Fuel outlook dark

FUEL OUTLOOK DARK

Railroads Will Have Trouble Handling

the Indiana Coal Output

SCARCITY OF CARS THE CAUSE

PREDICTED THAT CONDITIONS

WILL BE WORSE.

A special from Terre Haute gives the following rather unfavorable forecast of the outlook for fuel this winter:

"There is no longer difference of opinion as to the prospect for a repetition of last winter's difficulty in getting Indiana coal to market. Those operators who a few weeks ago thought the supply would meet the demand see in the present blockade that which foretells another winter of excited demand for coal and inability to deliver it promptly. Buyers are already arriving in Terre Haute to bid for the first shipments. Every operator in the state is behind in hi [sic] its orders. The Big Four and Vandalia cannot take the coal from the southern Indiana fields offered to them by the Southern Indiana and the Evansville & Terre Haute roads. Both the former roads lack motive power to keep the yards in Terre Haute clear, and nearly all the time for two weeks past have had an embargo on freight except perishable goods. Yesterday the Southern Indiana sent one of its coal trains through to Logansport over the Michigan division, hauling forty-one cars of coal. This through service by the Southern Indiana will probably continue during the winter.

Robert Hemingray, of the Hemingray glass factories in the gas belt, was here yesterday. He said: "I don't know what we are going to do for coal. It is almost impossible to secure any of it in the gas belt. The railroads are all tied up. I came down here to see if I could manage to get some, but the condition is worse here."

"Last winter after the gas belt industries had paid two prices for coal and then ran short most of the time, mutual companies were formed which bought coal lands in this section and prepared to operate their own mines but it is now seen that no matter how much coal may be mined the difficulty will be in getting it to the factories.