Greg Martin wrote:
. . . But it is also and issue of investment, i.e., "we just get underway with our new car designs and the PRR wants to make the damn car taller, stop already, if our shippers hear this we are gonna hear it from marketing..." Their unwillingness to even accept the PRR design show some arrogance, and let's see I don't recall that all carriers jumped on board with the 32 car design, until it evolved into a taller car. By then the PRR was off to a taller car.
What Greg and the other Pennsy apologists forget is that 25 years earlier, PRR was taking the lead in OPPOSING larger cars, what they termed "unnecessarily large" cars. They even campaigned to get the MCB to FORBID construction of such cars. Most were furniture cars, soon to become automobile cars, but PRR wanted no part of it. It's all documented in Railway Age for those interested.
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