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Trains Magazine 1961 August Is railroading against the law? Clinchfield
Trains Magazine 1961
August 1961Volume 21 Number 10
NEWS-5
RAILROAD NEWS PHOTOS8
NOT ALL ALIKE -18
IS IT A CRIME? --20
ROUND THE WORLD - 724
HERE COMES CLINCHFIELD!30
KITSON'S TINY TITANS40
L&N'S 100,000 FRIENDS45
WHY THEY GO TO MEXICO48
Railway post office 50Stop, look & listen 53
Second section56Running extra56
Interchange 58
I.ONCE a year we allow ourselves a holiday from the usual obligations of this page of the magazine. As we sit before the typewriter on a week end afternoon the fifth-floor halls are empty and quiet, the FM music is soft and unobtrusive, the window is open to a sunny, cloudless day - and, well, we're far too human and much too comfortable to "view with alarm." An occasional honk of air horn from the Milwaukee Road depot seven blocks away is the solitary sound of railroading, and it serves only to remind us what a pleasant afternoon this would have been for riding the dome of No. 3 up to the Dells.
It's not that we ran out of suitable editorial fare, you understand. Over there on the edge of the desk is a news photo which we'll soon be running of the first trip of the Minneapolis-Deer Lodge (Mont.) stub run which the I.C.C. insisted that the Milwaukee Road operate for a year instead of totally abandoning its Olympian Hiawatha service. The photo depicts the train with a 2400 h.p. E9 cab unit, 1 baggage-express-R.P.O., 1 coach, 1 cafe car, and 1 Touralux sleeper. We'll wager that the revenue the service garners doesn't equal the diner deficit alone; the train will doubtless vanish after one year. It makes us wonder how the Commission can possibly justify its order to operate such a train except on grounds of political pressure.
Or we could profitably ruminate on those who, for one cause or another, don't want to encounter railroad opposition and who, when it develops, accuse the industry of massive, multi-million-dollar public relations attacks. We happen to have talked to the p.r. man of a 4700-mile Middle Western granger road the other day. The public relations force of that line is that man and his secretary. The biggest railroad in the country hasn't placed any national advertising for a period of years. Roads as large as B&O and Burlington have no regional p.r. men who can quickly cover a local emergency such as a wreck. Indeed, what a wonderful world this would be, not just in p.r. but in many other areas, if the industry were the huge, affluent giant its enemies declare it to be.
Then there's this provocative item in our news drawer: the Federal Aviation Agency would like 12 million dollars in fiscal 1962 to see if a 2000 mph commercial airliner is practical. F.A.A. isn't going to build or even develop such a plane; that would run from 450 to 700 million dollars. No, F.A.A. just wants to see if the idea is practical. A few years ago the railroads and their suppliers set out to build a more economical passenger train, and we wonder if all the
Talgo, Train X, Aerotrain, and assorted other prototypes that resulted totaled much more than 12 million dollars. In the rails' case, of course, the money was privately raised.
But as we said, this is much too fine a day in Milwaukee to give in to such temptation. We will, instead, contemplate such noncontroversial topics as the esthetic satisfaction to be derived from trilevel automobile cars, Reading Nos. 2100 and 2124, an entry in Rio Grande's latest annual report ("Steam: Mikado . . . 22 engines"), and a dome ride to the Dells.
Still more on mergers
The momentum may be slipping out of merger activity. Chairman Everett Hutchinson of the I.C.C. poured cold water on hopes for approving any big proposals this year in a letter to Sen. Warren G. Magnuson (Dem., Wash.), who had asked for comment on Congressional drives to halt all mergers until December 31, 1962. Hutchinson said it would be unlikely that the Commission would approve any petitions until the middle of 1962 or later with the possible exceptions of those for Pennsy control of Lehigh Valley and Southern acquisition of Central of Georgia. He added, "It would appear that Congress will have adequate opportunity to review the situation before any of the major proposals may be made effective."
Otherwise, the news is this: Rio Grande has come out in favor of Southern Pacific's bid to control Western Pacific on grounds that Santa Fe would divert Utah gateway traffic over its own main through Arizona if the Atchison obtained WP. Santa Fe calls this fear unfounded, says that SP would have the same opportunity and motive (i.e., a longer haul) for diverting tonnage to the south, and warns Rio Grande that D&RGW could be destroyed by SP-UP encirclement. . . . It appears that back in May C&O asked NYC if it would like to join in a study of savings from co-ordination with B&O - the road C&O wants to control and Central insists should be in a three-way NYC-C&O-B&O merger. Central agreed to the study, says President A. E. Perlman, on the condition that the action would not prejudice its opposition to Chessie control of B&O. Now Perlman claims that his agreement is being used to minimize that opposition. . . Rumors are rampant about Illinois Central. The Wall Street Journal broke a story that IC would like to get together with Missouri Pacific to realize estimated annual savings exceeding 40 million dollars. Now the word is that IC is plain merger-minded, regardless of how the
Continued on page 13
THANKS, GEORGE
IT struck me the other day that, so far as sound goes, this would be a completely altered railroad world if George Westinghouse hadn't pursued his thought that compressed air could stop trains. The sharp report as a pair of air hoses disengage during switching . . . the unique sneezing of cross-compound pumps on the smokeboxes of Espee cab-forward 4-8-8-2's not so long ago . . . the torrent of stale air from the brake stand in any cab . . . the tensing of rods and levers and shoes as the carmen call for a brake test in the terminal . . . the sigh as a brakeman bleeds the reservoir of a box car. The ears have it: this would have been a duller world but for the Westinghouse patent.
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