol
lowed rail shipments around to
find nut why customers were
dropping away. Tlie men found
rough handling was damaging
r T . . .
mm wW-
tillSxZ.i
HOAI) TO SOCIALISM
ALGIERS lUPl) Premier
Ahmed Ben Bella said .Monday
night Algeria s start toward so
cialism is "now irreversible."
In a radio-television speech Ben
Bella said:
'it will continue in the days and
weeks to come with the launching
of a national campaign for the
democratic reorganization of he
management committees (which
run socialized businesses and
farms and by the preparation.
in the most favorable circumstanc
es, of their national congress, first
steps towards popular structures
and agrarian relorm.
PIPI'Y TIIKFT
KANSAS CITY, Mo. 'I'Pl'-Mis.
Alice Neal bought two German
shepherd puppies five months ago
to train as watchdogs.
She wanted to stop frequent,
petty thefts from her home.
Mrs. Neal reported Monday that
someone scaled the chain link
fence around her house and stole
the pups.
PRESIDENT Bill Brosnan.
president of the Southern
Railway, says "I intend to
manaqe this railroad."
goods. The research team's an
swer: a cushioned underframe
car that would absorb consider
able shocks.
A team ordered lo win backi
the business of hauling leaf to
bacco in hogsheads came up with
a sur-long 85-foot car for econ
omy and wide doors for easy load
ing.
When Southern heard alwut
work en pipelines to carry coal, a
research group visited shippers
and made time-and-motion studies
on loading and unloading.
Seven hundred and fifty of the le
suiting lntMon coal cars, used in
multiple-car shipments with quick
turnarounds, replaced 5.000 eon
volitional cars. Coal cars of 150
and 200 tons are on the designing
boards.
Having developed special cars
to haul freight cheaply enough to
win business frum the truck
ers. Southern's next job was to
gel the ICC lo okay rate cuts.
problem; Brosnan's sensational maics with tile single-lot. old-style
Wednesday. April 24, Wi PAGE 5 A
HERALD AND NEWS, Klamath Fulls, Oregon
Minor rale changes caused no
from City A to City B than ha
grain-rate proposals caused a fur
or. Brosnan asked for permission
lo slash rates by as much as 6ti
per cent on multiple-car, through
shipments in his SKMon Big John
freight cars. It took Brosnan 18
months to fight the battle through
the ICC. He won part of a loaf,
the cheap rale for 450-ton ship
ments. He lost out on the 900-ton
and l.tMMon rates because they
would hit the barge lines too
hard.
Brosnan told me he would keep
fighting.
He even plans to step up the ante
in another round. He's working
on plans now for 150 or 200-lon
grain cars that will cut costs fur
ther.
Brosnan said the economies ofl
big, through, grain hauls are such I
that he can make money at $3.07 a I
Ion in Big John multiple car lots
ton for the same distance. He says
bigger bargains are in the making.
Brosnan's partial victory is sig
nificant.
He has proved timidity doesn't
pay on the railroad.
(Next: Jervla Langdon and the
bright young men of B. and O.)
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AD ON
PAGE 1-B
NEW CARS FOR NEW BUSINESS The Southern picked up new business by de
signing bigger, more efficient freiqht cars. At top is the "Big Dropper," an aluminum
body car which carries more' than 100 tons of coal, yet can be emptied in only 15
seconds. The entire bottom can be opened. The center picture is a standard size hop
per car and the "Biq John" which carries 90 tons of qrain. At the bottom is the biggest
boxcar ever built for regular service. It can carry 94 hogsheads of tobacco.
I'KRSISTENT BILL
GREAT BEND, Kan. lUPD -Bill
Daniels, 32, got into a scuffle
at a cafe Monday. When officers
arrived to break it up, he hit one
in the face. ' '
Tuesday, Judge Roy Butler sen
tenced him to four months in city
jail and fined him $75. Daniels
responded by hitting the judge in
the face.
The jurist calmly added another
sis month to the sentence. '
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