Semaphore - September 1957

Semaphore PIEDMONT AND NORTHERN RAILWAY MAGAZINE [image: locomotive] P & N ON THE SEABOARD SEPTEMBER 1957

Semaphore [logo]PIEDMONT & NORTHERN SERVICE WITH COURTESY

VOLUME 13 NUMBER 9 SEPTEMBER, 1957

Published at Charlotte, N. C., by the Piedmont and Northern Railway Company, a 130-mile railroad extending in an arc through the rich Piedmont Carolinas and serving such thriving cities as Anderson, Greenville, Greenwood, and Spartanburg in South Carolina, and Charlotte and Gastonia in North Carolina. Address all communications to the editor, P. O. Box 480, Charlotte, N. C. Comments and suggestions are solicited.

EDITOR

THOMAS G. LYNCH Director of Industrial Development and Public Relations

CORRESPONDENTS

Greenwood, S. C., is an important junction point on the Piedmont and Northern where freight traffic is interchanged with both the Seaboard Air Line and the Georgia and Florida Railway. To reach the G & F yards P & N locomotives must travel on a short stretch of Seaboard trackage parallel to its main line. This photograph of P & N freight train number 63 was made on Seaboard tracks, with the SAL main line in the foreground. Locomotive 1600 was heading to the G & F yards with a cut of cars for interchange. The P & N operates over the tracks by agreement with the Seaboard Railway.

NEWS AND VIEW

The Association of American Railroads has just released a report indicating that the payroll of Class I railroads for the year ending April 30 was the greatest in history. It totaled a whoppint $5.563 million, topping by $225 million a record established in 1952. It was more than double the payroll in 1941. North and South Carolina, with a combined employment of 19,374, had a total railroad payroll of $96,244,943 - - 1.73% of the nation's total. After noting the crossing safety picture and caption on the back cover of the August issue of SEMAPHORE, E. R. Bucher, a Duke Power Company Official, passed along this appropriate couplet: "When you come to a railroad crossing it pays to look each way. The harp makes pretty music but it's hard to learn to play." We think this is good advice to poeple who barrel over crossings with no concern for safety. The Bureau of Motor Carriers of the Interstate Commerce Commission conducted a natoinwide safety check of interstate trucks during the week of July 8. About 25% of the trucks inspected superficially appeared to have defects and were given a thorough inspection. No less than 12,237 trucks were included in this category and 88.2% of them had safety defects or deficiencies. Defective brakes were found on 7,130 trucks, and 2,273 were ordered out of service because they were considered so hazardous to operate that they would be likely to cause an accident or a breakdown. That's a poor record indeed for an industry so concerned with highway safety. Free sites, buildings at below cost, and special tax concessions seem to be gaining in popularity among Carolina communities as bait for attracting new industry. Many communities are getting into the give-away act not by choice but to meet competition from other communities. The Piedmont and Northern is opposed to these forms of subsiiduzzing new industry for several good reasons. One of these is the adverse effect upon existing industry which benefits from no subsidy but nevertheless must compete with new industry. Another reason is that the subsidy road has no end. How can you deny to one what you gave to another? And if one community offers to give something away, what's to prevent another community from upping the prize? The best industries are those who expect and want to pay their own way, thereby adhering to the principles of a free economy. And the best communities are the ones that sell themselves on their own merits with good goverments, fair treatment of industry, livability, and other such assets. Inndustrial growth is a priority project of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce this year. A comitte of about 40 leading business men has been appointed to assist the Chamber's industrial comittee. President W. I. Rankin of the Piedmont and Northern is among those serving on the top-level committee.

SHENANIGANS like this were a weekly feature of the weeks leading up to the main festivities. Here cops wrestle with an offender, while a fellow victim watches with sympathy from the stocks. Here cops wrestle with an offender, while a fellow victim watches with sympathy from the stocks.

WHISKERS AT GREENWOOD

RAZOR blades and shaving cream sales slumped to a new low this month in Greenwood, S. C. The cause of it all was Greenwood's hilarious centennial celebration which touched off the raising of the most frigtening crop of face whiskers seen in the Carolinas since the War Between the States. Men folk from the highest to lowest station in life were scratching and pulling at all manner and description of whiskers-luxurious full beards, sideburns, goatees, mustaches, and just plain old scraggly, untrimmed whiskers.

Ladies in the act

The ladies were in the act, too. From attics and costume suppliers they rounded up a colorful assortment of long calico dresses and swishing petticoats, donned them in the hot summer weather, and paraded up and down main street like they had never worn anything esle. The result was the conversion of a whole town from a modern thriving city into a giant costume party that would have made citizens of the past feel right at home.

Week-long festivities

The celebration, which built up to a feverish pitch over a period of several months, was climaxed with a week-long schedule of activities that lasted from Sunday, September 15 to Saturday, September 21. The highlight of the celebration was a nightly performance of "The Greenwood Story," a historical pageant that boasted hundreds of perormers, a 300-foot stage, authentic costumes, and professional lighting and scenery, As the festival reached a climax it was evident that nearly all of Greenwood's 30,000 citizens and neighbors were having a corking good time. There was much joking and jesting about whiskers or the lack of them; there were kangaroo

4 SEMAPHORE

THE LADIES, bles 'em, didn't let the men hog the fun. These three donned oldtimey dresses and bonnets and whopped it up, much to the delight of the spectators. YOUNGSTERS got into the act too. This little old man attracted a good bit of attention with a set of false whiskers and a corncob pipe. Derby was a festival must.