Impact of Rail Strike Felt Quickly, Strongly : Commerce: The work action began a slow strangle of U.S. goods and threatened to idle hundreds of thousands of workers.

The railroad strike was only hours old when the evidence of its disruptive power--along with a nation’s worth of stranded cargo--began piling up across the country:

When the nation’s rails went silent Wednesday morning, Grain Sales Co. in Atlanta was left with several hundred rail cars--each carrying 100 tons of grain destined to be poultry feed--idled at rail sidings throughout the Midwest.

ConAgra Inc. in Omaha, Neb., feeds 80 million broiler chickens each day with feed grains brought in by rail alone. That’s so much chicken feed that it can’t be stockpiled, so it is shipped in daily by rail. If the birds aren’t fed, they die.

Just a mile down the rails from Quaker Oats Co.’s Fullerton distribution center sat seven boxcars filled with Cap’n Crunch cereal, granola bars, pancake syrup and Quaker Oatmeal. Twenty-five more flat cars wait in a yard in Los Angeles. “We can’t touch them” because of union regulations, said Joan Billingsley, the center’s transportation manager.

And Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday cut two eight-hour shifts at its big Chicago assembly plant because the strike has caused auto parts deliveries to be delayed.

Before a full business day had ended, the rail strike by 235,000 freight line workers began a slow strangle of the nation’s goods and threatened to idle hundreds of thousands of American workers who depend on train-delivered materials to do their jobs.

It was widely expected that the auto industry would take the first hit from the strike because it keeps inventories to a minimum. But coal and agriculture--the No. 1 and No. 2 rail users--also felt blows.

In an era of faster-is-better, in a nation where more travelers go by air than rail, it’s easy to forget that railroads form the backbone of much of American industry. But when it comes to bulk delivery of goods over great distances, rail is the transportation of choice.

Railroads carried 37.3% of all ton-miles of intercity freight in 1989, the most recent year for which statistics are available, according to the Assn. of American Railroads. A ton-mile is one ton moved one mile. Trucks were No. 2, carrying 25.5% of the nation’s cargo.

For California industry, only about 20% of all cargo is carried by rail, said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. Because it is less dependent on rail than the nation as a whole, California would feel fewer effects from a disruption in service, he said.

ConAgra, which spends $2 million each day on rail transportation, is a good example of industry’s reliance on the railroads. In addition to shipping feed grains for its poultry operations, the company has divisions that operate across the food chain.

Its fertilizer business was immediately affected, company spokeswoman Lynn Phares said Wednesday. “We ship thousands of tons of phosphate (fertilizer) from the Southeast United States to the agricultural areas of Midwest,” she said. “It’s a very seasonal business, and we’re right at the peak of the season. That obviously affects not only the fertilizer industry, but also the farmers.”

Those fertilizer rail cars were stalled Wednesday, along with rail cars that ship the company’s grain to ConAgra flour mills and to ports for shipment overseas.

With railroads carrying 68% of all coal deliveries, mines in the 22 coal states felt an immediate pinch Wednesday, said Joseph E. Lema, vice president for transportation at the National Coal Assn.

Utilities are coal mines’ major customers but most stockpile between 30 days and 90 days worth of coal so they can supply an even flow of energy to their customers, Lema said. And most prepared for a strike ahead of time.

That’s great for electricity users but does not help the mines. Coal is so bulky, said Carol Helderlein, spokeswoman for Island Creek Corp., that mines cannot store it after it has been pulled from the ground.

Island Creek, a coal-mining subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum Corp., is based in Lexington, Ky., and operates 19 mines in three states. Because of a full stockpile, Helderlein said, the company had planned to idle one mine by late Wednesday or early today at the latest.

While Ford on Wednesday cut work days at its Chicago plant, auto makers were prepared to shut down car and truck assembly plants completely by week’s end. In turn, that would cause a ripple effect through component and supplier plants, all within a week, and add up to widespread layoffs.

“Since Jan. 1, domestic car sales are 20% below last year’s figures, and last year wasn’t that great, as you remember. We don’t need this right now,” said John Ochs, Ford Motor Co. spokesman.

At General Motors, based in Detroit, between 30% and 40% of all parts and materials are shipped to the company by rail, and about half of the finished vehicles are shipped out in the same fashion.

“It would be reasonable to assume that within 24 to 48 hours, we’d begin to really feel it in our plants,” said spokeswoman Karen Longridge.

At the General Motors plant in Van Nuys, company spokesman Bill Ott said the San Fernando Valley operation was prepared to shut down “within a matter of days.” The Van Nuys plant, with 2,200 workers, is the auto maker’s sole source for the Pontiac Firebird and Chevrolet Camaro.

If GM can’t get the car parts by rail, Ott said, “there really aren’t any alternatives” because auto components aren’t adaptable to shipping by other means.

And in Mt. Gilead, Ohio, two rail cars carrying nearly a $1 million in huge injection molding machinery stood idle Wednesday on a railroad siding owned by HPM Corp., the firm that manufactures them.

The cars hold two similar halves of a machine, one destined for Syracuse, N.Y., the other for Leominster, Mass. Each piece of equipment weighs 300,000 pounds. They are so big and so heavy they cannot be moved by truck, said David Spriggs, HPM’s traffic manager.

As a result, like much of the nation’s cargo on Wednesday, the machines went nowhere.

“The only other (transportation) resource would be more expensive to our customers,” Spriggs said. “That would be to completely disassemble them, and it would take 10 to 15 trucks each to move them.”

Times staff writer Patrice Apodaca and free-lance writer Anne Michaud contributed to this report.

THOSE INVOLVED IN THE RAIL STRIKE

The companies and unions involved in the rail dispute: Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, Chicago:

15,000 workers, about 13,000 of them union.

Operates in 11 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico and Texas. Burlington Northern Inc., Ft. Worth:

33,000 workers, about 30,000 union.

Operates in 25 states: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming. Chicago & North Western, Chicago:

7,500 workers, about 90% union.

Operates in nine states: Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming. Conrail, Philadelphia:

24,000 workers, about 20,000 union.

Operates in 14 states: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Delaware. CSX, Jacksonville, Fla.:

32,500 union employees.

Operates in 20 states and is the largest Florida company affected by the strike. Illinois Central, Chicago:

2,900 employees, about 85% union.

Operates in six states between Chicago and the Gulf of Mexico, especially New Orleans and Mobile, Ala. Kansas City Southern, Kansas City:

2,100 workers, about 1,720 union.

Operates from Kansas City to the Gulf and serves Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, Texas and Louisiana, with track rights in Nebraska and Iowa. Norfolk Southern, Norfolk, Va.:

28,697 employees, 24,000 union.

Operates on 26,335 miles of track from the Atlantic Ocean to Kansas and the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. Southern Pacific, San Francisco:

22,678 employees, 20,478 union.

Operates in 15 states, ranging from Oregon and California to Illinois, Louisiana, Missouri and Tennessee. Union Pacific, Omaha, Neb.:

29,000 employees, 90% union.

Operates in the western two-thirds of the country, 19 states in all.

UNIONS

The unions want pay increases, changes in work rules relating to crew sizes and miles traveled in an eight-hour shift, and health-care premiums. The unions involved are:

American Train Dispatchers Assn.

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers

Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees

Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen

International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers

International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers

International Brotherhood of Firemen and Oilers, Helpers, Roundhouse and Railway Shop Laborers

Sheet Metal Workers’ International Assn.

Transportation-Communication Union

United Transportation Union

Source: Associated Press

U.S. FREIGHT RAILROADS Intercity Freight Delivery (1989)* Railroads: 37.3% Trucks: 25.5% Pipelines: 21.3% Barges on rivers and canals: 12.8% Shipping on Great Lakes: 2.7% Airlines: .3% *Because of rounding, figures add up to 99.9% Source: American Railroad Association

SHIPPING BY RAIL Major commodities shipped in the U.S. in 1990 and the percentage hauled by the 14 largest railroads. Coal: 60% Automobiles & transportation equip.: 67% Paper pulp and paper products: 68% Lumber & plywood: 53% Industrial chemicals: 53% Food products: 45% Building material (includes gravel, bricks): 32%

Source: Department of Transporation

(Southland Edition) IMPACT OF THE STRIKE

Business and commuters were preparing for disruptions and possible job layoffs from the first nationwide rail strike since 1982. A summary: BUSINESS

Autos: Chrysler Corp. had warned that a strike could throw hundreds of thousands out of work. Ford Motor Co. said certain plants would be forced to shut in two to three days, and General Motors Corp. said it too is vulnerable.

Oil: A strike could drain as much as $70 million a day from the Texas economy, said a spokesman for the Texas Chemical Council.

Grain: Particularly reliant on rail deliveries are corn shipments to major cattle feeding areas in the Southwest and poultry feeding areas in the Southeast.

Coal: The National Coal Assn. said most utilities have been stockpiling supplies to brace against a strike. Typical reserves last 30 days, but some utilities are taking on supplies for 60 to 90 days. Railroads carry 57% of all coal delivered to domestic customers.

Postal Service: The U.S. Postal Service said it has begun trucking bulk mail such as books and advertisements. First-class mail is mostly delivered by airplanes and trucks, the post office said.

Parcels: United Parcel Service said it was warning customers to expect delays in shipments; 35% of UPS packages are transported by rail.