McNamara quits. He was the best contractor in the country and the man that Dagny counted on to complete the Rio Norte Line. McNamara walks out on a pile of contracts, and nobody knows why or where he went. The People’s State of Mexico nationalizes both the San Sebastian Mines and the San Sebastian Railroad. In his report to the board, James Taggart takes credit for Dagny’s decision to move north of the border every piece of railroad equipment that could be transported.
The National Alliance of Railroads passes the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule, which, as its principal consequence, will cause the Phoenix-Durango Railroad to shut down its Colorado operation within nine months. When Dagny hears of the Rule, she rushes to see Dan Conway, president of the Phoenix-Durango, and urges him to fight the resolution. But Conway responds that he joined the Alliance and voluntarily agreed to follow the majority ruling; he encourages Dagny to repair the Rio Norte Line as quickly as possible, because people like Ellis Wyatt can’t be left without transportation. Later, Ellis Wyatt bursts into Dagny’s office and informs her that just because Taggart Transcontinental pulled a rotten trick to get rid of its competitor, he won’t accept the railroad’s current inferior service. Wyatt tells Dagny that if the railroad expects to make money carrying the oil he produces, it must run its business as efficiently as he runs his. Dagny tells Wyatt that he’ll have the transportation his company requires.
Dagny tells Rearden that she now needs the rail for the new railroad over a nine-month period, rather than the twelve months of her original plan. Rearden tells her that she’ll have the rail. Rearden believes that he and Dagny are a pair of scoundrels who only care about industrial production and profit-making and that they are devoid of any spiritual qualities. But, he concludes, whatever else they may be, they are the people who get things done and move the world.
