Quotulatiousness

December 12, 2020

Pearl Harbor and the Global War Against Humanity – WAH 024 – December 1941, Part 1

Filed under: Europe, Germany, History, Japan, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 11 Dec 2020

December 1941 marks the shift to a new chapter in the War Against Humanity. New fronts open up, exposing millions more to the horrors of war. Other developments continue their path of continuous escalation.

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Written by: Joram Appel
Director: Astrid Deinhard
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– Jaris Almazani (Artistic Man) – https://instagram.com/artistic.man?ig…
– Mikołaj Uchman
– Klimbim
– Spartacus Olsson

Sources:
– Yad Vashem: 76CO9, 3150-122, J3065-2, 85DO1, 1427 83, 1007_31,
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
– National Archive NARA
– Library of Congress
– Bundesarchiv
– Berlin Gestapo Museum
– United States Holocaust Museum

Soundtracks from epidemic sounds:
– “Guilty Shadows 4” – Andreas Jamsheree
– “For the Many STEMS INSTRUMENTS” – Jon Bjork
– “Remembrance” – Fabien Tell
– “Not Safe Yet” – Gunnar Johnsen
– “London” – Howard Harper-Barnes
– “Moving to Disturbia” – Experia

Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
3 hours ago
Before we get comments about the countries currently participating in World War Two: in December 1941 there are more countries that are still neutral than we list here, but that won’t last, or as Sparty said these are the ones that will REMAIN neutral. They are without a doubt not at war, not occupied, and not in a state of war. All the other ones are – more or less. Mongolia? Has been in a de-facto state of war with Japan since the Manchurian incident. Ethiopia and Iraq? Both occupied, or at least on the lines of contested territory. The South and North American states? They will mostly enter the war later – but we’d argue that already now the Panama declaration ties them to each other to an extent that the fate of the “neutrals” has been complicated by the countries joining the war in December ’41. Now that you know our reasoning behind this, we encourage you to offer any alternative or additional thoughts on this in the comments.

“Canada’s party system has long been an outlier that has baffled political scientists”

Filed under: Cancon, Environment, History, Politics — Tags: — Nicholas @ 03:00

Ben Woodfinden emerges from a pre-winter hibernation to mull on how environmental issues intersect with regional and linguistic issues in a uniquely Canadian way that does not match how these issues play out in other countries:

“2019 Canadian federal election – VOTE” by Indrid__Cold is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

… if you want to understand how democratic politics work, you have to begin with the premise that voters and electoral coalitions are made up of individuals with overlapping and complicated political identities, not just rationalistic voters who need to be convinced with some charts and data.

These identities and value divides coalesce and become the basis of the political cleavages around which competition in democratic regimes is built. There are many classic accounts of party system formation in political science, the one I think most plausible and still useful is the now classic account of cleavage politics posited by the political scientists Seymour Martin Lipset and Stein Rokkan.

This now classic account of the formation of party systems in Western Europe argues that long existing social conflicts and divides that existed prior to the gradually universal extension of voting across Western Europe helped to structure political competition. Specifically, industrialization and nation building generated four major cleavages that structured political conflict and party systems going forward: territorial cleavages defined by a centre-periphery divide, religious cleavages defined by a church versus state divide, an urban-rural cleavage, and a labour-capital cleavage.

Canada’s party system has long been an outlier that has baffled political scientists who study these things. If you’re looking for a good comprehensive overview of the history of the Canadian party system I’d recommend this recent book by Richard Johnston. Since the 1930’s Canada has defied what is perhaps the single most generalizable finding in comparative politics: Duverger’s Law. Canada also defies many of the expectations of the cleavage theory of party formation. But Canadian politics can still be broadly understood in terms of cleavages, albeit idiosyncratic Canadian cleavages (regional and linguistic cleavages especially).

I won’t bog you down with too much academic explanation. There is an enormous body of literature that builds on, tests, and modifies the cleavage thesis. Much of the talk in recent decades has been about an “unfreezing” of the traditional cleavages that have dominated party politics in western democracies, and the reorganizing of politics around new cleavages.

As traditional industrial, class, and religious cleavages have declined new cleavages have emerged and politics has been playing a catch up game. These new cleavages coalesce around educational, geographic, gendered, and age divides. This realignment, which has been in the making for decades has become the dominant political narrative since 2016, and as I’ve written in the newsletter recently these divides exist in Canada just as they do in Europe and America.

But the realignments these new cleavages produce often require singular events or defining figures to fully emerge. In the United Kingdom, the 2016 referendum produced a realignment because it scrambled the existing partisan and political arrangements so much that it gave rise to a hyper-polarized culture war around a remain/leave divide that people reoriented their own politics around this divide.

Trains and Oil | California History [ep.8]

Filed under: Business, Economics, Government, History, Politics, Railways, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Cynical Historian
Published 4 Jul 2019

After a long hiatus, here is the return of the History of California series. For those who haven’t seen the previous episodes, here’s the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…

Today we’re going over the history of transcontinental railroads, monopolistic practices, and crude oil production in California.
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references:
eds. Richard Francaviglia and David Narrett, Essays on the Changing Images of the Southwest (Arlington: University of Texas at Arlington, 1994). https://amzn.to/2JwNiHk

William H. Goetzmann, Army Exploration in the American West, 1803-1863, new ed. (1959; Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1979). https://amzn.to/2K8tslY

Paul Sabin, Crude Politics: The California Oil Market, 1900-1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). https://amzn.to/2W16gtt

Jules Tygiel, The Great Los Angeles Swindle: Oil, Stocks, and Scandal During the Roaring Twenties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). https://amzn.to/2ASH7Z0

Richard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011). https://amzn.to/2zkURO3
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Wiki: The history of the Southern Pacific stretches from 1865 to 1998. For the main page, see Southern Pacific Transportation Company; for the former holding company, see Southern Pacific Rail Corporation. The Southern Pacific was represented by three railroads. The original company was called Southern Pacific Railroad, the second was called Southern Pacific Company and the third was called Southern Pacific Transportation Company. The third Southern Pacific railroad, the Southern Pacific Transportation Company, is now operating as the current incarnation of the Union Pacific Railroad.

The story of oil production in California began in the late 19th century. In 1903, California became the leading oil-producing state in the US, and traded the number one position back-and forth with Oklahoma through the year 1930. As of 2012, California was the nation’s third most prolific oil-producing state, behind only Texas and North Dakota. In the past century, California’s oil industry grew to become the state’s number one GDP export and one of the most profitable industries in the region. The history of oil in the state of California, however, dates back much earlier than the 19th century. For thousands of years prior to European settlement in America, Native Americans in the California territory excavated oil seeps. By the mid-19th century, American geologists discovered the vast oil reserves in California and began mass drilling in the Western Territory. While California’s production of excavated oil increased significantly during the early 20th century, the accelerated drilling resulted in an overproduction of the commodity, and the federal government unsuccessfully made several attempts to regulate the oil market.
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Hashtags: #history #California #trains #oil

QotD: Modernism

Filed under: Architecture, Media, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Don’t you think the whole effort of modernism — in architecture, in literature, in music, in painting — might have been a huge dead end, from which Western culture will painfully have to extricate itself?

Myron Magnet, “Free Speech in Peril: Trigger warning: may offend the illiberal or intolerant”, City Journal, 2015-04.

December 11, 2020

“The March to War” – The Great War Begins – Sabaton History 097 [Official]

Filed under: Europe, History, Media, Military, WW1 — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Sabaton History
Published 10 Dec 2020

August 1914. Europe marched to war. Heavy boots resounded in unison over the pavement, while proud banners flew overhead the soldiers. Their leaders had promised them a short war. In a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, each man would return home as a hero. Cavalrymen in embroidered coats, white gloves, and plumed caps rode ahead, surging towards the front in search of promised glory. But the perceived enthusiasm, eagerly exploited by the propaganda, was not widely shared. Instead, it was the gloomy atmosphere, full of fear and doubt.

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Listen to “The March to War” on the album Primo Victoria (Re-Armed): https://music.sabaton.net/PrimoVictoria

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Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Maria Kyhle
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Brodén, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Community Manager: Maria Kyhle
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Editor: Karolina Dołęga
Sound Editor: Marek Kaminski
Maps by: Eastory – https://www.youtube.com/c/eastory
Archive: Reuters/Screenocean – https://www.screenocean.com

Colorizations by:
Klimbim
Cassowary Colorizations

Sources:
Imperial War Museums: HU 68424, HU 68463, HU 68487, Q 81765, PST 2734, Q 81840B, Q 93521, Q 53472, Q70232, Q 115391
Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
National Archives NARA
National Army Museum
Rijksmuseum
Bundesarchiv
Library of Congress
Picture of Three Emperors courtesy of Anna Moscowriuo
Pictures from French Manufacture of Weapons and Cycles courtesy of mediatheques.saint-etienne.fr
Picture from the Battle of Bulair courtesy of Dupnitsa Municipality, Historical Museum
Pictures of the French departure to War, courtesy of 66emeri from Wikimedia
Picture from the Battle of Mons courtesy of Champagnepapi22 from Wikimedia Commons
Map of Europe courtesy of Altenhof from Wikimedia Commons

All music by: Sabaton

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

The Salvage of Pearl Harbor Pt 3 – The First and the Last

Filed under: History, Military, Pacific, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Drachinifel
Published 2 Dec 2020

Today we look at the salvage efforts on the USS Shaw, first vessel salvaged from the remains of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the work on the last two vessels under the team’s care, the Utah and Oklahoma

Sources:
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00C0JIXJO
https://www.history.navy.mil/our-coll…
www.amazon.co.uk/Pearl-Harbor-Fleet-Salvage-Appraisal/dp/0898755654
www.amazon.co.uk/Descent-into-Darkness-Harbour-Divers/dp/0891417451
Videos – US National Archives / US Department of Defense

Free naval photos and more – www.drachinifel.co.uk

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“Politically correct language … seemed like a nice, polite, and Canadian sort of thing to do”

Filed under: Cancon, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Meaghie Champion discusses politically correct language in The Line:

Source: https://www.deviantart.com/blamethe1st/art/Statist-And-Anarchist-063-Political-Correctness-589944623

I grew up in the 1970s and ’80s. I have never lived in a world without what we now call “political correctness” — typically understood to mean using a kind of stilted and artificial language in order to atone for the disadvantages and slights suffered by marginalized groups and avoid inflicting new ones. Politically correct language required more effort to communicate, but it seemed like that effort was worth it to not offend people. It seemed like a nice, polite, and Canadian sort of thing to do.

I went along with political correctness out of a sincere desire to be accommodating to disadvantaged and dis-enfranchised groups. This became especially true after I learned about the “Sapir Whorf theory of psycho neurolinguistics.” The theory suggests that language shapes our perception of reality; that by altering the way we talk, we can shift the way we think — and, thus, collectively, we can shape reality itself. From this, it seemed logical to “de-gender” language or stop using stereotypes. It seemed like a small ask. Maybe I personally couldn’t solve big problems that concerned me as a good liberal … i.e. things like poverty or world hunger, but I could be nice in how I expressed myself and try to use language that everybody was using to be equitable and more fair.

What I didn’t understand, then, was that this precedent set a trap in which many good, well-intentioned liberals are finding themselves stuck. It’s no longer about ameliorating past sins: there is a project afoot to re-make the English language. The purpose of this project is to re-engineer how people think about certain subjects like gender, sex, and race, while skipping the necessary prerequisites of persuasion and logic. Conservative positions are declared off limits, even bigoted, simply by shaping the way we are allowed to talk about them.

Right now, even as I type this, there is a veritable army of academics hard at work on what they call “de-colonizing” and “de-gendering” language at many universities and colleges. There are tens of thousands of activists and academics in universities and online organizing and pushing for ever-changing rules to be enforced as it relates to the English language. It’s a multi-million-dollar industry in academia and woke corporatism. And it’s already starting to spill over into government regulations and enforcement.

I love the English language. I have been a voracious reader since childhood. I thrill at well-spoken and written prose and poetry. A finely turned witticism or fantastic mot juste can break my heart with its perfection. Further, I’m First Nations, and that love of the English language has also carried me into a love of the study of my tribal cradle tongue “Hul’qumi’num.” Shouldn’t I, as a First Nations person, be in favour of de-colonizing the English language? No. No, I do not think so. I have little patience or regard for any effort that makes language a less workable and functional tool of human endeavour. I identify strongly as a writer, and I take this assault upon the tool with which I conduct my craft very personally.

Shooting the Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver – Including Safety PSA

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 10 Aug 2017

Following up yesterday’s look at the history and mechanics of the Webley-Fosbery self-cocking revolvers [posted here], today we are out at the range to do some shooting with one.

In terms of handling, it is a comfortable gun to shoot, albeit with some exaggerated recoil because of the very high bore axis relative to the hand. It has an interesting two-part recoil sensation, because the upper assembly takes quite a long time to return forward into battery.

Most importantly, we discovered that this particular Webley-Fosbery has a worn hammer engagement, which results in the firing pin coming into contact with cartridge primers even when it is in the safety notch. In other words, it can — and will — sometimes fire when the action is closed and without any manipulation of the trigger. This is a condition that could happen to any Fosbery revolver, so owners should handle them with this possibility in mind! This is also a great example of why gun safety rules are redundant — occasionally guns do have mechanical failures, so don’t point them at anything you don’t want to shoot!

Thanks to Mike Carrick of Arms Heritage magazine for providing this Webley-Fosbery for this video! See his regular column here: https://armsheritagemagazine.com

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QotD: Airbrushing out the worst parts of “Lost Cause” mythology

Filed under: History, Military, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

The South could have become a running sore, a cauldron of low-level insurrection and guerilla warfare that blighted the next century of U.S. history. Instead, it is now the most patriotic region of the U.S. – as measured, for example, by regional origins of U.S. military personnel. How did this happen?

Looking back, we can see that between 1865 and around 1914 the Union and the former South negotiated an imperfect but workable peace. The first step in that negotiation took place at Appomattox, when the Union troops accepting General Robert E. Lee’s surrender saluted the defeated and allowed them to retain their arms, treating them with the most punctilious military courtesy due to honorable foes.

Over the next few years, the Union Army reintegrated the Confederate military into itself. Confederate officers not charged with war crimes were generally able to retain rank and seniority; many served in the frontier wars of the next 35 years. Elements of Confederate uniform were adopted for Western service.

The political leaders of the revolt were not executed. Instead, they were spared to urge reconciliation, and generally did. By all historical precedent they were treated with shocking leniency. This paid off.

Of course, not all went smoothly. The Reconstruction of the South between 1863 and 1877 was badly bungled, creating resentments that linger to this day and – in the folk memory of Southerners – often overshadow the harms of the war itself. The condition of emancipated blacks remained dire.

But overall, the reintegration of the South went far better than it could have. Confederate nationalism was successfully reabsorbed into American nationalism. One of the prices of this adjustment was that Confederate heroes had to become American heroes. An early and continuing example of this was the reverence paid to Robert E. Lee by Unionists after the war; his qualities as a military leader were extolled and his opposition to full civil rights for black freedmen memory-holed.

Lee’s heroism and ascribed saintliness would layer become a central prop in “Lost Cause” romanticism, which portrayed the revolt as an honorable struggle for a Southern way of life while mostly airbrushing out – but sometimes, unforgiveably, defending – the institution of slavery. Even today, the “soft” airbrushing version of Lost Cause retains a significant hold on Southerners who would never dream of defending slavery.

Eric S. Raymond, “Unlearning history”, Armed and Dangerous, 2017-09-22.

December 10, 2020

Making a Morning Star (Flail) for my Nephew

Filed under: Tools, Weapons, Woodworking — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Rex Krueger
Published 9 Dec 2020

Forged in Wood comes back hot with this Morning Star build!

More video and exclusive content: http://www.patreon.com/rexkrueger

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More woodshop weaponry builds below!
* Gun-Stock War Club: https://youtu.be/mFvBIJLciuc
* Viking Shield: https://youtu.be/AShF_5JOM2c
* Spiked Mace: https://youtu.be/Ig4H-ozMHNI

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Gyokucho Ryoba Saw: https://amzn.to/2Z5Wmda
Dewalt Panel Saw: https://amzn.to/2HJqGmO
Suizan Dozuki Handsaw: https://amzn.to/3abRyXB
(Winner of the affordable dovetail-saw shootout.)
Spear and Jackson Tenon Saw: https://amzn.to/2zykhs6
(Needs tune-up to work well.)
Crown Tenon Saw: https://amzn.to/3l89Dut
(Works out of the box)
Carving Knife: https://amzn.to/2DkbsnM
Narex True Imperial Chisels: https://amzn.to/2EX4xls
(My favorite affordable new chisels.)
Blue-Handled Marples Chisels: https://amzn.to/2tVJARY
(I use these to make the DIY specialty planes, but I also like them for general work.)

*Sharpening*
Honing Guide: https://amzn.to/2TaJEZM
Norton Coarse/Fine Oil Stone: https://amzn.to/36seh2m
Natural Arkansas Fine Oil Stone: https://amzn.to/3irDQmq
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Stockman Knife: https://amzn.to/2Pp4bWP
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The Salvage of Pearl Harbor Pt 2 – Up She Rises!

Filed under: History, Military, Pacific, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Drachinifel
Published 18 Nov 2020

Today we look at the salvage efforts on the three battleships outright sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor that would be returned to service.

Sources:
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00C0JIXJO
https://www.history.navy.mil/our-coll…
www.amazon.co.uk/Pearl-Harbor-Fleet-Salvage-Appraisal/dp/0898755654
www.amazon.co.uk/Descent-into-Darkness-Harbour-Divers/dp/0891417451
Videos – US National Archives / US Department of Defense

Free naval photos and more – www.drachinifel.co.uk

Want to support the channel? – https://www.patreon.com/Drachinifel

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Episodes in podcast format – https://soundcloud.com/user-21912004

Music – https://www.youtube.com/c/NCMEpicMusic

Tank Chats #88 | Valentine Archer | The Tank Museum

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Tank Museum
Published 15 Nov 2019

David Fletcher looks at the Valentine Archer, a British self-propelled gun based on a Valentine tank chassis and fitted with a 17-pounder gun.

Support the work of The Tank Museum on Patreon: ► https://www.patreon.com/tankmuseum

Visit The Tank Museum SHOP: ► https://tankmuseumshop.org/

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Tank 100 First World War Centenary Blog: ► http://tank100.com/
#tankmuseum #tanks

QotD: Italian Fascism and “corporatism”

Filed under: Europe, History, Italy, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

… recently I ran across a quote beloved of American leftists in an email signature:

From Benito Mussolini: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.”

This quote is often misconstrued nowadays by leftists who view profit-making corporations under capitalism (especially multinational corporations) as instruments of the devil. They love the implied image of capitalist fat-cats and fascist dictators conspiring in gilded opulence. Alas for them that this quote actually doesn’t imply anything like that; the terminological ground under it has shifted.

The “corporatism” Mussolini to which was referring had, actually, nothing to do with corporations, joint-stock or otherwise (in the 1920s the word “corporation” did not yet have its modern sense, either in English or Italian). His use of the word had to do with a feature of fascist theory forgotten by almost everybody but specialist historians.

In fascist theory, “corporations” were bodies like unions, craft guilds, professional societies, and grange associations. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism for discussion; see especially the section “[F]ascist corporativism” [section name changed since 2009].

What Mussolini was actually enunciating was a sort of organic statism in which the state would bless or admit representatives of various “corporations” into its governing councils — and no, that didn’t mean Fiat or Beretta but (say) the Abruzzo Building Trades Association, or the Society of University Professors.

While corporations-in-the-modern-sense were not outright excluded from being legitimized “corporations” in the fascist sense, neither did they have any special status or power in the system. Actually, it was rather the reverse …

It’s worth remembering that the founders of fascism were mainly Leninists like Mussolini with a sprinkling of anarcho-syndicalists (George Sorel being the best known of those). Actual fascism retained the founders’ doctrinal hostility to what modern leftists would call “corporate power”, never renouncing its state-socialist roots and being (in fact) hostile to all centers of power other than the state itself.

The modern idea that German and Italian fascism were conservative or pro-business ideologies is essentially a fantasy constructed by pro-Soviet propagandists during and after World War II. In fact, classical fascism never wandered very far from its left-wing origins; corporatism can be seen as an elaboration of the theoretical role of worker’s soviets in Leninist theory.

Eric S. Raymond, “Misconstruing Mussolini”, Armed and Dangerous, 2009-06-29.

December 9, 2020

The Salvage of Pearl Harbor Pt 1 – The Smoke Clears

Filed under: History, Military, Pacific, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Drachinifel
Published 11 Nov 2020

Today we look at the start of the salvage efforts in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbour.

Sources:

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00C0JIXJO
https://www.history.navy.mil/our-coll…
www.amazon.co.uk/Pearl-Harbor-Fleet-Salvage-Appraisal/dp/0898755654
www.amazon.co.uk/Descent-into-Darkness-Harbour-Divers/dp/0891417451

Free naval photos and more – www.drachinifel.co.uk

Want to support the channel? – https://www.patreon.com/Drachinifel

Want a shirt/mug/hoodie – https://shop.spreadshirt.com/drachini…

Want a poster? – https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/Drachinifel

Want to talk about ships? https://discord.gg/TYu88mt

Want to get some books? www.amazon.co.uk/shop/drachinifelDrydock

Episodes in podcast format – https://soundcloud.com/user-21912004

Music – https://www.youtube.com/c/NCMEpicMusic

The late steam-era boxcar and (a brief) flourish of colour

Filed under: Business, History, Railways, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In his Trains blog, George Hamlin discusses the changing colours of the ordinary railway boxcar in the brief era between post-war prosperity and the economic disasters of the 1960s and 70s:

Pre-war Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic boxcar number 18052 at the Mid-Continent Railway Museum.
Photo by Sean Lamb via Wikimedia Commons.

The advent of streamlining in the 1930s started to blow historic convention with regard to car colors away on the passenger side of railroading, but had little impact on freight operations prior to World War II. Following that conflict, however, some of the industry began to consider livening up the equipment that produced much of the revenue (and most of the profits) from which they derived their economic existence.

Some railroads also adopted more colorful boxcar paint schemes to promote special aspects of their freight service: the B&O had special schemes for both their “Sentinel” and “Timesaver” services; another example was the Missouri Pacific’s blue and gray (the road’s modern-day passenger colors) for their Eagle Merchandise Service. The Bangor & Aroostook had boxcars with red, white and blue horizontal stripes advertising products emanating from their home state, Maine.

Bangor and Aroostook boxcar 6375 in “State of Maine” paint scheme.
Image originally from Panoramio, but no user information provided.

Another example was the large fleet of New York Central’s “Pacemaker” boxcars, adorned in a combination of bright red and gray. Early on, the NYC even ran solid trains of this equipment in an expedited service which was designed to re-capture LCL (less than carload lot) traffic from the increasingly competitive motor trucking industry. (Interestingly, the NYC also had a color they called “Pacemaker Green” that was used for the pre-World War II all-coach New York-Chicago service, as well as on the road’s initial orders of non-stainless steel streamlined coaches.)

In the late 1950s, the Central introduced a more radical change, and began painting its boxcars in a Jade Green color (“Century Green”, according to the railroad) that was quite a dramatic change from boxcar red. The Great Northern also adopted a similar shade. CB&Q boxcars still had the same basic hue, but now they came in a brighter version dubbed “Chinese Red”.

By the 1960s, a number of roads had livened up their freight car liveries; the modestly-sized Reading utilized bright green and beige/yellow for both freight cars and locomotives. Late in its career as an independent railroad, the Great Northern adopted the striking bright “Big Sky Blue” for both passenger and freight cars. At its formation in 1976, Conrail adopted “traditional red oxide” as its choice for freight cars, however, sticking with tradition (and reversing the NYC’s earlier efforts).

Great Northern boxcar 138660 in the “Big Sky Blue” paint scheme, delivered September 1967.
Photo by David Pride http://www.davidpride.com/USA/Minnesota/Osceola_11_007.htm

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