20th century AD

Railway Age, Dec, 1999 by Frank N. Wilner

1910

1910 Mann-Elkins Act gives the ICC authority to suspend rates, institute ex parte investigations, and prescribe "reasonable" rate classifications and joint-rate divisions. Penn Station opens in New York as the Pennsylvania Railroad gains entry into the city by tunneling beneath the Hudson and East rivers.

1912

1912 Panama Canal Act extends jurisdiction of the ICC over competition between rail and water carriers. The Budd Co., later to become the nation's largest builder of stainless-steel railroad passenger cars, is founded in Philadelphia by Edward G. Budd.

1913 Grand Central Terminal opens in New York City. The first gas-electric locomotive is delivered to Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester, & Dubuque Electric Traction Co. (the Dan Patch Line) by General Electric Congress orders the ICC to determine the value of railroad property in America.

1914

1914 The Clayton Anti-Trust Act gives the ICC limited authority over financial transactions between railroads and other companies.

1915 GE installs the country's first 3,000-volt electrification on the Milwaukee Road between Harlowton, Mont., and Avery ldaho, 440 miles. It also delivers the first U.S. diesel locomotive to the Jay Street Terminal Railroad in Brooklyn, N.Y.

1916

1916 Railroad mileage peaks at 254,000 route-miles. Congress passes the Federal Aid Road Act subsidizing state highway construction. Railroad regulation toughens as competition increases. Historian John F. Stover will later write that "1916 in several was market the end of the golden age of railroading."

1917 Under the Army Appropriations Act of 1916, President Woodrow Wilson creates the U.S. Railroad Administration to control and operate the railroads in wartime; it operates at a loss of $2 million a day during its 26-month existence. An eight-hour day for railroad workers is mandated by the Adamson Act. The organization known today as the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association is founded.

1918

1919 General Railway Signal (now Alstom Signaling) conducts a trial installation of intermittent inductive train stop on the Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh Railway. The first commercial installation follows in 1923 on the Chicago & North Western Railway.

1920

1920 U.S. railroads are returned to private control. Labor's portion of the revenue dollar has risen from 40 cents in 1917 to 55 cents in 1920; railroad wages are 33% above manufacturing wages. The operating ratio has risen from 70.1% in 1917 to 94.3% in 1920. The labor force peaks at just over 2 million. The Transportation Act of 1920 gives the ICC power to establish minimum as well as maximum rates, authority over mergers, and a mandate to draw up a master merger plan. It also gives the ICC regulatory authority over new the construction, abandonments, and railroad stock offerings.

1922

1922 Shopmen's strike is the first nationwide railroad walkout. The ICC issues Train Control Order No. 1, requiring each of 49 large railroads to install ATC equipment on one of its passenger-engine divisions.