[PRCo] The rest of the month of March 1947

Mon May 26 22:03:50 EDT 2014

I would be curious to know who reads this stuff.   Might be easier to just send it to a few people who care.

Railroads are now saying they are now against smoke control if the county instead of the city runs it.   Sounds like "we don't mind as long as we can make smoke."   Page 2 in this issue is all about the smoke control wrangling.   I think you understand this … we all favor smoke control as long as it cost nothing and we lose no jobs and nobody has to do anything.   We believe in magic.  

     http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=djft3U1LymYC&dat=19470323&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

Nice advertisement on page 28 of the March 23, 1947 edition … the Philadelphia Company was telling how great they were.   If the SEC was going to tell the newspapers they were evil, they were going to lobby for public opinion in their favor.   If someone can capture this and screen print it … I would be obliged.   

For those who have no recollection of the automobile market after World War II, it was very much a seller's market from 1946 through 1948.   The buyer was simply lucky to be able to buy a car.   Because my mother was watching a new baby, my father took me a lot of places to five mom a break … grocery store, hardware store, barber shop, even the Chevrolet dealer in Oakmont.   My old man was tight … he refused to go along with the antics the dealers were playing … he would not pay extra to get moved to the top of the waiting list.  Dad waited until the 1949 model year and then took a marked down '48 left over.   My father-in-law was in a different position … one local dealer in Lancaster put doctors coming home from the military at the top of the list and therefore he got a brand new 1946 car right away.   But this tells what tricks the dealers were doing to sell cars (and make long term enemies).  

But notice what some of the optional extras that we would consider mandatory today:   oil filters, windshield washers, heaters.   Can you imagine how long an engine lasted without an oil filter?   

     http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=eHYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3888%2C2779621

Pittsburgh's four major railroads all agree to smoke control.

     http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=enYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4602%2C3342720

John Moran, obit., was Asst to President of Pressed Steel Car Company

     http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=enYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1565%2C3513119

I have already checked with Ed Lybarger on this … I wanted to know if it was really built.   His response was, "I dunno.  Doesn't sound at all familiar, though."  And he spent his entire life on that side of Pittsburgh.   So we have a big promise of a coal gasification plant to solve the smoke problems and it was, to the best of our knowledge, smoke in itself.   The next day there was a story that it was vital to our defense … front page news.

     http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=enYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4602%2C3342720

Edmund Stone of Duquesne Light retired.   Probably of interest to a very limited number like Ed.

     http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=e3YbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2552%2C3751106

US Steel had best year in history in 1946 … made 88 million net on 1.496 billion in sales … a fantastic return of 2.2%!!
Be curious to know what that return was on investment.

     http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=e3YbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1947%2C3777962

Click on this link … it isn't the article but the political cartoon to it's right that is so damn fascinating.    Not sure whether you put an elephant or a jackass at the bottom of Fibber Magee's closet but regardless, it would be just as funny today.

     http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=e3YbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1947%2C3777962

Two stories this page and only one will produce a link.  The first is the residual cost to the taxpayers of the 1946 Duquesne Light Co. strike.   The second, at the bottom of the page, is the opening of the Arlington loop for PCC cars complete with poor photo.

     http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fXYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3780%2C4479068

Trucker unaware that his rig hits streetcar; gets nailed for hit-and-run.

     http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fXYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2949%2C4668102

On March 25th, 1947, one of the worst mine disasters hit the newspaper but not where you might expect it.  I later found it in a list of important national events in 1947.   One hundred eleven were killed.   Where?   Centralia, Illinois.   I remember that from Dave Morgan and Phil Hastings goiing there in 1955 for the Steam in Indian Summer series in Trains magazine … the Burlington had knock off 2-10-4s there identical to those the Bessemer and Lake Erie used until about 1952.   

But this mine disaster had the potential for taking the governor of Illinois with it.   Seems one of the dead had asked the governor to investigate unsafe conditions in that mine in 1946 and it appears that nothing was done.   Four days after the explosion that killed 111 miners, the word impeachment was being tossed around.   (Wonder who paid to keep the governor out of the mine?)   Then we find there had been a mine safety inspection a week before the explosion that found many of the same problems found in the previous inspection.  My the end of the month, John L. Lewis had called all the nation's miners out in sympathy.

    http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=e3YbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5511%2C3693874 

    http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fXYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1767%2C4571792

    http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fnYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6577%2C5044480  

Weight limit on Rankin Bridge … limit is about 2 1/2 times the weight of a PCC.

      http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fXYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1872%2C4675576

 [Editorial comment by typist:  Whitaker is the borough at the south end of the bridge .. south of Rankin, east of Homestead and west of Kennywood Park.   It's peak population was after World War II when it reached 2217 people --- the 2012 census estimate was 1271.   The mayor never got his wish for clover leaf.]    

The battle for a feeder bus line in Spring Hill continues.

    http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fXYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4396%2C4694285

McKeesport capitulates to the Best and Only … agrees to raise speed limit for trains after rigid adherence caused horrid blockades in the city.

    http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=fXYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1517%2C4751265

Pittsburgh, Shawmut and Northern ran it's last trains on Saturday March 29, 1947.

     http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=gHYbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=20wEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4036%2C5694475

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.dementix.org/pipermail/pittsburgh-railways/attachments/20140526/de3083dc/attachment.html 