J - I don't remember exactly what the prices for gas were here in northern NY in 1968, but based on what I do remember, something in the high 30's would probably be appropriate. I remember regular being at or under 35 cents a gallon, and being amazed with the imperial gallon (we travelled through Canada to get here from our home in MI) coming in around 41 cents a gallon or thereabouts.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Hi Quentin
Would you - or someone else - know what were the prices for premium or super back in 1968 , in the State of NY , actually ? I'd like to know for one of my short stories .
= J =
[/quote]
= J = , In my first quick check, as defined by the average price for {all of US}, was 34 cents / gal. {1968}, ...Update: Looking at several more charts...It seems to be an accurate figure....{in today's dollars}.
I'll see if we can find a closer figure to what you're asking for.
PS...At the time I had a 1968 Impala SS 427 custom coupe, and it certainly wanted premium fuel, and I'm remembering that didn't seem to be much of an issue, price wise.
Quentin
I remember a '59 Dodge purchased for $50 when it was over 10 years old. As it turned out, it had the factory police interceptor package. The tail fins looked like a B-52's. It's barge dimension wheel base made banging down rural road washboards a breeze.
This old Dodge had a push button automatic transmission and a red ram V-8. It would out run many a stock late '60's early '70's muscle car. The '59 Dodge's build quality was far superior to Chrysler products just a few model years earlier.
The owners manual came with the Dodge. The options available were lengthy and some even absurd. Automatic head light dimmers was one that brought a chorus of laughter. Other no longer available amenities were standard on the '59 Dodge.
There was sufficient space between the radiator and grill to quick chill a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon on a Winter's night. The back seat of a '59 Dodge was half the size a current Ford F-150 truck bed. The back seat was great for drive in theaters and dirt roads between back 40 corn fields.
40 years ago, premium gas in the Midwest was selling for around $.38 per gallon. The oil embargos ended that and great cars like the '59 Dodge.
....Speaking of space in cars back when....My '59 Impala convertible seemed to have a trunk sized enouth to install a double bed....!
A friend of mine use to have a 62 Chrysler 300 coupe and he didn't need a ski rack, just threw them in the trunk.
There was an old farmer who bought a '57 Plymouth. The Plymouth was a most practical machine. When the '57 was worn and in need of replacement, the farmer went to the dealership to get another.
Obsolescence by design was most disturbing to the farmer. Fins were finished. The fins on the '57 Plymouth permitted the farmer to fit three bales of hay atop the trunk tightly. There was no need to twine down the bales while traversing a gravel road to where he pastured cattle.
Victrola1 There was an old farmer who bought a '57 Plymouth. The Plymouth was a most practical machine. When the '57 was worn and in need of replacement, the farmer went to the dealership to get another. Obsolescence by design was most disturbing to the farmer. Fins were finished. The fins on the '57 Plymouth permitted the farmer to fit three bales of hay atop the trunk tightly. There was no need to twine down the bales while traversing a gravel road to where he pastured cattle.
There is the story (I do not remember just what year it was set, but it was long after Ford began producing the Model A) of a man's surprise at seeing a brand new Model T, complete with manila paper sticking to it here and there. The man asked the owner about it, and the owner told him that when he learned that the Model T was no longer to be produced, he went out and bought three of them, since he did not want to bother with learning how to drive a car with the new-fangled transmission; this was the third of the three. (I hope he never suddenly came upon a steep hill when out driving, for he would have had to turn around and back up the hill. There is a highway--the W Road--up Signal Mountain, near Chattanooga, that required Model T's being driven up in reverse; I have driven up and down it (in a 1950 Dodge), and the hairpin curves in the W are indeed tight and steep.)
Johnny
I don't have records back to 1968 - However, I have kept gas purchase records for all my vehicles starting with my 1978 Honda Accord that was purchased new in March of 1978. The lowest price paid during the ownership of the vehicle was from March to the middle of April 1978 at 55.9 cents per gallon for several tank fulls - ABSOLUTE HIGHWAY ROBBERY at the time, however all it has done is go up from there to what we have today. Off my records - the last time I paid less than $1 a gallon was February 2002.
[quote user="Juniatha"]
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
.....My family opened a brand new Esso Station in 1938, and there was a sign posted advertising....6 gal. / $1.00....!! Of course, not corrected for inflation. And.....taxes were at a minimum on it then.
J. I am doing this from a very dim memory of long ago.
The Mobil on Ralph Av & Av U in Brooklyn was 34.9 a gal. The Finast(I think) on Flatbush Av was 33.9 @ gal and if you filled your tank you got a free steak knife.
I also remember the Amoco in Lake Placid, NY being 35.9 a gal for gas. I remember the Amoco as it was the only place to get lead free gas. We used it it a gasoline stove when we went camping.
As I remember it gas was cheaper in New Jersey. My mom would buy there on trips that went that way.(I don't remember prices).
Rgds IGN
....With the input of several here....it seems 34.9 would be a figure very close for accuracy.
I moved from Oxnard CA to Millbrook NY in March of 1968. I bought an English Ford, Cortina, that had a 10 gallon tank if that much. Gas hovered around 30 to 33 cents per gallon. I could easily filler-up, before running out, for less than 3 bucks.
Thought the gas was a bit high. Had been paying around 20 to 25 cents in New Mexico in 1966 prior to moving to California.
1950's automobiles imitated aviation. It was the speed and thrill of the sky made available to motorists by industrial design.
When will imitation of a locomotive cab be used to sell thrills to automobile buyers?
......Well, first the locomotive design folks will have to put some design back in the locomotive designs to have something to "copy"
Quentin ,
you're right with steam , diesel and contemporay electrics alike !
.....Hi = J = ....Welcome back. Believe the money must be spent on pure mechanical & electronic design now, and not much attention to aesthetics.
Well , sure ... So they say . Yet I think something better could be built without too much extra costs . Mind material costs are low as compared to machining and labor and machining costs with punching out windows of pleasing proportions and shape costs the same and takes the same time as to punch out other shapes of windows .
An example of the humbler type is this 186 class synchronous motors electric I photographed on the way last November . Again , it's a matter of shapes and colors - more than ever - fitting and harmonizing , giving the electric a character ... Or not .
Regards
Juniatha
Rail Pool enterprise # 186 281 ; photo Nov 2011 by = J =
EMD, GE, MPI and now Brookville all have accounts at Vergara Studios to do the exterior design of their passenger locomotives at least. If you can do better here's your chance.
Windows to peer into the heart of the beast are missing. Many years ago as a boy, I was taken to the station. Sometimes to meet relatives coming and going. Sometimes just to go to the station in the evening.
The earlier EMD passenger cab units had sizable square windows. These were larger than the port holes on EMD's newer locomotives. Hoisted on my father's shoulders, I could see through the screen of oil streams on the inside of the window. Illuminated by light bulbs was a fascinating forest of tightly cramped machinery painted green and top coated with oil.
When departing, the air horn blast was followed a low roar and brief view of a vibrating mechanical mass. Too quickly the windows slipped by and were gone.
Thanks , Creepycrank , but I will leave it to someone else to expose themselves , I do have some designs from years before when I had time to do such things , mainly as an offspring of my effort at one high pressure / condensing steam turbine electric loco . Yet you may allow to spare me checking files , selecting a drawing , scanning it , writing a description to it , 'translate' the units for posting one of the drawings here .
However , for a decently stylish electric - and a most powerful , too - see the Austrian 'Taurus' 1016 / 1116 family of mulit-purpose 6.4 MW ( 8620 hp ) / 230 km/h ( 142 mph ) Bo-Bo . I recently rode a Railjet express behind a 1016 and it took the train up to 200 km/h faster than you have finished reading this and did so without a sigh or slip - it was amazing , or rather : it wasn't even that , it was done effortlessly like it was nothing ...
.....Hi = J = :
I suppose my thoughts of appearance design of railroad locomotives, would be thinking in terms of comparison back to models like the F's & E's and other similar configurations by a few other companies.
They now just seem to create a box like structure, with mabe a slopping front with little effort to design a pleasing looking unit. And I'm just thinking it's most likely that money dictates that.
I would supose so - what else ...
Yet , you may call me hopelessly optimistic or dreaming or a mind up in the air - I still maintain a better physical look could be realized - if those concerned would care . Yet , maybe it's just that old RR attitude to looks :
Builder : "Now do you want the sleek nose or the bullish body ..? we could also .."
RR : "Never mind about nose or body - when can you have it ready to take up loads ?"
In Europe it was largely the Swedish and the Swiss industry ( and probably their railways ) who cared to produce a clean finish with welded side sheets as plane as glass plates and with rounded edges and at east an idea of giving a look and character to their locomotives .
Swiss electrics tend to look unassuming until they make an energetic get-away with twelve coaches going into a steep ramp like mountain goats rendering road traffic next to ridiculous as they take their trains blasting past lines of cars that creep along to get to the next highway ...
That is - until France woke up from entering the doldrums after the Concorde was in regular traffic . (they seem to have a cycle of making an exceptional technological leap forward , enjoying 'France en avantgarde' for some time and then drowse away for about a dozend years until someone shouts "Alarme , La France is left behind !" and then the cycle starts again - *g*)
That's when they came up with the TGV - train grande vitesse - which prompted German rail industries to start pressing on reluctant DB for a similar high speed train - if somewhat trimmed down from spectacular to more cost concious , inevitably .
Both resulted in a new generation of express trains of - well - looks that .. uhm -- ehm .. sometimes defy definition ...
Several other countries have dipped into HSR and hence designs that help them to handle such speeds.
Our country does not seem to {politically}, want to enter {yet}, into such transportation system. It just seems it's going to take some more time for such projects to get any priority here.
If we could finally remove ourselves from "protecting everything around the free world", then maybe we might {someday}, consider such. Guess one can hope....
>> Our country doesn't seem to want to enter .. <<
Yes , I read about lingering ideas of having rail high speed trains or rather not when it comes to calculating costs . It's like a big city evaluating to investigate on a subway system to start from scratch - or go on without . Seems , some of our infrastructure if it hadn't been built up over the last half of a century would just turn out beyond financing today . What makes me wonder : how come ? how could they do before what seems impossible to pay today even with all that help by modern design and construction methods , devices and machinery ?
Never mind , DBAG has a lot of issues maintaining their network - or not sufficiently maintaining it . Today there are speed restrictions springing up faster than they deal with it – not to say they couldn't if DBAG was prepared to spend on it .
As a matter of fact , accompanying my father on some short business trips I recall some rides in IC trains during the last years of former West-German DB state railway in the early 1990s when running 200 km/h (125 mph) behind 103 class Co-Co electrics : the ride usually was so smooth you saw the country side pass by the window like in a movie , there was a continuous subdued '.. shshshshsh ..' from the wheels only broken by an occasional isolated 'rdam-dram' with the coach's bogies hitting a high speed switch straight on at the entry of a wayside little station and again as side-tracks re-joined the main - that was all , there was hardly a sway or dip the suspension had to deal with . This appeared remarkable to me when from my first ventures to wild derelict DR yards with some active lines passing through in West-Berlin as a child and to East-Berlin after 1990 opening of the wall I was more used to Berlin's then mostly quite old and battered trackwork especially as DR gave a minimum of attention to lines in the western part of the city . Seeing some DB coach's bogies slamming alarmingly hard over an conspicuously down-bending rail joint with loose clamps ( "outch-aargh -- outch-awh" ) on a switch in Ostbahnhof , in stark contrast with DR coaches in the same train passing easily almost dancing over the joint ( "bha-leng -- bha-leng" ) I exclaimed to a friend next to me "See , they always send DB coaches over DR tracks from time to time for practicing some suspension gymnastics - gee !" He replied : "That's nothing , you should see Polish tracks , they say the Polish save on rail miles by expanding each of the joints to the max , some say in worst case PKP could even do without rails at all ." That was slightly exaggerated as I learned when I traveled PKP later on : “Waram-dadam … waram-dadam … waram-dadam … waram-dadam …” and so on with the coach gently nodding to the rhythm of the rails under a sooty plume of steam across the open plains and through light birch woods on sandy soil in Poland .
Edit . replace wrong 'auspiciously' with correct 'conspicuously'
Hi = J =
Enjoyed your piece on some european railroading....Especially the Polish "saving on rails".....Liked that humor.
Sounds like you had some neat rail traveling overseas with your Father.
It really makes one wonder about costs of building things like infrastructure, especially when this country built many, many bridges and different kinds of structures during the Great Depression. Many of them still in service.
But now....Oh...not possible with today's costs. I wonder how so many structures will be replaced when they start to crumble and can't be used any further.
The geometrics of steel girder bridges are fewer. Has prestressed concrete made structural sterility reality?
Bridge construction: Currently, a prestressed concrete beamed bridge is being replaced here in Muncie.
I actually took photos of the ends of the prestressed beams several years ago, and sent the results to the County Engineer's office. {And really got a response}, saying it was to be renovated next year...
Well here it is about 3 years later, and the bridge is being replaced.
I'm estimating this bridge to be about 25 years of age at the most....
It is a 4-lane bridge over a 4-lane state road and railroad here.
The ends of the prestressed beams were deteriorated to the point the concrete was flaked off enough exposing the re-bar on the ends. Beams sat on the support about 10". Seems salt from the above roadway came down on these beams and deteriorated the ends.
They renovated the bridge supports at both ends and in the center and set new prestressed beams and roadway surface. Doing two lanes at a time with traffic over on the other lanes. First section is complete, and second part now being replaced.
Have photos, but not able to put them on here...Too frustrating.
When steel bars are exposed at their ends then it's high time to start rebuilding . I feel like it was taking chances to let it go on for three more years , after all it would have been no fun if a span would have collapsed onto that four lane state road and railroad line ..
Sad to see things deteriorating back home while our means are bound with missions impossible to accomplish the way one unassuming son in chair had believed . A match is easily lit - a fire hard to put out . Billions have been spent to keep from tumbling down what didn't go forwards , billions have been spent on trying to build up abroad what wasn't asked to be built up and will be destroyed as the last of trucks just vanish in the distance on their way home . Billions have been spent on hi-tech development , unmanned birds of prey - leaving a broken one to scrutinizing examination . Billions didn't help our reputation in some parts of the world , I wished some important figures could have noted , picked up , related to and applied some very simple truth from Billy Wilder's 'one - two - three' . I wished some leading figures would have lived up to demand - as JFK once coined it : "Ask not what America can do for you - ask what you can do for America!" This should have applied to some at stick & rudder who have embarked on 90° banking turns . I still believe we might have won people's hearts hands down just practicing what we preach - some people today trying to emulate , not reject our commitment to freedom .
You see , I'm really engineer , not politician , I lack understanding ...
.....And it's a 2-track east / west CSX main. Formally Conrail and NYC, that passes under that bridge in conversation.
= J =, the political part is probably less important to know than the engineering side. Anyway, we're glad to see it being renewed.
Here's a nice picture for you Quentin:
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