I agree! I received mine last week and read it cover to cover over 2 days. (I probably could have read it faster, but I wanted to let the info sink in! ) All the background info is exactly what keeps me reading CTT. Thanks Roger for another job well done!
I had a few thoughts on the 175 Rocket Launcher.
In 1958, NASA had just been formed by act of congress. It grew out of the NACA (National Advisory Commitee for Aeronautics) and the space advisory group of the armed forces. NASA was formed because Eisenhower was looking for an answer to Sputnik, and NACA and the military were at odds. While the US space and rocket group (NACA) based in Huntsville Alabama could have gotten a satelite in orbit ahead of Sputnik, they were held back. That group was led by Werhner von Braun and included members of his Peenemunde team who defected to the US after the fall of Nazi Germany. At that time it wasn't common knowledge just who these scientists were. Congress had enacted laws about government agencies hiring ex-nazi party members and von Braun was certainly a party member. Also if Mr and Mrs America knew about just HOW those V-2's were manufactured at the Mittelwerke they would have freaked out. So to keep all that from blowing up politically, they refused to allow von Braun's team to even think about building a satellite.
Also, Canaveral Air Force Station was not known as the place America was staging the "space race". In 1958 it was the US Navy's project Vanguard that was in the lead. It had won out over the NACA project and it wasn't until Vanguard failed that Eisenhower turned to the space and rocket group and allowed von Braun's team to do their thing. It turned out to be a good political decision and not bad for the national pride because von Braun's team had already built a working satelite in secret in a garage and had a redstone missile ready and waiting to put Explorer 1 into orbit. So I would say it's logical that that's why the rocket says US Navy on it's flanks as oppsed to USAF (assuming Lionel's design work was done before Explorer 1).
I also wonder if Lionel decided to play up the "southern connection" when they placed the 175 in a set pulled by their top-of-the-line 746. Explorer, built in Alabama, got off the ground in Jan of 58 (Vanguard finally succeeded in March of 58). While I suspect top accessory with top loco on top track is all they looked at, the Huntsville rocket group and their "First US Satelite/answe to Sputnik" could have played a role. If that is the case, did they have another high end loco in a regional southern US livery that they could have used at the time? If they did, maybe a Southern Railway, Seaboard Air-Line or MKT F3 or GP7 would have been a better match for the 2545WS set.
Becky
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
I am still reading my copy, enjoying it very much. I hope they'll do another one with modern accessories like the wind mill and the boy on the tire swing (my fave of the modern era).
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