[milwaukee-electric] Re: KMCL/National City Lines.

[Scott Greig]

Well said.  He had made several unsuccessful overtures to purchase the line from Greyhound in the year or two before the Soldiers Home wreck; I can only imagine how quickly the Northland Greyhound top brass must have gone looking for his contact information as the liability estimates started rolling in from the wreck.  And correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Speedrail initially operating the Local Rapid Transit and Hales Corners routes for the Transport Company, and bringing in a nice chunk of cash for their services, before Maeder bought the two routes from TMER&T?

As to why the last two 1030-series trains never got field tappers, a friend and I have speculated that Cold Spring used surplus field tappers on hand from a group of 500-series streetcars (that had been field tapped for a time), and that they had either run out of the sets of equipment or Maeder could not afford to have all ten cars modified.


--- On Tue, 3/29/11, Don L. Leistikow <DLeistikow at webtv.net> wrote:

> From: Don L. Leistikow <DLeistikow at webtv.net>
> Subject: [milwaukee-electric] Re: KMCL/National City Lines.
> To: milwaukee-electric at lists.dementia.org
> Date: Tuesday, March 29, 2011, 1:11 PM
> Group:   As I was
> working at the GE Apparatus Service Shop, 940 W.
> St.Paul, I ate my lunch while visiting with Bill
> Schwerin... at his last
> stand office in a container car body next to the deck
> behing the then GE
> Building.             
>                
>   
> 
> He said that Jay Maeder was so anxious to acquire the
> remaining linss to
> Waukesha and Hales Corners that, he was easily enticed to
> accept any
> arrangement toward purchase.  As it was, Jay did get
> the Waukesha
> operation from Greyhound and he needed the 1031-32 to
> 1049-50, duplex
> trains to handle rush-hour heavy traffic.  The first
> eight of these
> trains were fitted with field tappers, the last two trains
> didn't get
> them.  Why Not?  
> 
> Bill Schwerin told me that Jay was too anxious and The
> Transport Company
> took advantage of that.  Bill said that Jay could have
> had much more,
> than what he got.  Jay was so eager, that he accepted
> the liability of
> the Soldier's Home accident.      
> 
> Don L .
> 
> 
>