[PRCo] Re: car restoration work

[Donald Galt]

On 24 May 2003 at 18:21, Fred Schneider wrote:

> I'm thoroughly convinced the only thing standing between a railroad
> employee and a fatality is the number of hours or days or years they
> work.  Even the best men will eventually run out of time.  (And that
> law applies to any moving object ... like how many ships owned by the
> French Line, White Star, Cunard, or the Italians are resting at the
> bottom of the Atlantic.) 
> 

Actually, the French Line's standard practice was to have its ships destroyed 
right at home. Following La Bourgogne disaster in mid-Atlantic (1870s?), as 
best I can remember the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique's worst in human 
terms was Champlain, which hit a mine just out of port in 1940 with some 300+ 
dead. The other large losses were Lafayette (1938), Paris (1939) and Normandie 
(1942) all of which caught fire at quayside during refitting.

Don