"Atlanta grows where water goes."
That's the motto of the Water Works Department of the city of Atlanta, Ga.
Evidence of the department's faith in its motto is that every year, it lays some 65 miles of pipe -underground roadways to supply water for the many different uses man makes of it.
This year, will be no exception to the annual demand for 65 miles of new pipe.
The cars being switched to the rail highway transfer track at Inman Yard in Atlanta are loaded with 14 Southern flatbed trailers carrying more than two miles of pipe, part of the 1963 needs of the Atlanta Water Works Department. Southern will also carry the rest of the year's 6~miles-of-pipe requirements. |
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And the pipe to be laid this year will come to Atlanta via Southern Railway which proved in competitive bidding for the job that its costs were lowest.
Because Southern is able to effect savings that can be passed along to the shipper, the railway's job winning bid was as much as $1.60 per net ton below bids submitted by other carriers in other years. (Only winning bids are made public, so there is no specific comparison figure for this year.)
The savings won't stop with the city water department. Its product, water, is sold to a public that lives and works in a 600-square-mile area. As in any other business, the price this public pays for the department's product reflects the costs of operation; among the total costs of doing business is the amount spent on transportation. When Southern can help the water department hold down expense by offering low cost transportation, then Southern is helping the citizens of Atlanta hold down their costs of living.
One way Southern is doing this in the transportation of pipe for Atlanta's 1963 needs is through use of rail-highway facilities and equipment.
All the pipe will move in rail-highway service, on Southern's flatbed trailers.
Pipe for Atlanta's water system being loaded on Southern Railway's flatbed trailers at the Birmingham, Ala., plant of United States Pipe and Foundry Company. |
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Trailers are quickly and efficiently loaded -with pipe being stacked in tiers with a forklift-truck at the Birmingham, Ala., plant of the United States Pipe and Foundry Company, winners of the manufacturing contract.
Transferred to rail service at Southern's rail-highway crane in Birmingham, the trailers arrive early next day at Inman Yard in Atlanta and are grounded for highway movement to the water department's storage yard. Pipe can be unloaded there at the rate of two trailers every 30 minutes.
In sum, a quick and reliable, low-cost service.
A dozen public officials and businessmen from Atlanta who were interested in this new approach to transportation went to Birmingham to "oversee" the initial movement of 14 trailers early in March. To a man, they pronounced themselves impressed with what they saw.
Nor were they alone. Veteran railroad men working at Inman Yard shared the sentiment next morning during switching of the 14 flatbeds onto the rail highway transfer track.
And well they might have been impressed.
The 14 trailers were loaded with more than two miles of pipe ranging from six inches in diameter to 16 inches.
At Southern's rail-highway transfer crane in Birmingham, Ala., 14 of the railway's flatbed trailers loaded with more than two miles of pipe were lifted onto flat cars while visiting businessmen and public officials from Atlanta, Ga., looked on. |
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Before the job is done, many more trailers loaded with pipe will have made the journey from U .S. Pipe in Birmingham to the Atlanta Water Works yard.
The trailers will move via Southern because Southern is the low-cost carrier; because Southern is saving money for the Atlanta Water Works Department, and for the people of Atlanta.
As Southern thus increases its usefulness to the public, more freight will move via Southern.
And: Jobs follow the freight!