Derailed Union Pacific Grain (corn) train, Bosler Wyoming. August 22, 2020.

 

Lex Anteinternet: The Big Picture. Nashville Terminal, 1905.

Lex Anteinternet: The Big Picture. Nashville Terminal, 1905.:

The Big Picture. Nashville Terminal, 1905.

Nashville terminal, 1905

Lex Anteinternet: August 1, 1920. Denver Tramway workers go on strike.

Lex Anteinternet: August 1, 1920. Denver Tramway workers go on strike.:

August 1, 1920. Denver Tramway workers go on strike.

Denver Tramway Building in Denver, which now houses the giant Denver REI outlet.

Workers for Denver Tramway, the cities streetcar company, went on strike on this day in 1920.

Founded in 1886, Denver Tramway had expanded aggressively and become a monopoly in the city.  Its workers founded a union in 1918 and were demanding fare increases in order that their wages could be raised.  Denied their goal, they went out on strike on this day.

 Cable car barn on 14th and Arapahoe.

The company responded by bringing in strike breakers, with the first street car piloted from the cable car barn at 14th and Arapahoe by strike breaker John "Black Jack" Jerome, whom the company had hired to organize strike breakers.  The strike would soon turn violent and up to 1/3d of the cities police reported by August 6 to have received serious injuries.  Denver's mayor called for armed citizens to enforce the peace on that day and Federal troops arrived later that day and restored order.

Cheyenne State Leader from August 1, 1920, noting that strike breakers were being brought in.

The net result was that the union was broken and would not be reorganized until 1933.  Seven Denverites were dead, all of whom were in the nature of bystanders to the violence.

Jerome, who was born Yiannis Petrolekas in Greece, would go on to have a successful career in his dangerous profession.  A poor immigrant to the US who had arrived in 1905, he had first sought his fortune in aviation but in 1917 he changed his name and founded the Jerome Detective Agency.  Having worked in the streetcar industry, he offered its services to strike and union breaking, which made him a rich man.  His company expanded during this time and at one time even employed Dashiell Hammett, prior to his becoming famous.

He invested in real estate and, during the depression, in horse and dog racing.  In 1933 he returned to Greece a rich man, while still retaining business interests in the United States.  He died in San Francisco in 1953, his funeral delayed as an undertakers union went on strike in protest over his having broken a strike of theirs in prior years.

Lex Anteinternet: The Big Picture: Stockyards.

Lex Anteinternet: The Big Picture: Stockyards.:

The Big Picture: Stockyards.

South Omaha, Nebraska.  1908.

Same stockyard, September 1916.

Omaha stockyards, 1914.

Kansas City, 1909

Kansas City, 1907.

Union stockyards, Chicago.  September 1907.

Union stockyards, Chicago.  1899.

Union stockyards, Atlanta Georgia.  January 2, 1909.

Related threads:

Friday Farming: Denver Stockyards, 1939.

Lex Anteinternet: Cowgirls at the Pendleton Round Up, 1911

Lex Anteinternet: Cowgirls at the Pendleton Round Up, 1911

Cowgirls at the Pendleton Round Up, 1911

Blog Mirror: Don't let it end like this

Don't let it end like this

Lex Anteinternet: June 2, 1920. Ships and faraway places.

Note hte engine on the far left:

Lex Anteinternet: June 2, 1920. Ships and faraway places.:

June 2, 1920. Ships and faraway places.

Workmen posing before the launch of the USS Neches, Boston Navy Yard, June 2, 1920.  The ship was an oiler that would serve for 22 years until sunk by the Japanese submarine I-72 on January 23, 1942.

On the same day a Shia revolt commenced in Iraq.  Known as the Great Iraqi Revolt, the revolution would run its course for months before the British were able to put it down.  The British would deploy aircraft using air delivered poisonous gas during the war and at least 8,000 Iraqi lives were lost during the conflict, as well as 500 British lives.

The United States Congress rejected the proposal that the country engage in a League of Nations mandate over Armenia.

Lex Anteinternet: May 29, 1920. Good Roads Week.

Lex Anteinternet: May 29, 1920. Good Roads Week.:

May 29, 1920. Good Roads Week.

First East Bay Ship by Truck Tour, May 17-22, 1920, Robert W. Martland, Train Commander.  Copyright deposit, May 29, 1920.  Not juxtaposition next to railroad. . . a sign of things to come.  The five day tour, which included military and civilian trucks, was part of Good Roads Week.

Lex Anteinternet: A Memorial Day Reflection on the Second World War....

Lex Anteinternet: A Memorial Day Reflection on the Second World War....:

Rio Grande terminal in a less than nifty part of Salt Lake City.

 A  need for an Interstate Highway System, by which is meant a good one, was also noted.

This is one of those things where I'd disagree.  It's often stated that Eisenhower was really impressed with the German Autobahn, which was really a massive German public works project during the pre war Nazi years there, and he may have really been. But I think it was the ongoing evolution of the automobile that made the Interstate Highway System come in.  It was billed a defense program but that was, quite frankly, a funding charade.

What that does bring up, however, is the massive expansion of government that started with the Great Depression and which kept on keeping on during World War Two and which never went away thereafter.  It wasn't until the Reagan administration of the 1980s that contraction of any kind started, and its never contracted to its pre 1932 level.  Prior to the Great Depression the nation would never have undertaken a highway construction project on a national level, and not until World War Two would the country thought of trying to pass it off as a defense measure.

That act, of course, lead to the demise of passenger rail in US, so its another thing that had a mixed result.

Lex Anteinternet: Burlington Northern to layoff 130 and to close two...

Lex Anteinternet: Burlington Northern to layoff 130 and to close two...:

Burlington Northern to layoff 130 and to close two maintenance facilities in Wyoming.

The facilities are in Rozet and Guernsey.  

The slow down in the economy is being cited for the reason, brought about by the COVID 19 pandemic. Combined with that, the BNSF heavily relies upon coal hauling, which has been in decline with the decline in coal.

Suffice it to say, bad news for the employees and for the state as well.

Lex Anteinternet: Trains, Planes and Automobiles. . . and the Coronavirus

Lex Anteinternet: Trains, Planes and Automobiles. . . and the Corona...:

Trains, Planes and Automobiles. . . and the Coronavirus Pandemic

Unless you have a special interest in them, you probably haven't been thinking much about means of transportation lately.



Indeed, you probably haven't been going anywhere much, for that matter.



But because we have a special interest in the topic, and have dedicated blogs on two of the three title items here, we've been thinking about them a little, and we're seeing some interesting things going on.

Burlington Northern Train in Wyoming.

Let's take the oldest topic first, trains.  We have a companion blog that's just dedicated to that topic.  Have the railroad been impacted by the COVID 19 Pandemic? We'll, here's a recent industry magazine headline on what's going on.

US rail traffic falls off a cliff

AAR information shows Intermodal traffic dropped 20% and carloads plunged more than 23% for the week ended April 11

So indeed, it would appear so.



Regionally, at least one of the railroads has been furloughing employees.  Coal is collapsing, there isn't really anywhere near as much oil shipped by rail as there once was and oil is down anyway, and we're entering what appears to be a pretty deep recession.



Not a cheery scenario for the railroads right now at all.



So what about air then?

Denver International Airport B Concourse.

Not looking super either.

Air travel has decreased 96% due to COVID 19.  That's a whopping  huge decrease to say the least.

96%.

Flights locally have been reduced 50%.  No need for all of the old ones, and it's not like they were flying out of here every few minutes as it was.  Cheyenne cancelled a run to Dallas it had (until they cancelled it, I didn't know that they even had one).  

As a minor plus, Cody's airport is going to receive $18,000,000 in the form of a grant, which was a surprise to them, but that is fairly minor in comparison to what's otherwise going on.

Well, all this shouldn't impact automobiles, that old standby, right?

Pontiac Super Chief

Well there'd certainly be good reason to suspect it wouldn't.  Oil is below $20bbl and now at an all time historic low.  Prices at the pump have been dropping.  Should be great for cars, right?

Nope.  Sales of automobiles have crashed.  People just aren't going out and buying, and in a lot of places, of course, they can't.  And they likely don't want to either.

Hired automobile rides, such as Uber, are also down, not surprisingly.

Interesting times.