Talk about dress code or lack of: The airline night coach from LAX to ATL was notorious for being known for passengers worse than a Greyhound bus. Now same time night coach SFO - ATL had much higher class of passengers/
Nothing like flying next to a guy wearing shorts! C'mon!
Yeah.....I was not intending to be snobby or judgmental. I see no reason to get dressed up for a train or airplane. Shorts and T-Shirts is fine with me.....but if a guy wants to wear a tie, and a gal wants to wear a dress and hat.......I am all for that as well.
best
Yes, especially the people traveling first class generally dressed well, and even some who could not afford first class didnot look as though they had just come from work.
In the fifties, David P. Morgan commented that many of the people riding the Silver Meteor were wearing sports clothes. In the same time period, the UP had two ads that showed passengers in domes--and it was easy to see which was the coach dome and which was the first class dome.
For some several years now, I have been almost the only passenger on board with a tie on. Six years ago, as my wife and I were in the first class waiting room in New Orleans before boarding #58, a woman came in wearing an evening dress (had she not been home since a party the night before?).
What some people wear, especially in coach, gives rise to wonder if they have any decent clothing at all.
Johnny
kenny dorham[snipped - PDN] . . . Man.....the girls/women REALLY looked good, didn't they.? Hats, dresses and gloves..... they were "all" so thin and attractive.
- Paul North.
kenny dorham they were "all" so thin and attractive.
No McDonalds back then.
I love looking at those old train Pictures/Videos from 1930-1950.
Man.....the girls/women REALLY looked good, didn't they.? Hats, dresses and gloves..... they were "all" so thin and attractive.
Thanks Dave .. I will write To you.. Would love to hear our take on things
Terribly unhappy. Even to actual tears! But then there was so much else that made me unhappy.
Should I list them? Not only railfanwise, which is what I would be restricted to for listing, but also politically and with regard to religion, which I would not include in a list on this Forum but would restrict to email corresponance at my email address daveklepper@yahoo.com.
Daveklepper- I'm sure you had spent time at Penn Station through the years and saw the best and worst of things. What is your take on the destruction of Penn Station?
Don't forget coal trains ran daily thru Penn Station at night all during WWII and a few years afterward.
Lack of gauntlet tracks and clearance restrictions prohibited other freight trains.
Electroliner 1935But one has to wonder how the area would have grown and what might have been done to serve the intercity and commuter needs of the area (New Jersey and Manhattan) had not the Pennsy done it.
Playing devil's advocate ... perhaps quite a bit better.
Assume for the moment that the troubles with the tubes 'breathing' had turned out to be insurmountable. The alternative -- done and priced out multiple times -- was a muitiple-railroad bridge to Manhattan, for example Lindenthal's proposal of 1916. A second alternative, for through traffic, would have involved a bridge at the Manhattan Valley, perhaps transferring 'down' to the platforms at 125th St. on the East Side, and then continuing on to Long Island and a 'short left turn' to what is now the Hell Gate route, access to Poughkeepsie as an alternative trans-Hudson crossing, etc.
These would inherently have allowed freight service and probably high-wide movements easily, and would have easily supported more than four tracks instead of rat-scuttling bores with mountain grades.
Electrification of services here would have been comparatively simple, and my guess is that at least several minutes' time would be saved with quicker acceleration, less headway between trains, etc. We can also speculate how today's traffic would be accommodated by some of the proposals that had up to 12 tracks across the bridge, diverging to respective railroads' properties then but relatively easily redirected to a number of strategic 'mode transfer points' now...
Meanwhile, without the tube there would probably have been somewhat greater emphasis on providing proper highway connections on the Manhattan side to multiple road tunnels earlier than the Holland or Lincoln were actually built, and perhaps with more tube lanes and better clearances than built. That would vastly improve actual service to New York hotels, and perhaps a range of business destinations, via a B&O bus-like service conducted with the equivalent of Nite Coaches equipped partially as parlor cars, earlier than the time those things began to be developed and were nipped in the bud earlier by Missouri and other highway departments (or the likes of Robert Moses). I for one would prefer a one-seat ride to a train via a good bus or railroad-supported car service to a one-seat ride in a taxi and subsequent long Red Cap schlep down those ridiculous stairs to my train, whether or not the passengers from Boston and New England found it more convenient to ride through underground...
I disagree. I am certain that the PRR realized a decent return on its investment in the overall of these facilities, because of wartime traffic. Hungerford, in a TRAINS column around 1945, made the point that without the electrification, PRR could not have handled the freight and passenger traffic it did, and even that VE day would not have come as fast because of delays in sending material and troops overseas. Pasengerwise there was never a timje in my memory that Penn Station was closed because of too much traffic, an event that happened once or twice in one or another of the Chicago stations. One could always depend on the ability to board a PRR non-reserved passenger train going where one wished to go. Many times one would have to stand, but one could get on. Passengerwise the electrification was particularly important in the NY - Washington corridor, allowing consists to shuttle back and forth like subway trains, with the GG-1s just moved from one end of the train to the other, and away they go, with possibly every third round trip visiting Sunnyside for cleaning and restocking. This could not have been done with steam.
BaltACDOne could probably make the argument that investing in all those projects as well as the electrification from New York to DC and Harrisburg were the proximate cause to the PRR's failing financial position entering into the PC fiasco.
But one has to wonder how the area would have grown and what might have been done to serve the intercity and commuter needs of the area (New Jersey and Manhatten) had not the Pennsy done it.
The federal and state governments have been quite content to squable over the costs to just maintain what the PRR built. Let alone improve upon it. Burnham said make no little plans. The PRR sure heeded that sentient. Of course, back when they made them they had an almost monopoly on freight which could be used to justify their plans. But the ICC made them keep their rates high to "Protect" the truck lines allowing that freight to migrate toward the trucks but that is an old thread.
Paul_D_North_Jr Electroliner 1935 When one looks at the enormity of what the PRR built when they put six tunnels under the rivers, building Hell Gate Bridge, and Sunnyside yard, as well as Penn Station and the post office, it is of such a magnitude that not many projects equal or exceed it. Over 100 years ago, with the equipment and techniques of the day, and entirely with the railroad's own money, too. Would be interesting to find out whether that investment was ever close to being recovered over the many years of passenger service (incl. mail, express, etc.), or not. Probabaly would take a Ph.D. thesis and a lot of assumptions - similiar to today's debates about Amtrak's costs and "profitability" - to figure that out. - Paul North.
Electroliner 1935 When one looks at the enormity of what the PRR built when they put six tunnels under the rivers, building Hell Gate Bridge, and Sunnyside yard, as well as Penn Station and the post office, it is of such a magnitude that not many projects equal or exceed it.
Over 100 years ago, with the equipment and techniques of the day, and entirely with the railroad's own money, too.
Would be interesting to find out whether that investment was ever close to being recovered over the many years of passenger service (incl. mail, express, etc.), or not. Probabaly would take a Ph.D. thesis and a lot of assumptions - similiar to today's debates about Amtrak's costs and "profitability" - to figure that out.
One could probably make the argument that investing in all those projects as well as the electrification from New York to DC and Harrisburg were the proximate cause to the PRR's failing financial position entering into the PC fiasco.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Electroliner 1935When one looks at the enormity of what the PRR built when they put six tunnels under the rivers, building Hell Gate Bridge, and Sunnyside yard, as well as Penn Station and the post office, it is of such a magnitude that not many projects equal or exceed it.
That station should have outlasted The PR by hundreds of years. I can only paraphrase...but how did Vince Scully put it..."Where we once entered like Kings, we now scurry like rats".
Whole generations were intimate with that place. The documentary is short but has some great wisdom.....Future generations will judge us not by the monuments we built, but by those we tore down. :-(
When one looks at the enormity of what the PRR built when they put six tunnels under the rivers, building Hell Gate Bridge, and Sunnyside yard, as well as Penn Station and the post office, it is of such a magnitude that not many projects equal or exceed it.
Wanswheel- Terrific stuff. Watched the whole PBS documentary. Simply incredible. Thanks a ton.
As a college student, I worked my co-op assignments on the Buckeye Region of the PRR in the late fifties. We still had manual crossing gates on the crossings in Coshocton and Newcomerstown. Manual block running between Richmond and Logansport. Four daily passenger trains between Columbus and Cincinnati and three daily trains between Cincinnati and Chicago. Maned towers all over the place. And defered maintenance. But there was 152 lb rail on the little Miami. I was involved in reducing the Loveland crossing of the B&O from two PRR tracks to one to save costs. The Little Miami is a trail. and its hard to find any trace of the double track cab signalled racetrack East of Indianapolis. Too much plant for too little traffic. Amtrak was too late to save the PRR. I did get a job offer from the PRR in 61 when I graduated and I said to my dad that things were bad and they couldn't get much worse. I was so wrong. I chose to go with an Electric utility that made me a much better offer. I fault the ICC, management, and the unions for the demise of the mighy PRR. Management for failing to face facts and not being more aggressive in controlling costs and paying dividends when it didn't have the cash. Unions for failing to see that featherbeding was killing the goose that laid the golden egg, and the ICC for not recognizing that maintaining the status quo wasn't feasable any more.
This society requires a crisis to initiate change. There has to be a fatality at an intersection to motivate the installation of traffic signals. It took the demolition of Penn Station to save Grand Central. It may take the shut down of the Hudson River tunnels to get the new ones funded. Congress will fiddle until the public wakes up but it often is too lillte, too late. And of course, it costs more to rebuild after its gone.
Miningman K4sPRR- In the very early 50's all the north eastern railroads were buying full page ads in the newspapers, even in Trains magazine I believe, denouncing the unfair competition arising from federal monies going into airports and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Top management could see what was happening and the consequences and were pushing only for fairness and a level playing field. Had the federal government addressed this perhaps a "Staggers" type act could have occurred even earlier yet. Considering the untold and under appreciated ( not amongst us railfans however) story of the railroads incredibe role and sacrifices for WWII, it would have been fair and shown gratitude for the government of the day to do so. Then things evolve quite differently... And much misery is avoided.
K4sPRR- In the very early 50's all the north eastern railroads were buying full page ads in the newspapers, even in Trains magazine I believe, denouncing the unfair competition arising from federal monies going into airports and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Top management could see what was happening and the consequences and were pushing only for fairness and a level playing field. Had the federal government addressed this perhaps a "Staggers" type act could have occurred even earlier yet. Considering the untold and under appreciated ( not amongst us railfans however) story of the railroads incredibe role and sacrifices for WWII, it would have been fair and shown gratitude for the government of the day to do so. Then things evolve quite differently... And much misery is avoided.
Paul_D_North_Jr wanswheel Note the early version of Starbucks in the foreground, dispensing the lifeblood of the industry - oh wait, that belongs in zugman's thread . . . - Paul North.
wanswheel
Note the early version of Starbucks in the foreground, dispensing the lifeblood of the industry - oh wait, that belongs in zugman's thread . . .
And I'll betcha the "Coffee Pot" had some pretty good sinkers too!
So true!
K4sPRR, thanks for the heads-up on "The Wreck Of..." I remember when the book came out, maybe in Barnes and Noble or Brentano's, as I remember the PC bankruptcy, but as I wasn't a railfan at the time I gave it a pass. I'll give it a pass now if I see it, unless I can get it cheap.
Would the Staggers Act have prevented a lot of railroad failures if it went into effect in the early 60's? Possibly, indeed probably. Remember many have said the railroads in the Northeast were essentially overbuilt, by that I mean there were too many of them for the available on-line business. When the Northeast was an industrial powerhouse the overbuilding wasn't an issue, there was plenty of business to go around, but as soon as the "Rust Belt" phenomenon began (for a variety of reasons which we probably shouldn't go into or we'll all get in trouble) it was a disaster for all those Northeast 'roads, AND of course there was the double whammy the anthracite 'roads faced when the demand for anthracite coal began to evaporate.
You said it, the PC bankruptcy was the "2x4 to the head" the legislators needed to wake up.
Wizlish Deggesty I thought that anyone who knew anything about railroads knew that you do not step on rails. On the other hand... the idea of not stepping on rails is part of the 'culture of safety' that keeps people from being injured or killed. Why tell Saunders about that?...
Deggesty I thought that anyone who knew anything about railroads knew that you do not step on rails.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.