Showing posts with label Transportation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Transportation. Show all posts

Friday, April 19, 2024

Holy Saturday, April 19, 1924.


The Saturday Evening Post went to press observing Easter with a Leyendecker illustration.

National Barn Dance, a direct precursor to the Grand Old Opry, premiered on Chicago's WLS, running a whopping four hours every Saturday night.  It would run until 1968.

The Washington Post depicted Coolidge holding fast in a political cartoon.



In Casper, there was a big meeting to oust a city councilman who had been convicted on a liquor charge.


And Arizona tourists could get into California before Easter.

It's interesting to realize that motor tourism had become a thing by 1924.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, April 17, 1924. Japanese reaction.

Sunday, March 31, 2024

Monday, March 31, 1924. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (actually III) and the Teapot Dome Affair, Making Working Girls Homeless, and the Start of the Fishing Season.

Democrats were attacking Theodore Roosevelt, Jr's supposed role in Teapot Dome.  This Theodore Roosevelt was serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, that position now effectively being a Roosevelt one, with he being the third Roosevelt to occupy it.



Too many "girls" were occupying boarding houses on West A, B, and 1st Streets, which was causing the Casper Police Chief to counsel against allowing more boarding houses and to close the existing ones.

Without really detailing the article, what the Chief meant was that there were too many working girls in the Sandbar District for effective policing.

Dr. Morad was robbed at gunpoint.

The houses were closed, Casper's other paper noted:


Casper was not a nice town.

The police effort against the working girls in the 20s would fail.  It would take at least into the 1950s to really make a dent in the trade they occupied in the Sandbar, and it was finally shut down when an urban renewal project in the 1970s.

The Herald carried advertisements noting the opening of fishing season.


Wyoming doesn't have a fishing season per se now.  You can fish all year around.  Apparently, at the time, fishing opened on April 1.

A big difference between then and now is the extensive Wyoming Game and Fish hatchery system.  It existed in 1924, but it's been much expanded.

Money for a fish hatchery was first appropriated by the legislature in 1895.  I don't know if one was built at the time, but the oldest continually operating one in the state is the Story Fish Hatchery, which was built in 1909.

Imperial Airways was founded by way of the merger of the Handley Page Transport, Instone Air Line, Daimler Airway and British Marine Air Navigation Co Ltd. airways.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, March 30, 1924. Camp Carey

Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Industrial History: 1977-2024 I-695 Lost Francis Scott Key Bridge over...

Industrial History: 1977-2024 I-695 Lost Francis Scott Key Bridge over...: ( Archived Bridge Hunter ; no Historic Bridges; Satellite ) A ship  alliding  with this bridge and causing a catastrophic failure has upped ...

A good account of actual events in this matter.

I have to say that this disasters demonstrates how truly moronic social media has become.  Within mere minutes of the disaster, some people who really need to go to some sort of Moron Reeducation Camp were spinning wild conspiracy theories about this disaster.1 

The ship lost power. The pilot, who is a licensed pilot for the harbor, did everything he could to address the situation.  The crew immediately radioed, which kept this from being a much worse disaster than it turned out to be.

Footnotes:

1. The absolute stupidity of the conspiracy theories should cast a little light on how people have spun moronic conspiracy theories about all sorts of things, from Pearl Harbor to the assassination of JFK, in the past.  People like to imagine that things have to be intentional, or it could  happen to anyone.


Saturday, March 23, 2024

The Work Truck Blog: Hating on EVs.

The Work Truck Blog: Hating on EVs.

Hating on EVs.

Oh my, they're here:


An earlier thread here:

The Work Truck Blog: Wyoming Delegation: Everyone Wants Internal Combus...

Wyoming Delegation: Everyone Wants Internal Combustion Engines, Enough With EV Nonsense


Wyoming Delegation: Everyone Wants Internal Combustion Engines, Enough With EV Nonsense


There is a real holding back the tide aspect to this.  Electric vehicles are coming, and soon.

Indeed, they aren't really new.


Something is really up with the GOP hating on EV's. It's really bizarre.  And it's not just Wyoming.  Consider that Senator Deb Fischer of Nebraska, who was on a tear the other day, posting tweet after tweet about electric vehicles.
California insists it's “speculative” to assume EVs will remain heavier than gas cars.
 
Public policy should reflect reality, not the baseless future dream of featherweight electric cars.

What’s speculative, obviously, is assuming with no evidence that their weight will change.

Heavy? Great. We used to complain that fuel efficient vehicles were too light.

To read the GOP propaganda in some quarters, Electric Vehicles travel in rogue bands, cross the Rhine, sack and loot villages, and take your daughters.

It's really absurd. 

All this comes about due to a Biden Administration proposed fuel efficiency mandate designed to spur on the development of EVs.  This is similar to what was done in the 70s and 80s concerning mileage standards, which some people also howled about.  And it's similar to what was done regarding water efficiency and electric efficiency in appliances since the 1970s.  In each instance, there were complainers who howled it was Federal overreach and the standard could't be met.  In each instance, however, industry had little trouble meeting it.

The truth of the matter is that EVs are now here, and there's a real holding back the tide aspect of this.  They're going to dominate in the near future, and each and every one of the supposed reasons that won't happen will be proven wrong, as will the common assertions it won't matter.

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Thursday, March 20, 1924. Barbarity Codified.


Virginia's Racial Integrity Act and Eugenical Sterilization Act went into effect, seeing two vile trains of thought combine into legislation on a single day.

The former barred that if a person had a great-grandparent who was black, they were black, and were barred from marrying outside of that racial category.  The Pocahontas Clause" provided an exception for Native American heritage, sort of, in that if a person had 15/16th European heritage, they would be deemed white.

An emergency existing, this act shall be enforced from its passage.

Chap. 394. - An ACT to provide for the sexual sterilization of inmates of State institutions in certain cases. [S B 281]

Approved March 20, 1924.

Whereas, both the health of the individual patient and the welfare of society may be promoted in certain cases by the sterilization of mental defectives under careful safeguard and by competent and conscientious authority, and

 Whereas, such sterilization may be effected in males by the operation of vasectomy and in females by the operation of salpingectomy, both of which said operations may be performed without serious pain or substantial danger to the life of the patient, and

 Whereas, the Commonwealth has in custodial care and is supporting in various State institutions many defective persons who if now discharged or paroled would likely become by the propagation of their kind a menace to society but who if incapable of procreating might properly and safely be discharged or paroled and become self-supporting with benefit both to themselves and to society, and

Whereas, human experience has demonstrated that heredity plays an important part in the transmission of sanity, idiocy, imbecility, epilepsy and crime, now, therefore

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia, That whenever the superintendent of the Western State Hospital, or of the Eastern State Hospital, or of the Southwestern State Hospital, or of the Central State Hospital, or the State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-Minded, shall be of opinion that it is for the best interests of the patients and of society that any inmate of the institution under his care should be sexually sterilized, such superintendent is hereby authorized to perform, or cause to be performed by some capable physicians or surgeon, the operation of sterilization on any such patient confined in such institution afflicted with hereditary forms of insanity that are recurrent, idiocy, imbecility, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy; provided that such superintendent shall have first complied with the requirements of this act.

 2. Such superintendent shall first present to the special board of directors of his hospital or colony a petition stating the facts of the case and the grounds of his opinion, verified by his affidavit to the best of his knowledge and belief, and praying that an order may be entered by said board requiring him to perform or have performed by some competent physician to be designated by him in his said petition or by said board in its order, upon the inmate of his institution named in such petition, the operation of vasectomy if upon a male and of salpingectomy if upon a female.

 A copy of said petition must be served upon the inmate together with a notice in writing designating the time and place in the said institution, not less than thirty days before the presentation of such petition to said special board of directors when and where said board may hear and act upon such petition [10]

—Virginia General Assembly, March 20, 1924

Finnair commenced commercial flights.

Friday, February 23, 2024

Saturday, February 23, 1924. Electric Trucks.

The Saturday magazines hit the stands, including this issue of Colliers:
The issue had some good articles on it, including one that would still be considered timely.

Politics and oil were a topic.

On oil, the issue had an Autocar Truck advertisement advertising gas and electric trucks. . . the latter being something that locals now insist just can't happen.


And Colt had an advertisement on handguns in a national magazine, something that wouldn't happen now.  While the government is referenced, it's really home protection, a theme we still see, that is being suggested.

The Royal Navy intervened in the ongoing dockworkers strike to move 4,500 bags of mail from the United States.

Albanian Prime Minister Ahmet Zogu was shot twice by an anarchist would be assassin, but survived.

Monday, February 19, 2024

Soap Blindness. Being careful about what you are wishing for.

Independent truck drivers, whom share nothing in common with Donald Trump whatsoever, are claiming they'll boycott New York State today due to the judgment against the serially indicted former President.

In the Gene Shepherd classic A Christmas Story, Ralphie imagines that he'll get "soap blindness" and live on the streets, to the regret of his parents, for having his mouth washed out with soap.  No such thing exists, of course, but in reality, if it did, it'd be worse than the remorse the parents would feel for the person enduring it.

In other words, a person needs to be careful for what they wish for.

Truck drivers, or at least American independent truck drivers, are heavily invested in the belief that "America needs us".  They're also heavily invested in a myth of manly, rugged independence.  The reality of the situation is quite different, however.

The United States went to a semi tractor supply distribution system through the short sightedness of Dwight Eisenhower, who backed the massive Federally funded expansion of the US highway system during his administration.  Eisenhower, impressed with the Autobahn, which he'd seen while the Supreme Commander of Allied Expedition Force in Europe, wanted them here.  It was really an example of the American System at work, and while I'm generally a proponent of the American System, it shouldn't have happened in this example.

Coming right at the same time that the American love of automobiles really took off, it caused a massive ongoing subsidy of the highway system, and by extension, the expansion of over the road trucking, at the detriment of the railroads.  I've posted on that here before, stating:

Trucking is a subsidized industry, but people don't think of it that way.  Its primary competitor is rail. Railroads put in their own tracks and maintain their own railroad infrastructure. When you see a train, everything you were looking at, from the rails to the cars, were purchased by private enterprise. When you seem a semi tractor, however, it's always traveling on a public conveyance.


It's doing that fairly inefficiently compared to rail.  Rail is incredibly cheap on a cost per mile basis, and it's actually incredibly "green" as well.  It's efficient.  Trucks are nowhere near as efficient in any fashion.  Not even in employment of human resources.  Trains have, anymore, one or two men crews, the same as semi trucks, but they're hauling a lot more per mile than trucks are with just two men.

And, as we also stated:

Following the Second World War the U.S. saw a rising expansion of over the road trucking.  By the late 1950s the US was, additionally, overhauling its Interstate highway system via the Defense Department's budget with new "defense" highways, which were much improved compared to the old Interstate highway system.  With the greatly improved roads, by the 1960s, interstate long haul trucking was in an advance state of supplanting the railroads for a lot of American freighting.  At the same time, the diesel engine supplanted the gasoline engine for semi tractors.  A very uncommon engine for motor vehicles in the United States prior to the 1950s, diesels started coming in somewhere in that period and by the 1960s they'd completely replaced gasoline engines for over the road semi tractors.  Now, of course, diesels have become fairly common for heavy pickups as well, and are even starting to appear in the U.S. in light pickup trucks in spite of the higher cost of diesel fuel.


The change was dramatic, although few people can probably fully appreciate that now, as we are so acclimated to trucking.  Thousands of trucks supplanted thousands of rail cars, and entire industries that were once served only by rail came to be served by truck.  The shipping of livestock, for example, which was nearly exclusively a railroad enterprise up into the 1950s is now done entirely by truck, a change which had remarkable impacts as rail shipping required driving the livestock to the railhead, whereas with the trucks they are simply scheduled to arrive at a ranch at a particular time.  Likewise, businesses that at one time located themselves near rail lines, so that they could receive their heavy products by rail, no longer do, as they receive those items by trucks.  For example, pipeyards, once always near a railhead, are not always today.


One semi truck does as much damage to the highways as 2,000 passenger cars, or some I'm told.  I was told that by the owner of a company that has semi trucks.

On top of it, truck driving isn't something Americans want to do anymore, something the independents who are protesting seem to be missing.  As we earlier noted:

There are presently 11,000,000 unfilled jobs in the United States.  These are jobs that were filled before the COVID Recession.  People aren't going back to work.

And laborers are also demanding better wages and benefits in order to do the work they're doing.

This represents a dual fundamental shift in the thinking of the American work force.  Part of it is old-fashioned, and part not so much.

As for better wages and benefits, following the Reagan Administration and the economic woes of the 1970s, American labor really faded from the scene as an organized entity.  Of course, we lost a lot of labor to overseas as well.  Now the remaining labor is fed up and taking advantage of the situation, for which it cannot be blamed.

The second part of this situation, however, is remarkable.  Forced out of work during the pandemic, stay homes, lots of people discovered that modern American work sucks. They don't want to go back, as their lives were better without the work.

Some of those who don't want to go back are truck drivers. The country is short 20,000 truck drivers right now.

In recent years the country has actually imported a lot of truck drivers, something the general public seems largely unaware of.  Anymore, when I read the names of people involved in truck driving accidents, I expect the drivers to be Russian, and I'm actually surprised when they are not.   What happened here overall isn't clear to me, but over the last fifteen years technology has developed to where it's much easier for trucking companies to keep tabs on their truckers while on the road and things have gotten safer. At the same time, this means, as it always has, but perhaps more so, that these guys live on the road.  According to Buttigieg the industry has an 80% annual turnover rate.

An 80% annual turnover rate doesn't sound even remotely possible to me, but that there's a high one wouldn't surprise me.  It's a dangerous job and contrary to what people like to imagine, it doesn't really pay the drivers that well as a rule, or at least fairly often.  Often the drivers are "owner operators" who own their own super expensive semi tractor and who are leasing it to the company they are driving for.  That in turn means that they're often making hefty payments on the truck.  I don't blame anyone for not wanting to do it.

I can blame the nation for putting itself in this situation, however.

Drivers can make a lot of money, for sure, but their paychecks often go towards paying for their trucks and the like.  Modern trucks are automatic transmission vehicles and the days of really highly skilled teamsters who knew how to double clutch and shift two gear shifts at once (which I've seen done), are long gone.  The job has become one where temporary immigrants and immigrants from the Third World are incredibly common.  

So sure, while there are Trump loving independent teamsters out there, there are a lot of drivers from India, Somalia, Russia or Mexico who no doubt have little Trump love.

And motorists have little truck love.  That's part of the reason that teamsters feel compelled to attempt to remind people that things move by truck.  The problem is, they don't have to.

Had the Defense Highway System not been built, things would move by rail, except locally. There's no reason that couldn't happen again, and if the Federal Government suddenly decided, for whatever reason (and expense would be a good one) to end the funding system, the result would be just like what happened when it quite subsidizing housing the mentally ill back in Reagan's day.  States wouldn't pick it back up.  It'd take awhile, but not as long as supposed, before rail picked its old role back up, but it could and would.  

Beyond that, rail transportation is already very "green", as noted above, compared to truck transportation.  It could be made much more so by electrifying the system, which is a proven system.  Trains engines are also more capable of readily being made in alternative fuels than semi trucks are.  Short haul trucks, from rail to consumer, are also relatively easy to make the conversion to electricity.

Up until after World War Two, most things moved by rail, and trucking was local.  The highway system, while the Federal Government was already in it, was much more local.

So, want to show how valuable you are to the economy?  Going on strike or into a boycott may do it.  Perhaps you are like the railroader of World War One and World War Two and can't be ignored.  Perhaps you are an economic Lysistrata and people won't want to ignore you.

Or perhaps people figure they're better off without you and they don't want to be taxed to support your industry anymore and they'll look forward to not seeing trucks in their rear view mirror.

Related Threads:

Supply Chain Disruption and Other Economic Problems







Saturday, February 10, 2024

Thursday, February 10, 1944. Victory at Saidor

Troops entering Quartermaster Replacement Training Center (QMRTC), Ft. F.E. Warren, Wyoming. July 6, 1943. Photo by US Army Signal Corps. Released for publication February 10, 1944.

The landing at Saidor concluded on January 2, Operation Michaelmas, resulted in an Allied victory on this date.  The Australians and the Americans had linked up, and the Huon Peninsula was mostly occupied.

Offloading of Piper Cub used in Operation Michaelmas.

The Minekaze was sunk off of Formosa by the USS Pogy. 

Sarah Sundin notes:

Today in World War II History—February 10, 1944: Japanese surround Indian 7th Division on the Arakan peninsula in Burma; Allies keep the 7th Division supplied through air drops.

The Red Army took Shepetovka, Ukraine.

The U-545 was scuttled after being crippled west of the Hebrides by a Vickers Wellington.  T he U-666 disappeared in the North Atlantic.


On the same day, American Airlines Flight 2 crashed into the Mississippi River. All twenty-four passengers and crew were killed.  The cause of the crash was never determined.

Air travel between Miami and Key West was initiated.


Friday, January 19, 2024

Spurs

This is one of those posts that have been lingering for a long time. . . a very long time in this case.  The draft of this dates back to 2015.

I was looking back on my lists of drafts, I have a bunch, and realized I never finished this.  I'm not sure why, even though this relates to the underlying theme of the blog pretty well and I really should have.  As the blog slows down from daily entries, as we run up on the signing of the Versailles Treaty, I ought to post some of these older drafts that have something to do with the theme, more generally, of the blog, and which assist in what I hope will be a fairly historically accurate novel (which I need to get to work on more as well).

These are all spurs, and all spurs I own.  I have a reason for owning spurs, so these are all tools of the trade in a way. But how long have these individual types been around?

"Gumball Spurs"

The spurs above are a type worn by Western riders called "gumball spurs". They lack a rowell, and just have a blunt ball on the end.  Lots of non Western spurs are like this, but its fairly rare to see very many working riders wear this type.



The spur strap here is a classic Western style that you can find examples of going way back.


Here's another set.  These are a more typical Western set of spurs with a couple of small chimes that ring.  Everyone has probably heard the song "I've got spurs that jingle jangle jingle". Well, these do.


I bought the Colorado Saddlery spurs as I wanted to replace the gumball spurs for regular use, but I wasn't very happy with them.  So I went to these:

These spurs below are U.S. Army Model 1911 Spurs, the last model used by the Army.  These spurs are quite plain as a rule.




Friday, January 12, 2024

Blog Mirror: 6 Must Have Winter Car Accessories to Stay Safe and Comfy

6 Must Have Winter Car Accessories to Stay Safe and Comfy

All good advice.

I'd add, here in Wyoming, a winter coat for sure.

And a blanket that will suffice for cold weather without electricity, as you might not have your car electricity all that long.

And some food for a few days is a good idea, also.

I'd also add, for at least off roady and over the road vehicles, a two-way radio.  I have GMRS radios in both of my regular 4x4s, which are also my regular daily drivers.  Personally, I much prefer GMRS over CB, which has a more limited range.

Friday, December 29, 2023

Wednesday, December 29, 1943. Rationing Bicycles

F.F. Calkin, of Cadillac, Michigan, and J. Ferber, of Camden, New Jersey, using British bicycles for transportation in England, 1943.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 291943  Wartime quotas of new adult bicycles for January cut in half, with 40 being allotted to Wyoming.Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

Bicycles at high school in Texas, 1943.

This was no small matter.  Bicycles had increased enormously in importance due to the war.  The National Park Service notes:


Shortly after the December 1941 Japanese attacks, the government took over control of the bicycle industry. They halted the bicycle trade entirely, and forbade bicycles from leaving “a factory, a jobber, a wholesaler, or a retailer’s place of business after 11:59 tonight” (April 3, 1942). They hoped this would prevent hoarding, and also gave them the opportunity to evaluate supply and demand.

The government issued specifications for what became known as Victory bicycles. These were designed and built only for adults; bikes for children were not manufactured during the war. Victory bikes were lightweight, weighing no more than 31 pounds (lighter by about a third than pre-war). They were made of steel only with no copper or nickel parts, and a minimum of chrome plating. Paint was used instead on handlebars and wheel rims. Accessories like chain guards, bells, and whitewall tires were removed, and a maximum tire width of 1-3/8" was set.[12] Behind the scenes, there were disagreements between the OPA and the Wartime Production Board (WPB) about the necessity of bicycle rationing – were bicycles a luxury? Was the rubber needed to make bicycle tires better used for other war needs while people continued to put wear on the car tires they already owned? This debate was eventually resolved, and Victory bikes went into production.[13]

When rationing began in July 1942, the OPA had 150,000 Victory bicycles and 90,000 pre-war bicycles to divide up. To get a bicycle, you had to apply at the local rationing board and prove you needed a bicycle. For example, your job was too far to walk to, and there was no good public transportation. By August 1942, access to bicycles was further limited to health care workers, school teachers, fire fighters, and others in critical occupations. New and used bicycles became much in demand, as thousands used them to get to their war jobs.[14] Despite this, the numbers of bicycles made and allocated by rationing boards never met the actual demand.[15]

Sailors who had bicycled to Arlington Farms, a residence for women who worked in the U.S. government for the duration of the war, from Washington in search of a date, 1943.

Leo Pasvolsky of the State Department finished the draft for the United Nations Charter.

Gen. Eisenhower ordered Allied Commanders to avoid attacking historic Italian monuments to the extent that this was possible; stating:

We are bound to respect those monuments so far as war allows. If we have to choose between destroying a famous building and sacrificing our own men, then our men's lives count infinitely more and the buildings must go. But the choice is not always so clear-cut as that. In many cases the monuments can be spared without any detriment to operational needs.

The Royal Air Force resumed bombing Berlin, its Christmas hiatus having ended.

The Red Army took Korosten in Ukraine.

The Italian submarine Axum was scuttled after running aground off of Morea, Greece.  The boat had a very successful war record.

Sunday, December 17, 2023

Monday, December 17, 1923. Closing in on Mexico City.


The revolution in Mexico looked as if it was about to topple the government.

Subhi Bey Barakat was elected President of the Syrian Federation, a French mandate. He'd be its only president as the state would be succeeded by the State of Syria, also a French mandate, which he'd also be the chief executive of.


Thailand adopted the metric system.

An agreement was reached on the formation of the Imperial Air Transport Company, which soon became Imperial Airways.

Sunday, December 10, 2023

Monday, December 10, 1923. Mexican rebels and cheese empires advance.

The Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, which has not been ratified, was first introduced in Congress.


At the time, many suffragettes opposed it out of fear that it would eliminate statutory protection of female laborers, which it likely would have.


Rebels were advancing on Mexico City.

Coolidge was encouraging commercial aviation, and running for reelection.

The National Dairy Products Corporation was founded by a merger of Thomas H. McInerney's Hydrox Corporation and Edward E. Rieck's Rieck—McJunkin Dairy Company. In 1930, it would acquire Kraft-Phenix Cheese Company, and then rebrand itself in 1969 as Kraftco Corporation and then Kraft, Inc.

It is now Kraft Heinz as of this very year.

Kraft cheese is, in my opinion, hideous.

The U.S. Supreme Court held in Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co. that only it, in appropriate Federal questions, could review state supreme court decisions.

The Italian parliament was prorogued, i.e., dissolved, by King Victor Emmanuel III at the request of Benito Mussolini.

Turkey and Albania signed a treat of friendship.