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<DIV><FONT size=4>Fred</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=4>Interesting that your grandfather went from a Graham Paige to
a Kaiser, since the Kaiser-Fraser cars were the direct descendants of the Graham
Paige. True loyalty!</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=4>The Graham Paige that I found most interesting was the
Hollywood, which was a sort of cobbled up version of a Cord after Cord got out
of the car business. </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=4>Gravity fuel delivery does not seem like a good idea for
mountainous territory! But OTOH it might have been superior to Ford fuel
pumps of the flat head era, which were noted for their propensity to vapor
lock. The one on my first car, a re-engined 1947 Lincoln, did many times,
the most embarrassing being just inside the mouth of the Laurel Hill tunnel on
the Turnpike. What a mess that caused (the tunnels were two lane at the
time).</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=4>Yes, we sure arent driving our grandfathers Olds any more,
to say nothing of his Graham Paige.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=4>Dwight</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=fwschneider@comcast.net
href="mailto:fwschneider@comcast.net">Fred Schneider</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Friday, 16 May, 2014 13:28</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org
href="mailto:pittsburgh-railways@mailman.dementix.org">Western PA Trolley
discussion</A> ; <A title=dwightlong@verizon.net
href="mailto:dwightlong@verizon.net">Dwight Long</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>
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style='FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal; COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline'>Understood.
I think we have to understand that the automobile became an all-weather
conveyance once roads were paved. The lack of paved roads didn't
prevent the adventurous from using them for trips in a more primitive
era. <BR><BR>Remember high school physics
you were told that it
takes a critical mass of uranium to make a bomb? I think the term
critical mass can be applied to other things such as my conclusion that it also
takes a critical mass of motor vehicles to get the politicians to tax everyone
to build highways
about 25% of the families
and that happened about
1920. Of course it took a lot of prodding and cajoling from people
like the Good Roads Committee and the U. S. Army. This book tells a
lot about the army's
involvement:<BR><BR>http://www.amazon.com/American-Road-Story-Transcontinental-Journey/dp/080506883X<BR><BR>I
highly recommend it
great history. Helps you to understand why Ike
was such an easy sell for the Interstate highway legislation. You begin to
realize how bad it was in 1919 in the first chapters when you find it took two
days to drive from Washington to Pittsburgh and those were some of the best
roads in the nation!<BR><BR>We both had grandparents from that era who were
pioneers on the highway. My parents told me several stories after I
was old enough to appreciate them (and sadly, after the perpetrators were
dead). <BR><BR>One involved my mother's father driving into some
town up near Meadville, Pa., before the highway was paved. The man
did not care to be embarrassed by a dirty car so he stopped outside of town, got
out a rag, and dusted the car. <BR><BR>Another tale involved one of
his early cars that had a gravity feed fuel system. Do not ask me
what it was for the oldest cars I remember were his 1937 Graham Paige and the
1949 Kaiser. At any rate, he had a love for the seashore but getting
to Virginia Beach meant driving over the mountains
not through
them. The only way that could be done was turning around and backing
up over about eight different ridges. Can you imagine those who
cannot parallel park, backing a car three miles up a winding mountain road and
then doing it seven more times? <BR><BR>You mentioned campgrounds
being the Motel 6 of that era. Well here is luxury.
Adjacent to Fort Bridger in southwestern Wyoming is a restored motel from the
1920s. The chimneys indicate a coal stove in each room (you better know
how to light a fire or you'll freeze your ass in the winter). Each
room had one light bulb powered from the camp battery
no state wide 110 volt
power network yet.<BR><BR>
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<BR><BR>You claim two or four spare tires? Most touring cars in those days
had two spare tire wells in the front fenders. Two was
normal. Patch a tube? Well you sand down the tube and
then glue the patch on it and then clamp it until the glue dries.
Have not done that in years. Dad's 1952 Ford was the last car in the
family with tubes and it had a nasty tendency to rim cuts (the wheel would cut
the tube
after about the 25th time he sold that s.o.b.
I think that was one
of those "Better Ideas from Ford." ) <BR><BR>My father
remembered driving from Marietta, Ohio to Cleveland one day in the late 1920s
probably 1927-1928. Cold day. Claims it took all day to go up
through Cambridge, New Philadelphia, Canton and Akron. Had to stop
every few miles and chip the ice off the windshield. Remember until
about World War II that heaters were an optional extra. He said he
left in the morning and it was late evening when he finally got back to his
lodgings in Cleveland. Those 168 miles on I-77 today would probably
take 3 hours at worst. (Unfortunately he chucked it when he was
moving into a retirement home, but he did have a nice picture of a Pennsy D-16
4-4-0 at Marietta on the Cleveland passenger train in the 20s. It
might have been a little faster.)<BR><BR>But by the 1930s the roads were mostly
all paved
some exceptions. The only way from Allentown to
Harrisburg was still through Reading. Route 22 had not been
shortened yet. I think route 8 from Pittsburgh to Erie was still
dirt in 1930. But mostly it was a state of paved roads.
We'll not talk about Nevada or Utah
they might have still had a lot of miles
of sand and sagebrush. <BR><BR>And by 1930 my Dad remembered a trip from
Wheeling to Pittsburgh to see his intended bride. Now you understand
all 23-year-olds are a little more reckless than 73-year-olds. He took his
landlady along to the big city and he said he "scared her half to death driving
her back to Wheeling at 60 mph" after dark. Hey guys
that was 60 mph
when the limit was probably 40 on crowned macadam roads with non-sealed-beam
headlights and with mechanical instead of hydraulic brakes . Flat
out in a Model A Ford! No Interstate highways. No
expressways. The concrete highway from Pittsburgh to Washington
through Thompsonville was not built until about 1940. He was driving
the old road through Carnegie, Bridgeville, Morganza, Canonsburg and Houston and
then the old winding route 40 through Claysville and Elm Grove.
Truth be known
he probably knew the road
probably drove it with some
regularity. Horny guys do that. :<)<BR><BR>I just
looked up sealed beam headlights in Wikipedia
introduced 1939; became
mandatory in 1940. I remember my father replacing the original
reflectors and bulbs in his 1939 Chevy with sealed beams once the glass and
reflectors became cloudy and he was having trouble seeing at night
huge
difference. <BR><BR>In researching brakes, I find that Duesenberg was the
first to use hydraulic brakes in 1915 and Ford, in 1939, was the
last. The first to use power assist as a 1928
Pierce-Arrow. Anti-lock systems go back to the 1966 in Great Britain
and 1969 on a Lincoln Continental Mark III. <BR><BR>When did we
begin making synchromesh transmissions for cars? I find one
reference that claims Cadillac was the first in 1928. Naturally the lower
priced cars came later. I suspect Chevy got them by 1936 judging by this
advertising film. Now we have so many people who cannot drive
straight shift in any form that we are building truck tractors with automatic
trannys. <BR><BR>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFvj6RQOLtM<BR><BR>Yes, Dwight it was a
different era. And the kids of today have no
recollection. Today we plot out a trip, look at the interstates
360 miles
OK that's 6 hours plus stops
perhaps a little less.
The kids today don't understand that as recently as the 1950s, a trip with a
muscle car with a big throbbing V-8 engine only averaged 30 miles per
hour. Maybe 35. The car might do 75 or 80 or more but the
roads were not up to it. I guess if you were crossing Utah or
Wyoming or Nebraska, you might push that average up to 45. Speed
limits were lower. Tires were a lot more fragile. Brakes
were not as good as today. <BR><BR>Just one example to hammer it
home. In 1955 we left the grandparents in Marietta, Ohio about 9
a.m. one day and pulled into a model in Wytheville, Virginia around 7
p.m. Wytheville is where US route 11 crossed US route
19. Took the whole freaking day and by then they had a modern
convenience called the West Virginia Turnpike. Now the
comparison. The end of April, this year, I left Ed Lybarger's home
in Washington County, Pa in the morning, passed through Wytheville after lunch
and holed up at Bruce Bente's home in Hendersonville, NC for dinner.
That's close to 300 miles more than the long day in 1955 and I started the more
recent trip on ice and snow! Now the admission
we did pause on the 1955
trip to photograph the Powhattan Arrow coming through Bluefield as well as the
Virginian's day local. (Dad was easy to convince.)<BR><BR>Frankly, Dwight
and the rest of you guys, I think I would just like to go back for a month and
see what the 1920s was like. <BR><BR>On May 15, 2014, at 9:52 PM,
Dwight Long wrote:<BR><BR>> I got a chuckle out of your comment about being
able to use cars once the roads were paved, since my grandfather traveled all
over the USA in the 1920s in an open touring car in order to take photos which
were converted to lantern slides (some members of this list will have to ask
their parents or grandparents what they were) for educational purposes in the
Kansas City Public School district. He took his wife and my mother;
they sometimes stayed in tents--campgrounds were the Motel 6s of the era--and
sometimes in the early "tourist courts." Carried at least two and
sometimes four spares, air pump and patches and was well versed on how to patch
a tire tube (again, ask your parents). Paved roads were for wusses!
But they sure got the masses into
motoring.<BR><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>
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