The sole purpose of the Government in taking over control of the railroads was to achieve a more efficient prosecution of the war by more rapidly forwarding our own war effort and by giving more effective coöperation to our war associates. Thus, early in the winter of 1918 the Western Allies made it known to the United States Government that unless the food promised by the Food Administration could be delivered to them very soon they could not continue their war effort. This was immediately after the Railroad Administration had taken charge of the railroads and was struggling with the freight congestion extending through the eastern half of the country, with coal shortage and blizzard weather. Every possible facility of the Railroad Administration and of the roads it was operating was brought to the emergency, and railroad officials and employees worked day and night, with the results that by the middle of March all the available vessels of the Allies had been filled with food and dispatched across the Atlantic, while at Eastern seaports were 6,000 more carloads ready for later shipment. In carrying out this war-furthering purpose the Railroad Administration coöperated constantly with the other war administrative and war prosecuting agencies of the Government, the Food and Fuel Administrations, the War Trade and War Industries Boards, the Shipping Board, the Army and Navy Departments. Just as food, fuel, trade, industry, labor were each and all mobilized for war effort and all brought into harmonious and effective teamwork, so the transportation agencies were all bent, first of all, to the same purpose. Roads, motive power, freight and passenger equipment were devoted first to the necessities of carrying men from homes to cantonments and camps and thence to ports of embarkation and of moving food, munitions, supplies and raw materials to camps, to shipment points and to places of manufacture for war purposes. After these war needs were met whatever remained of transportation facilities was at the disposal of the ordinary commercial traffic of the country. In order that the public might better understand the situation and in order also to better the service of the roads there was instituted a Bureau of Complaints and Suggestions which dealt with all dissatisfactions and considered suggested improvements. A very large number of the railroad employees of all kinds, efficient through years of service, joined the fighting forces of the nation or engaged in work more directly concerned with the war and so made it necessary to fill their places with untrained help. To remedy this condition training schools were established with successful results.