[PRCo] Re: Transit evolution

John Swindler j_swindler at hotmail.com
Sun Mar 11 14:04:08 EDT 2007 


It made a lot of oil companies and highway contractors very wealthy.



>From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
>Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>Subject: [PRCo] Re: Transit evolution
>Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2007 13:16:44 -0400
>
>Worked didn't it?
>
>Do interstate highways save fuel compared to driving at 35 miles per
>hour and cooling your heels at stops signs and traffic lights?   Or
>did they causes us to drive more miles and thus burn more fuel than
>we would have done if we did not have limited access highways?
>
>Chicken and egg argument.    Unanswerable.
>
>On Mar 11, 2007, at 1:09 PM, John Swindler wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > But still, calling the interstate highways a national defense
> > system was a
> > public relations ploy.  It was no more national defense then tv
> > killed West
> > Penn and National City Lines got rid of the trolleys.
> >
> > It was the way to sell a major highway construction program to the
> > politicians and public in the 1950s.
> >
> > Going back to 1919 - why would you want to send a military convoy
> > by road
> > from Washington to Pittsburgh and onto west coast other then for test
> > purposes or for public relations?  More likely both.  It was just
> > by the
> > dumbest of luck that the convoy commander ended up being a future
> > president.
> >
> > Even into Desert Storm, a lot of military cargo went by rail.
> > Small units
> > usually moved by highway convoy, but brigade and above usually used
> > rail.
> > And that's both US and Europe.  Actually, in Europe in 1990 - how
> > would you
> > move a 7th Corps from Germany to Rotterdam and Antwerp for movement
> > to Saudi
> > Arabia?  Certainly not by highway.  Much by rail, but a lot also by
> > barge.
> >
> > John
> >
> >
> >> From: Fred Schneider <fwschneider at comcast.net>
> >> Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> >> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> >> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Transit evolution
> >> Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 18:40:04 -0500
> >>
> >> And in 1919 it took the convoy three days to get from Washington to
> >> Pittsburgh and those were good roads.
> >>
> >> On Mar 10, 2007, at 3:26 PM, John Swindler wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Ike also saw the autobahn's in Germany.  Yes, they may have been a
> >>> German
> >>> showcase, but they were a great help to the Allies in closing weeks
> >>> of the
> >>> war.  I'll have to check to see if 2nd Armor used an autobahn - it
> >>> covered
> >>> half the distance to Berlin in one day.   Around 100 miles comes to
> >>> mind,
> >>> but would really want to research that.
> >>>
> >>> Yet when it comes down to moving tonnage, nothing compares with
> >>> rail.  And
> >>> Ike knew that.  But rail is more susceptible to interdiction.  The
> >>> Red Ball
> >>> Express truck convoys were just an expedient until the French rail
> >>> system
> >>> could be restored.  And that restoration was never completed -
> >>> Antwerp was
> >>> captured.
> >>>
> >>> The Interstate system connection with national defense may be more
> >>> public
> >>> relations then anything else.
> >>>
> >>> John Swindler, Maj, retired
> >>> Transportation Corps.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> From: "Edward H. Lybarger" <trams2 at comcast.net>
> >>>> Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> >>>> To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
> >>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Transit evolution
> >>>> Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 08:17:17 -0500
> >>>>
> >>>> The 1919 trip was assuredly the motivation for the Interstate
> >>>> Highway
> >>>> System.  It's well-documented in the recent (2-4 years ago?) book
> >>>> on the
> >>>> subject.
> >>>>
> >>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
> >>>> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of
> >>>> Fred
> >>>> Schneider
> >>>> Sent: Friday, March 09, 2007 8:43 PM
> >>>> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> >>>> Subject: [PRCo] Re: Transit evolution
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> ONLY 25 MINUTES BETTER THAN THE 1930 TRAIN SCHEDULE!
> >>>>
> >>>> I guess I need to research the legislation that created the
> >>>> Interstate Highway System that Dwight Eisenhower signed into law in
> >>>> 1954.   Without any additional background information, I cannot
> >>>> help
> >>>> but be lead or mislead to conclude that Ike's military convoy by
> >>>> truck across the United States that took two months in 1919 and was
> >>>> done to demonstrate a need for good highways stuck with him lock
> >>>> afterward and may have lead him to support the Federal Interstate
> >>>> Highway Program.
> >>>>
> >>>> I can remember numerous family vacations in the 1940s and 1950s
> >>>> when
> >>>> we averaged 30 miles per hour.   I can remember one incredibly long
> >>>> day when we left a cousin's home in Palos Park, Illinois, just off
> >>>> route 30 southwest of Chicago, early one morning and dragged
> >>>> into the
> >>>> grandparent's home in Marietta, Ohio at 2 AM the next morning,
> >>>> having
> >>>> inched along route 30 through Fort Wayne and Lima and then down to
> >>>> Columbus and Zanesville and then down along the Muskingum River
> >>>> after
> >>>> midnight.    And then I think after Interstate Highways, driving
> >>>> from
> >>>> Palo Alto CA to Salt Lake City in the same time and from Grand
> >>>> Island
> >>>> NE to Lancaster PA from 9 AM one day to lunch time the next day.
> >>>>
> >>>> On Mar 9, 2007, at 8:17 PM, Bill Robb wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> My next memories are that Lake Shore Coach Company, the
> >>>>> successor to
> >>>>> Lake Shore Electric Railway had traded franchises with Central
> >>>>> Greyhound.  CG ended up with the Cleveland - Toledo route and LSC
> >>>>> got
> >>>>> the Cleveland to Marietta service.  In the 1950s I remember Lake
> >>>>> Shore Coach Company's PG 3701 buses in Marietta painted brown and
> >>>>> orange ... the orange probably a leftover from the interurban car
> >>>>> livery.    I don't have any schedules but I suspect they might
> >>>>> have
> >>>>> averaged 25 to 30 miles per hour, which would have required 5
> >>>>> hours
> >>>>> 30 minutes to 6 hours 45 minutes for the Marietta - Cleveland run.
> >>>>> Driving it in an automobile in those days would have taken at
> >>>>> least
> >>>>> five hours.
> >>>>> So why doesn't public transportation work today?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Because I can get in my Volkswagen and drive the 168 miles on
> >>>>> Interstate 77 in 2 hours 30 minutes in spite of Ohio's overly
> >>>>> aggressive State Troopers.
> >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> -------
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I have a timetable for Feb 1946 when the bus line was still Penn
> >>>>> Ohio which was later taken over by Greyhound.  Cleveland-Marietta
> >>>>> was 7 hours then. But you stopped at every place along the way.
> >>>>> And the bus ran everyday.  People still worked 6 days a week.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> __________________________________________________________________
> >>>>> __
> >>>>> __
> >>>>> ______________
> >>>>> Get your own web address.
> >>>>> Have a HUGE year through Yahoo! Small Business.
> >>>>> http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/domains/?p=BESTDEAL
> >>>>>
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> >>>>> -- URL : http://lists.dementia.org/files/pittsburgh-railways/=?
> >>>>> utf-8?q?Penn=20Ohio.jpg?=
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> _________________________________________________________________
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> >>> Experian.
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> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
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>

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