TIME CLOCK

PIGGYBACK TRUCK trailers (TIME, Feb. 22) will be put into large-scale operation for the first time on a major Eastern trunk line within the next few months. The New York Central will put on 420 special flatcars designed to carry two highway trailers back-to-back, will spend about $5,000,000 for terminals in five cities (Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Boston, Detroit) to handle the new service.

LEICA, which has been making the same basic 35-mm. camera since 1924, has just brought out a radical new model to meet increasing competition. Called the "M," the new camera has interchangeable bayonet lenses (instead of the usual screw-mounted type), a detachable automatic light meter, and a combination viewer and range finder that adjusts automatically for all lenses. Retail price: $348 and up.

NASH's tiny Metropolitan (TIME, March 22), the boldest bid by any big U.S. manufacturer to establish a small-car market, has gone over well. To date, 8,186 Metropolitans have been sold, and Nash has upped delivery schedules 60%.

GRUMMAN Aircraft has developed a deadlier version of its swept-wing Cougar (F9F-6) jet fighter for the Navy. The new plane has a longer fuselage, wider, relatively thinner wings which give it higher speed (more than 650 m.p.h.), greater fuel capacity, more maneuverability at high altitudes.

ELECTRONICS boom in New England is doing much to offset the slump in textile business. Hundreds of electronics firms (44 in Lawrence, Mass, alone) have moved into the area in the last few years, taken over idle mills and provided 85,000 new jobs, almost 60% more than were lost through textile layoffs.

BANK OF AMERICA, which owns 30 motion pictures (among them: Arch of Triumph, Body and Soul), has signed a contract with General Teleradio Inc. to put them on TV. General Teleradio will pay more than $1,250,000 for the TV showings, will release the first 15 for telecasting within the next few months.

DAVE BECK, boss of the big, sprawling Teamsters' Union, has set his sights on organizing Detroit's auto salesmen. Beck argues that salesmen, now paid according to dealers' profits per car, can make up to four times as much money by fighting for commissions based on the factory-delivered price of each car. Teamsters claim that 1,570 of the city's 3,000 salesmen have already paid their $10 initiation fees. Dealers hope that the move will collapse, as a similar one did some years ago.

ELECTRIC POWER for industrial use, which hit a record 257 billion kilowatt-hours in 1953, will increase another 55% within the next ten years, predicts Westinghouse Vice President Tomlinson Fort. One of the biggest areas of potential growth: the booming air-conditioning industry.

TITANIUM has finally been marked by the Government for a big new expansion program. The General Services Administration is ready to sign contracts with Du Pont, Dow Chemical and Union Carbide & Carbon for the output of three new plants costing $80 million. The plants, plus earlier contracts, will boost production from 2,800 to 32,500 tons a year, but this will still be far from enough for aircraft and other uses. Estimated needs by 1960: 150,000 tons a year.

EUROPEAN STEEL production (excluding Russia's) climbed to an alltime high of 75 million tons in 1953, up 1% over 1952.

FRANCE has joined its NATO partners, Belgium, Britain, The Netherlands, Italy and Denmark, in building ships for Russia. Three French shipyards are starting work on six 6,000-ton cargo ships.

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