2 6                            Ernest W. Willia?ns, fr.

ularly in recent months, attests both to the continuing importance
of the railroad industry in our national life and to the persistence of
major unsolved problems in an industry whose financial perform¬
ance, taken as a whole, has been less than satisfactory throughout
most of its history.

Not only is a work of synthesis in tailway history still to be
desired, but important aspects in the story of the industry are yet
to be explored from the source materials. Although histories of
individual railroads are numerous, many are of indifferent quality
and few achieve a penetrating appraisal of the strategy of railway
development or of the quality of managerial performance. The
history of many important roads awaits scholarly treatment and
such gaps mtist be filled as a prerequisite to a definitive chronicle of
railway development as a whole.

The Columbia Libraries are rich in railroad materials, many
still awaiting the attention of the scholar. The Marvyn Scudder
Financial Collection in the library of the Graduate School of Busi¬
ness is one of the most complete of its kind and embraces not only
the annual reports, but a variety of financial instruments, clippings
from the contemporary press and from the financial journals, and
much fugitive material concerning controversial matters. These
materials are by no means limited to the financial aspects of railway
history. Mergers, new construction, equipment additions, rate
controversies, safety questions and many other issues are touched
upon. Thus the first engineers' report of the Pennsylvania Railroad,
issued in 1848, is not only an analysis of the locating decisions
made by the company's engineers, but also a most interesting study
of the physical and economic geography of the state of Pennsyl¬
vania. When supplemented by the later reports, it provides a pic¬
ture of the adjustment of railway location to the economic potential
which has not been captured in any of the published histories of this
or any other railroad company.

Early reports of railway companies are studded with material
concerning traffic, equipment, and operating practice which seems
to have escaped the notice of most writers of corporate histories.