Midland Mike- The entire Ring of Fire has been very sadly going no where. The Ontario Government, which is not friendly to mining or the mining industry, has taken the playbook of President Obama's handling of the Keystone XL pipeline and keeps stringing this out. There are studies upon studies and lots of rhetoric but nothing happens. Its environmental issues, its native issues, its land claims issues, its this, its that endlessly. The mining company's involved which did the original exploration and claim holders are exhausted and stunned. The biggest one has "shelved" the whole thing for now and hopes of production may never come whereas it could easily be going full bore flat out right now. The ONR touted this as the saviour of the railroad itself ( and it would be) but now the government wants a road built instead ( pressure from Thunder Bay as the road would originate from there and one of their few elected MP's in the North. so yet another environmental impact study and lots more native issues. Native issues have all but killed the railroad ( something about a bridge and fish) which makes zero sense. There are many myths and misconceptions, unfortunately a common burden of the mining industry. The Ontario governments "buddies and pals" are making incredible money, millions upon millions. with all the consulting and study reports. Familiar story!
Many in the government claim that the people "want the area to be preserved parkland or a museum to a pristine Ontario heritage" ...its hundreds of miles from anything with absolutely no access. In other words another play area for the uber connected elites and swells. The ordinary folk could never go there.
Compare this to the Iron Ore Company buildiing the Quebec North Shore and Labrador RR in the fifties to get at the huge iron ore deposits all the way to Schefferville. That was nation building. Still going!
For those unfamiliar. the Ring of Fire is a one trillion ( yes thats a T, as in trillion ) Chromite deposit (chromium) discovered and announced about a dozen years ago. There was a lot of hoopla, and great hopes for the future in a sagging Northern Ontario economy but nothing is allowed to happen. The Ontario Government has also not been friendly to the entire north and pretty much abandoned them to take care of themselves. It has suffered badly.
One interesting recent development is the financial interest manouvering by China, through Chinelco, its state owned mining arm. They will not wait around and will not suffer fools. They bought in recently, want in and they want it to happen. They know Chromium.
The ONR is still pleading its case but at the moment they are "out".
Lastly the Wynn Liberals have dropped in favour a ton with the folks across Ontario but they still have a couple of years on their mandate.
The lack of development is an embarrassment to the country and the province of Ontario.
RIP Northern Ontario!
Sounds like the no good low life degenerate German government which is hostile to it's hard working tax paying citizens and unfair representation to them and industry. Lufthansa's pilots are striking for higher wages and benefits. They haven't received anything in several years except a giant pile of BS from overpaid management idiots. I hope they strike during the Christmas/New Year period and leave the friendly skies to the other airlines!
Germans pay 19% sales tax on everything except food, which is 7%! This is one reason why the right wing AfD party continues to gain popularity. "Herman" is sick and tired of the non-functioning government in Berlin and next year's elections might just end up shocking the world like the one in the US has done.
It is sad to witness the amount of track that has been ripped up in Canada in recent years. I always thought the railways in Canada were better managed but now CN and CP are expanding in the US while neglecting many of their lines at home.
Item: Compare the map of Florida on M-Day when Seaboard Coast Line commenced operations on former ACL and SAL track to today's map of CSX. It is Shocking indeed!
Maybe this isn't the time or place to ask, but Mr. Trinity, what was the German reaction to the US election? I'd love to hear it from one who's on site.
It's hateful when government makes war on its working people, especially chasing will o' the wisps like manmade climate change. They need to be slapped up -- as U.S. voters did Nov. 8.
Not all Germans thinkalike. The Jerusalem Post had a detailed analysis of the German reaction. Be glad to give a summary by return email when dontacted at daveklepper@yahoo,com.
Not to negate superiority of TB being "on-the-spot."
The result of the election has brought mixed emotions to Germans. Germany itself has a lot of polititical unrest due to a multitude of simular internal as well as external problems as does the US. The newspapers and magazines, including the leading German weekly, Der Spiegel, and right wing monthly, Compact, followed the pre-election political three ring circus in America very closely.
Many Germans, dissatistied with the government run by Angela Merkel are leaning toward the right wing party, AfD (Alternititve für Deutschland). The AfD has already won major seats in several elections held in former East German cities (the DDR or German Democratic Republic before German reunification in 1989) and interest as well as popularity of the party continues grow every week. They are also concerned that Berlin is gaining too much world power again (remember the 1930s?) while it continues to neglect important issues at home while getting much too involved in foreign affairs.
Dave: My wife and I keep with with world news. She subscribes to the German language edition of the monthly magazine, Israel Today, while I receive their daily news in English via e-mail.
I hope to visit Israel one day and railfan this beautiful Biblical land before I'm called home to the roundhouse in the sky that's just beyond the Big Rock Candy Mountains! Don't kid yourself, God likes trains too!
By the way, I am NOT a fan of Deutsche Bahn AG! When I left my job on the Santa Fe in Texas in late 1976 and hired on with Deutsche Bundesbahn, it wasn't without problems, however, the passenger trains ran on time and DB served their freight customers dependably, both large and small. DBAG acquired the same attitude shortly after it was formed in 1994 like Seaboard Coast Line did when it was created out of the merger between ACL and SAL in 1967.
Track started to come up (Florida got hit worst) and the slogan that came from the PR dept. in Jacksonville seen on boxcars (which was a play on the SCL reporting marks), "Service Customers Like" turned sour in a short time when former freight customers started using motor freight because they received such sorry service from the new railroad! Today, CSX is known by a bunch of good ole Tampa Bay railfan buddies of mine, as the Chicken S**t eXpress! The railroad certainly lives up to it's name!
I retired a year early off of DBAG at age 64 because it was no longer operated as a railway and the stress factor continued to rise as employee moral fell at an all time low which continues today. DBAG remains in red ink due to gross mismanagement proudly produced from the ultra modern high rise HQ building located in Berlin, the DB Tower....not to be confused with the Trump Tower in New York City....LOL
Enjoy your day!
About me: www.railroadevangelist.com Links to All Aboard, the REA magazine, Summer 2015 issue, page eight and nine. New members are welcome. Contact Editor Joe Spooner, a former BN railroad man.
Trinity River Bottoms Boomer Big Rock Candy Mountains!
Big Rock Candy Mountains!
Excerpt from Smithsonian Folkways
Harry "Haywire Mac" McClintock (1882–1957) was a man of many colors. In addition to serving in the Philippines as a civilian in the military during the Spanish-American War, he worked on the railroad, as a cowboy, stevedore, and as a union organizer with the "Wobblies" (Industrial Workers of the World). In the 1920s he got his start in radio. Sam Eskin, folk singer and folk song collector of renown, made these recordings of Haywire Mac in 1953.
http://bayarearadio.org/schneider/mac.shtml
Thanks for the feedback Mr. Trinity, looks like the Germans are taking a "wait and see" attitude over Mr. Trump as are a lot of people here, even those who voted for him.
In a way, Mrs. Clinton's loss was really her own fault, she ran a "Coronation Tour" instead of a campaign. In a way it was a replay of what happened to her in 2008, eight years ago she got lazy and Barack Obama sneaked up on her and pulled the rug out from under her. If she couldn't learn from her past mistake it's probably just as well she lost, who knows what else she hasn't learned.
What's happening now is kind of comical, with all the "Trump Derangement Syndrome" going on. It's like "Bush Derangement Syndrome" in 2000 all over again, just a bit more glandular.
Maybe a lot of voters just took a bit of advice from the late great Mae West...
"Given the choice between two evils, pick the one you haven't tried before!"
And maybe those DBAG people should read a little American Civil War history. Back when the US Military Railroads were going to hell in a handbasket Mr. Lincoln brought in Herman Haupt of the Pennsylvania Railroad, made him a colonel (then general) and put him in charge knowing it takes a railroader to run a railroad. General Haupt got it straightened out in no time!
Excerpt from Reminiscences of General Herman Haupt
https://archive.org/stream/genhermanhaupt00hauprich#page/n7/mode/2up
My first interview with President Lincoln was in 1861, before my connection with the service. On the occasion of a visit to Washington, Hon. John Covode, of Pennsylvania, asked me to go with him to see the President.
Covode was not a man who paid any attention to the rules of etiquette. He took me to the White House, and without sending a card, walked up stairs, then along the hall to a room, opened the door without knocking, and ushered me into the august presence of Abraham Lincoln. The President was alone, seated in a chair, tilted back, with his heels upon the sill of an open window, clad in a linen duster, for the weather was warm.
Covode was greeted very cordially, and then I was introduced with some rather extravagant words of commendation, when Covode remarked: "Mr. President, I always thought it strange that the first time we met we seemed to know each other, and I think I have discovered the reason. You are called Honest Abe and I Honest John, and honest men are so mighty scarce in Washington that, of course, we knew each other at sight."
The President laughed, and then said: "That reminds me of a little story." It was about two little newsboys, and was appropriate, but I have forgotten the point.
I met the President occasionally afterwards during my connection with the service, but never intruded upon him unless I had something of importance to communicate. I was always received with cordiality.
On one occasion I had returned from a visit to the army with Covode, who was a prominent and useful member of the Committee on the Conduct of the War. He asked me to go with him to see the President. It was a period of gloom. We found the President much depressed. Covode reported the dissatisfaction in the army and the criticisms on his policy, and had proceeded for some time, when the President suddenly turned, placed his hand upon his knee and said:
"Covode, stop! Stop right there! Not another word! I am full, brim full up to here" –drawing his hand across his neck.
The President was tired of hearing criticisms upon his policy; he knew that he was doing his duty as best he could, and the verdict of posterity has been entered up in his favor.
The President respected the sanctity of the Sabbath and disapproved of unnecessary work upon that day. I accompanied him on his visit to McDowell at Falmouth, when the General told him that he would not be ready to start before Sunday on the march to Richmond, but knowing his objections to initiating movements that day, he would leave it to his judgment. The reply was: "Take a good ready and start Monday morning."
It was on his return from this visit that he told members of the War Committee that I had built the Potomac Creek bridge out of nothing but beanpoles and cornstalks.
In Pope’s second battle of Manassas I have reason to believe that the President passed many days without sleep, for at all hours of the night I received telegrams from him asking if I had no further intelligence to communicate.
He was sorely tried by McClellan’s inactivity, and his letters and dispatches were often pathetic: "If you don’t intend to use that army, won’t you lend it to me?" "What has your cavalry been doing since the battle of Antietam that would fatigue anything?"
It is useless to indulge in any eulogies of President Lincoln. His heart was tender and full of sympathy, with no room for enmity. His intellect was penetrating and intuitive, his judgment almost infallible. In him the South lost their best friend, and the Nation, with the possible exception of Washington, their greatest President.
Interesting how distinguished Union Army general officers when they wrote about Lincoln in later years had nothing but good things to say about him. Grant, Sherman, and Sherman hated politicians, Porter, Haupt, all of the one's I've read. He must have been quite a man, his loss was more tragic than people realized at the time.
Secretary of War Stanton on the other hand, thirty years after the war Horace Porter said he couldn't look at a picture of Stanton without shuddering!
RME- Private messaged you regarding the metallurgist..please me know if you recieved it.
Trinity writes: Item: Compare the map of Florida on M-Day when Seaboard Coast Line commenced operations on former ACL and SAL track to today's map of CSX. It is Shocking indeed!
It has been mentioned by others over the years that too much track was ripped up in Florida to the point that there are even regrets in the industry. I'm no expert on the South part of the US...is this true as well across the Southern States all the way over to Louisiana? I do have those merger maps showing the "before" and "after" but they dont show everything, as in all the branches and industrial spurs and there are errors. I suspect A LOT of prairie trackage is gone as well That does not show up on these maps.
Point being once its gone its pretty much done forever as it is too complicated and expensive to replace if not darn right impossible these days.
Losing trackage and right of ways is really short sighted in resource rich areas such as Northern Ontario. I'm certain there are other areas facing the same fate. Bad enough that technology is replacing employment for the folks and that there is no solution whatsoever by anyone to this dilemma but to also deconstruct nation building along with it opportunities for the future and movement of natural resources is dangerous. I cannot see the destruction of railroad infrastructure as a natural progression of market forces. It is madness that we will come to regret.
MiningmanI cannot see the destruction of railroad infrastructure as a natural progression of market forces. It is madness that we will come to regret.
But, by the same token, we are rapidly acquiring the ability to produce, deploy, and align (and keep aligned!) new and far better track structure for most of these prospective uses than 'two streaks of rust on rotted ties' could ever provide. So if either economics or expedient reasons require restoration of railroad service (with nothing but "renewable resources" in and for construction) what goes 'back' will be much more usable than anything that 'had been'. And that specifically includes track built over railbanked routes converted to trails.
In a very real sense it's more important to see the trails succeed many places (the Adirondack line being a comparatively rare exception, for at least two reasons) as they keep the old roadbed both integral and free from encroachment -- that being the point of railbanking in the first place. When the time comes for the rails to go back (at whatever cost is justified) it will be possible to get them there with much less cost than "modern" (I'll be slightly wicked and say 'socialist') governments spend on their light-rail projects.
Yes, I received Dr. Lanke's information, and I thank you very much.
RME- Agree all the way with what you wrote. There are 2 sides to every coin and it's good to point out the other side. Many of those points could have been included but that was not the side I wish to have presented. Many of the places I have personally seen have a total loss of the right of way...there are now homes and other buildings, roads and playgrounds,...in other words those not retaining any of their former aspects are lost forever. In several big cities you cannot get into the downtown core areas by rail any longer and, if a passenger you must detrain at some suburban bus shelter type outpost miles and miles, many miles away. Saskatoon and Ottawa come to mind. Using the 10:1 ratio US to Canada this would mean at minimum 20 cities in the States. This only leads to more road congestion and worst of all forfeits permanently the one big advantage rail had. You cannot even travel by rail to several larger cities at all...the beautiful CPR station in Regina is now a casino for cripes sake and no passenger service to that city at all...and its the capital of Saskatchewan and the home base of the RCMP.
The CASO is another, the CNR Grimbsy sub is yet another....those have been sold off piecemeal to any and all and are not coming back.
For years there were articles on how there was too much trackage in Iowa with the whole state crisscrossed and paralleled with redundant track. Now its "uh-oh" too much gone. The Milwaukee Road beautiful speedway comes to mind, then jump to the whole Pacific extension, lock stock and barrel. Not good. Same in Florida.
Also there seems to be a renewed concerted effort to take out even more in the name of efficiency. I strongly caution against this de-constructing of nation building as being self destuctive in many cases.
One last thought...I believe your new President Elect has a good handle on this. If you have 95 million people unemployed, given up looking, holding a college degree with huge debt or underemployed then maybe its time to take a hard look before you no longer have a society.
I do hope the coal coal miners in W. Virginia and elsewhere get back to it, efficiency be damned. Energy self sufficiency is a good trade off and benefit. Maybe steel from Asia is less expensive but maybe its regulation costs and unfair trade skewing things. Maybe something more sinister than that. Some things cannot be costed out for short term gain because once its gone you must deal with all of the unintended consequences and they can be very destructive.
MiningmanMany of the places I have personally seen have a total loss of the right of way...there are now homes and other buildings, roads and playgrounds,...in other words those not retaining any of their former aspects are lost forever. In several big cities you cannot get into the downtown core areas by rail any longer and, if a passenger you must detrain at some suburban bus shelter type outpost miles and miles, many miles away.
This is one of the big reasons for regret at the loss of ROWs into and within urban cores, or their being broken up by intermittent development. It probably has to be said that the old "interurban" approach, with the train running local over streetcar tracks with all their problems, is still not favorable over buses for most cities that cannot justify full light-rail or heavy-rail service with sensible headways. And those were ... rightly or wrongly ... among the first ROWs actually lost to development (overlay the routes of the Pacific Electric, for example).
But it was for just the reasons you give that 'railbanking' was initially established. The problem is that far too many miles of American railroad were, indeed, superfluous or built to poorer standards than alternatives (the Pacific Extension being a particularly egregious example) and not particularly 'needed' in any likely upcoming version of society. That particularly applies, in my opinion, to many of the 'granger' lines that are incapable of taking even the smallest economically-justifiable covered grain hoppers, but serve relatively small numbers of independent farmers (vs. ADM or Cargill which isn't concerned with ad hoc access by transport to the products of its ag operations). Trucks, particularly hybrid autonomous trucks, are far better suited to any such service.
The CASO is another ... [it has] been sold off piecemeal to any and all and are not coming back.
No, that's a case of ritual murder, like those 6000hp locomotives recently scrapped in Australia ... to keep them out of the hands of other economic interests that might provide ongoing 'competition' from the assets. A railbanked CASO would remain an effective super-railroad alternative to some very congested services in the Lower 48. And we couldn't have that now, could we? (Ergo, no CASO trail...)
The Milwaukee Road beautiful speedway comes to mind ...
But is it actually gone, or just parceled out 'under new management'?
Imho a far better example, and arguably as fast a 'speedway', was the PRR line west of Fort Wayne where all the infamous high-speed running occurred. Some of that still sees trains, but they poke along with little enthusiasm; the Ohio Central still has some preserved example of PRR optimized double track, but that's not coming back even as bridge line service any time soon.
But note that if those stretches were actually competitive to reopen, the work would have been done. I remember when the Lehigh Line was a sleepy backwater compared to the PRR main and Low Grade. Had you told me there would come a day freights didn't run frequently over the A&S I wouldn't have believed it -- let alone that nothing would run over it. But there you are.
Same in Florida.
I still think Florida railroading followed the overbuilding boom, and much of the stuff there wasn't really sustainable. But that's just an opinion, heavily influenced by my opinion on unprofitable use of passenger trains as prospective tools for social engineering (for a cohort of citizens who are significantly composed of retired car owners/snowbirds and families with children who go everywhere in their minivans). Extending mileage in Florida other than lines explicitly optimized for high speed -- and that almost by definition rules out most of the 'legacy' routes, which among many reasons would have very expensive grade separation in many, many places -- doesn't make that much objective sense; it's not as if there is difficulty buying relatively 'luxurious' railcars to run services with. And you dare not build it if they don't come.
RME ... In a very real sense it's more important to see the trails succeed many places (the Adirondack line being a comparatively rare exception, for at least two reasons) as they keep the old roadbed both integral and free from encroachment -- that being the point of railbanking in the first place. When the time comes for the rails to go back (at whatever cost is justified) it will be possible to get them there with much less cost than "modern" (I'll be slightly wicked and say 'socialist') governments spend on their light-rail projects.
...
Apparently the rail-banking law has holes big enough to drive a Mack truck thru, but sadly not big enough to still pass a train. In the linked map, note the area below (south) of the former diamond rail crossing, and then look in satellite view. The yogurt factory wanted to expand, and the path of least resistance was across the rail-banked line. I guess they didn't think there would be any problem bigger that the bicyclist having to detour around the factory.
http://www.mytopo.com/maps/?lat=43.8754&lon=-85.50838&z=16
Thanks for that Midland MIke. Developers and business interests will always create problems unless rail banking is cast in stone and untouchable and that is unlikely. Newer generations take over and all is forgotten about...and so it goes.
I suppose anyone can justify a position with rationalization, some will buy it, some won't.
Regardless of ideology, be it capitalism, socialism, crony capitalism, "it's better", "it's cheaper", "it's more efficient", "it's global warming", "it's a new ice age" and all the bs and nonsense that goes along with those things the fact remains we have lost a lot of rail and a lot of service.
Six railroads, three of which had successors, are all gone and tore up in my former county alone, leaving none. As previously mentioned I could purchase sleeping accommodations from a very grand designed Edwardian era station to just about anywhere in North America. Of course I would have to change trains here and there but still it all connected and the sleeper, along with the diner, was there faithfully waiting. I cannot do that today. The station does not exist, the rails are gone.
However, as Dave Klepper states, there are still some things, some trains, so enjoy what choices we have. Who knows when thats gone as well.
Few will agree with me but I think somehow much more could have been retained and would fit right in and be agreeable with whats to come.
Miningman, I am one of the few who agree with you. In my opinion, had Rail Banking been created in the late 50s when the Interstate highway system was expanding a lot of track that was lost in the 60s and beyond could have been saved.
Just before the Rock Island shut down, it was working with the labor unions to assign reduced crews to branch lines when traffic levels were light, increasing them during high season, mainly during the annual wheat rush.
A perfect example is the onetime M-K-T Northwestern District which included subsidiary BM&E. The year the trains stopped running the region experienced a bumper wheat crop with no railroad left to haul the golden harvest to market. The Katy had been in financial trouble for several years as it was, and by the time the Oklahoma DOT created Farmrail, saving some of The Rock, the Katy Northwest, as it had become known, due to the excellent book by Don Hofsommer, was gone for good, save a short segment which is operated by the Northwestern Oklahoma Railroad in Woodward, OK and interchanges with BNSF.
Couple thoughts re the original post -
In 1953 when Eisenhower was sworn in, the US didn't own the railroads, unlike Canada or the U.K. where the government controlled things. He wasn't responsible for the "huge wholesale mean natured taking apart of the railroad industry". He didn't order deferred maintainence or anything else. The railroad industry did it itself. After 20 years of the New Deal, the GOP was running on a platform of getting government out of business. Doesn't seem likely that Ike as a Republican would be 'anti-business' anyway.
Although often credited with the idea of the Interstate Highway System, the plans they were based on went back to FDR's administration. Had Adlai Stevenson won in 1952, most likely it would have been created anyway.That being said, it is apparently true that Ike's experience making a cross-country trip across the US early in his military career, and seeing Germany's autobahn system, did make him amenable to the Interstates.
Passenger train usage began sliding downhill in the 1920's. Streamliners in the 1930's brought some folks back, and the incredible amount of rail traffic during WW2 gave many railroads a sense of hope in the future that caused them to spend money on passenger cars and engines that would soon prove to have been a mistake. That would have happened regardless who was president 1953-61. Once automobiles could be bought by any working man, the passenger train was going to be hurt. (Blame Henry Ford's Model T!)
w jstix- First off, don't tell Canadian Pacific they were ever government owned or many many other Canadian railroads. They were as privately owned and widely held stocks as you can get. Canadian National was, or at least a "Crown Corporation" and the Ontario Northland ( T&NO) was owned by the Province of Ontario.
I'm not accusing Eisenhower personally of being mean to the railroads, but I am suggesting that his administration paid no attention to the problems that were rapidly developing for the railroads but instead favoured anything but the railroads.
There was no recognition for the Herculean effort put forth by the railroad industry for its role in winning WWII. De-regulation and many of the common sensed proposed mergers should have come sooner and been allowed. By turning its back and seeing it as "old fashioned and slow" created a mindset and even more problems.
When Ike warned of the "military-industrial complex" perhaps he saw the free fall of the railroad industry as a part of a consequence ( in addition to other things as pointed out) and was taken back by how far things had gone.
Well Ok, Santa Fe and Union Pacific in the west were unscathed but the wests day would come as well. If you were real long haul you were immune, to a degree anyway.
Miningman I'm not accusing Eisenhower personally of being mean to the railroads, but I am suggesting that his administration paid no attention to the problems that were rapidly developing for the railroads but instead favoured anything but the railroads. There was no recognition for the Herculean effort put forth by the railroad industry for its role in winning WWII. De-regulation and many of the common sensed proposed mergers should have come sooner and been allowed. By turning its back and seeing it as "old fashioned and slow" created a mindset and even more problems.
A couple of years back, Paul North posted a couple of WW2 era PRR ads. One in particular explained how the RR's couldn't perform a lot of maintenance due to wartime traffic needs, and the money that should have been set aside for postwar rehabilitation was treated as income and taxed. Greyhounds has posted several pieces over the years about how, in the 1930's, RR's such as the NYC were prohibited from pricing containerized traffic at a discount that reflected the greatly reduced cost of providing containerized service versus traditional LCL.
The rapid increase in pressurized airliners after WW2 also made for formidable competion with LD passenger trains, flying in greater comfort at 250 to 350 MPH versus the 150 to 200 MPH in the DC-3 era.
The ultimate killer was the boon the interstates were for trucking, not having to slow down for every town and having to deal with far fewer stoplights.
Fascinating that the official typescript of an order this significant has a period after the S in the President's signature.
...also, the S. Middle name stood for just that ..."S" that was his middle name. Gotta luv that accent he had. Are there yet folks in Missouri that retain that?
Truman’s executive order was probably a copy typed by Fred Gurley’s secretary.
http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/221732/page/5
http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/219515
http://www.kansasmemory.org/category/264
wanswheelTruman’s executive order was probably a copy typed by Fred Gurley’s secretary.
Ye gods, that's harsh!
... but at least she didn't muss her hair doing it.
I don't how much Ike could have done to stop people and businesses moving west and to the sun belt...or stop people buying imported goods from Japan. The eastern railroads were the ones that were failing, the western ones were doing pretty well. Yes, deregulation would have been very helpful, but not doing so (as would no other president until Carter in 1980) doesn't mean they were anti-railroad.
The government taking mail off the rails in the 1960's was the death of passenger trains for the private railroads, as the mail was in effect a subsidy. Without that, most (all?) passenger trains began to really lose money. But that was LBJ not Ike.
Miningman ...also, the S. Middle name stood for just that ..."S" that was his middle name. Gotta luv that accent he had. Are there yet folks in Missouri that retain that?
Miningman, my father told me what a letdown it was when everyone heard Trumans voice on the radio after 12 years of Franklin Roosevelt, who sounded just like what everyone thought a president should sound like.
But as Dad said, "Harry did all right after all."
Firelock'76- Yes Indeed, Truman did very well as President, ...he was the right guy at the right time with solid judgement in a fast changing world. He sure was treated badly at the end, undeservedly so.
History has fixed that and he is considered among the top ten Presidents.
I agree that Harry was one of the great ones. But it took the passage of time to reveal that. By 1952, he had fallen victim to the Sparky Anderson rule, articulated when Anderson departed from his long-time manager's job at the Detroit Tigers before he could be fired: "I think sometimes they just get tired of your face."
If Britain could "fire" Winston Churchill after the war, Americans are not uniquely to be blamed for firing Harry Truman.
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