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Re: Photo: Loading Raw Silk

Garth Groff and Sally Sanford
 

Friends,

Edward has pretty much hit the silk problem on the head. Silk was a very, very valuable cargo, and was a tempting target for organized crime. Some division points along the silk routes had vault-like buildings into which silk cars could be placed for safe storage until the next train was dispatched. Likely the building was protected by armed officers when it was full. Way back in the 1960s, Bud Sima wrote an article about building one of these vaults in MR.

Yours Aye,


Garth Groff  🦆

On Wed, Jun 10, 2020 at 12:16 PM Tim O'Connor <timboconnor@...> wrote:

It was incredibly valuable cargo. Why are so many non-perishable products (MILLIONS of TONS) now
shipped by air? Because it's so valuable that the higher transportation cost is negligible. It's hard to steal from
a fast moving train (or airplane). :-)


On 6/10/2020 12:08 PM, spsalso via groups.io wrote:
I mentioned a couple of those reasons for speed in my earlier post.

As I envision the hoopla accompanying the silk shipments, I also see another benefit from railroad speed:  self-promotion.

"Sure they're fast.  But we're FASTER!  Just look at the last running time!  We're BETTER than that other line!"

Sometimes it seemed kind of over-the-top.  This could explain why.

Edward Sutorik


--
Tim O'Connor
Sterling, Massachusetts

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