Design, Lesa H. Campbell; Editing, Malcolm R. Campbell and Lesa H. Campbell
On a typical January day in 1914, the Atlanta, Birmingham & Coast, Atlanta & West Point, Louisville & Nashville, Seaboard Air Line, Southern, and Western & Atlantic moved 152 passenger and 459 freight trains to and from Atlanta from meaningful points of the compass. Daily passenger service included 228 sleepers; January freight totaled 148,000 cars.
These were the days of growth. Between 1900 and 1920, Atlanta’s population soared from 90,000 to 200,000. The city pushed outward from its center and began flexing its muscles as a transportation hub and as a destination for the providers of commerce and culture.
Union Station, the “great iron shed,” had been built in 1871 between Central Avenue and Pryor Street. Terminal Station was built on Spring Street in 1905. The streetcar lines, which gave up their mule-powered "hay burner" engines for the electric motor in 1894, were, by the turn of the century, providing efficient city center and interurban service.
Soon after the automobile came to town in 1901, Pierce-Arrows and Hudsons and Maxwells were wreaking havoc on Pryor and Peachtree. A Ford Motor plant--since moved to Hapeville--assembled Model Ts on Ponce de Leon. The automobile would change the face of Atlanta forever, beginning with early appeals to bridge the dangerous tracks and intersections of railroad gulch near Union Station. The buildings and streets below bridges and viaducts were the nucleus of today's Underground Atlanta.
Marching down the century--from the 1904 formation of the Atlanta Freight Bureau to equalize rates, to the 300-acre downtown fire in 1917, to the 1930 inauguration of Eastern Air Transport Service's 8.5-hour flights to New York, to the 1939 premier of Gone With the Wind, to the 1970's restoration of the Fox Theatre--arrogant and aggressive Atlanta grew by great vision and great myopia, and the expanding railroads grew with it, around it,' and through it. Then, as now, freight was king and it raised up the city's infrastructure and fueled the industry of the region.
But, if freight was king of the railroads, passenger service was its gloaming crown. It would tarnish in time before it was cast off altogether, but while that crown remained, announcements of new trains and new train sets, postings of faster schedules, descriptions of amenities in coaches and diners, and colorful photographs of exotic destinations in advertisements splashed through Life and National Geographic were presented to the public with a pomp and pageantry befitting royalty.
Slogans filled the trains and followed the passengers home after the trip: The Most Interesting Transcontinental Route through the Deep South and Romantic Southwest. Serving with Dependable Trains Between the North, West and Florida. Gateways to Safe and Pleasant Journeys. 125 Years Old and Still Growing. Better Trains Follow Better Locomotives. The Route of Courteous Service. The Route of the Silver Fleet. Thanks for Using Coast Line.
Through service and longevity, the Crescent Limited eventually became Georgia's sentimental champion. Originally called the Washington and Southwestern Limited, it became the Crescent Limited in 1926 and the Crescent in 1939. Behind a powerful Ps-4 Pacific, the sleepers in forest green and gold livery on this all-Pullman train were a magnificent vision.
The World of Advanced Planning and Scheduling
Abridged sample from "TASK BARS," Summer 1998 newsletter of Taylor Manufacturing Systems, Marketing Director, Tammy Artosky, Editor, Malcolm R. Campbell
Sages have said for centuries that the only constant in the universe is change. Not long ago, this bit of wisdom was easy to dismiss as too mundanely obvious or too obviously obscure to be of practical value.
Now we know better, for whether we characterize change as a tidal wave, a runaway train or a fair rearing horse, we see that we must learn how to manage it and perhaps, as Nissan says, enjoy the ride. Or be run over.
To manage change while remaining competitive, we are advised to simultaneously leverage information, create lean and globalized organizations, engage in agile manufacturing supported by agile, robust software, and meet the infinite demands of enriched and empowered customers at high speed, high quality and low cost.
In an attempt to effectively control the changing—and often volatile—world of manufacturing in the 1990s, new philosophies and procedures have evolved, as have the hardware and software that support them. And we are better off for it.
But for all of our farsighted systems and solutions, there has been a missing component—a multi-lane bridge to span the Grand Canyon between planning and execution. As a map is not the territory, a production plan is not necessarily the reality of the shop floor. Without a dynamic communications loop, plans and schedules become so engraved in stone that they cannot adapt to necessary change.
When locked-in plans and schedules are based on expectations and obsolete data rather than on the ever-changing realities of customer demand, resource availability, and applicable constraints, plants are likely to experience long lead times, excessive set up, unwieldy inventories, and missed delivery dates.
Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) solutions provide innovative approaches to such cumbersome production problems. Adaptable, cost effective, and fast, APS has been called the most significant development in manufacturing systems in 20 years…
Magic Carpets (continued)
Southern stubbornly kept the Crescent out of AMTRAK until February 1, 1979. TRAINS called out to its readers to circle that day on the calendar in black while local media speculated about the route's ultimate closure.
Except for MARTA, rail has retreated from the consciousness of most Atlantans. Gone are the tracks that passed beneath the huge, iron-spoked fan light into the great shed of Union Station. Gone are the twin towers and the balconies and arches of Terminal Station. Today, as the sleek MARTA train arrives at Chamblee, one can--twice daily--look past the electrically powered, four-motor aluminum cars with their orange, yellow and blue striping and see the AMTRAK Crescent running the Norfolk Southern mainline behind double-headed AMD 103s. Watching the well-lighted windows flow by like a bright wave, one speculates about the future of passenger rail.
Later at the same station, one might see GP60s heading up the Piedmont Division with a consist of hoppers. Enveloped by the roar of engines and the smell of fumes, one applauds the on-going resurgence of freight.
Looking south down the empty tracks between trains, one leans outward almost expecting a Ps-4 or an E8 to materialize from the heat mirages of the middle distance, powering a passenger express through the golden age. Those old trains took one far away and took one home, and they carried magic, certainty, explorers, fast horses, flowering trees, sunny destinations and an old Southern song in their names.
by Malcolm R. Campbell
Click on photo
for larger view.
$3.3 Million Property Donation
A new site for the
Southeastern Railway Railway Museum
Land acquisition developed by Lesa H. Campbell with the kind assistance of Tom Cooksey of Lavista Associates, December 30, 1997.
Happy second birthday to Living Jackson Magazine. I've appreciated the opportunity of working as a contributing writer for some of the magazine's book reviews.
Now, better than ever, the magazine is going monthly with its July 2008 issue!
