Yesterday I scored a double when both MR and Classic Trains arrived in the mail. Classic Trains is a quarterly publication and I never remember when it is supposed to arrive so it always comes as a pleasant surprise. In this issue, there is a lengthy article about the Pullman company and its relationship with the railroads. I have just read parts of it but it looks like it is going to be a wealth of great information. Those of you who aren’t subscribers but are interested in passenger operations might want to consider getting a copy.
I’ll have to check that out. My grocery store started carrying Trains, Classic Trains and the MR special issues along with MR. I guess my moving the MR issues to the front of the magazine rack every week helped![:P]
John, Classic Trains is a gem…every time. The only one I have missed (I wasn’t a subscriber and never got around to purchasing it) was the Mail one several issues back.
As a new N&W fan, the last issue dealing with the last days of the Y Mallets was exceptional. You may have noted the letters from appreciative fans.
I found the Pullman article to be very interesting, but I had no idea it was such an aggressive “player”, including loosing an anti-trust suit when they tried to bully the CB&Q.
-Crandell
I look forward to seeing it, I’m a subscriber so it should be here soon.
It’s easy to forget that from say 1890-1930 Pullman was one of the most important and powerful companies in the U.S., with a huge number of employees serving virtually the entire country, plus of course manufacturing passenger and freight cars too. Of course, it’s political power was heightened by the fact that during a time when Republicans controlled the White House and/or Congress most of the time, Pullman’s president / chairman of the board in that time was Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s son.
And if memory serves (a big if at my age), Robert Todd Lincoln was present at the assassinations of both Garfield and McKinley, a remarkable coincidence. He vowed never again to be in the presence of a US President, apparently believing he was jinxed.
I recieved my copy yesterday,and after a quick flick through it,should make for a most interesting night’s reading,tonight.
I’ll just get a couple of beer’s…[swg]
Steve
I’m not a subscriber yet, but I picked up my first copy from the newsstand last month. Wow - an excellent read. The format of the articles put you right there amongst the action.
I subscribe as well. Even just a few good articles is worth the very very small amount of cash that each issue is worth. Some of the info is the kind that I wouldn’t just happen to run across and I like that.
Crandell, get the one on the mail. I back ordered it and it received a few weeks ago and I loved it. Perhaps my favorite issue so far. But then, I might be biased having mail in my blood both from my own career and my fathers(who have worked with mail trains in his early years)
Magnus
I believe that is correct, but then my memory can be iffy too!!
Interestingly as a young man he was called the “Rail Prince” derisively, apparently refering to how his father had to ‘sneak’ into Washington DC by train at night for his inauguration because of all the fears that he would be assassinated by southern sympathisers. Who could know that years later he would be one of the most powerful railroad men in the country??
I got my issue two days ago. Being a passenger buff this really issue was really great. I would say that is might be the one that I’ve found most useful so far.
Great buy!
Magnus
Yep,an excellent adddition to the series,most enjoyable;however,for me ,it posed a few questions that I shall have to read further into,such as the strikes and other labour issues and poor old R T Lincoln-now that chap,I must read more about.
I liked the drawings of the differing car layouts,very helpful.
Regards to all
Steve
Well the 1894 Pullman strike was a huge deal, originally it was just workers at the Pullman plant in Chicago, but the then-existing railroad unions all voted to go on what we’d call now a “sympathy strike”. Management and gov’t were pretty brutal in surpressing it, with many strikers killed or injured.
After the strike was broken, some railroads refused to hire back any worker who had been on strike; some hired back “rank and file” members but not union leaders or activists. A very few like the Rock Island not only hired back their own, but would hire railroaders who were blackballed by their old employers…possibly part of the reason Leadbelly decided the Rock Island road “was a mighty good road - was the road to ride”.
This strike also created the “Holy Grail” of railroadiana collecting, the “broken neck crane” letter. All railroaders who were not hired back after the strike got a letter from their employer confirming the years they worked for the railroad and what work they did. At that time a major paper company had a watermark in the shape of a crane, you could see it if you held the paper up to the light. Some workers who had been union organizers or officials or were otherwise deeply involved in the strike were (according to the story) given a normal letter, but typed on paper with a “broken neck” crane. When applying for a job, the hiring official would take the man’s letter into a back room or somewhere out of his sight and hold it up to the light. If it was a normal crane, the guy could be hired. If it was a broken-neck, no job. Of course once guys found out that their letter was worthless, they threw the letter away.
I came home to find the wife had bought the issue for herself… she has an interest in railroad history (and history in general) from a more cultural point of view. I haven’t been able to get the magazine for myself yet!
Chris