1934 - Transportation

Transportation

A Soviet test pilot flies the 40-ton plane Maksim Gorki in June. Designed by aeronautical engineer Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev, 45, the huge craft has six engines on its wings and two more atop its fuselage, but it will collide with another plane next year, killing 35 people.

Delta Air Lines resumes operations after a 4-year hiatus (see 1929). Forced to abandon service when it lost its mail routes in 1930, it has remained alive while founder C. E. Woolman returned to crop dusting, and he now wins an airmail route between Fort Worth, Texas, and Charleston, S.C.; crop-dusting revenues will continue to exceed those from mail or passenger service through the 1930s, but Woolman will move Delta's headquarters to Atlanta in 1941, acquire some DC-3s, and gradually add additional routes (see 1953).

President Roosevelt cancels all airmail contracts February 9 following a Senate investigation into alleged monopolistic practices. Postmaster General Walter F. Brown has given contracts only to companies he considered financially sound and securely established (see Airmail Act of 1930), but Braniff Airways founder Thomas E. Braniff has organized the Independent Air Transport Operators' Association and provided evidence before the Senate's Black Committee, which has held hearings on air transport.

American Airlines is created in April by a reorganization of the 4-year-old American Airways Co. E. L. Cord loses control of the company, whose directors elect Minerva, Texas-born executive C. R. (Cyrus Rowlett) Smith, 35, president October 25. In the next 5 years he will consolidate American's tangle of routes into a smooth network and standardize its miscellaneous collection of aircraft (see DC-3, 1936).

Northwest Airlines is incorporated April 16 (see 1926). Originally a mail carrier between Chicago and Minneapolis, it has expanded city-by-city since 1928 to provide service through the Dakotas, Montana, and Washington State (see 1945).

Continental Air Lines has its beginnings in the Southwest division of Varney Air Transport founded by former Varney president and former United Airlines director Louis H. Mueller, 38, who flies mail between El Paso and Pueblo, Calif. Continental will become a major domestic passenger carrier (see Six, 1936).

New Zealand aviatrix Jean (Gardner) Batten, 24, flies a Gypsy Moth more than 10,500 miles from England to Darwin, Australia, in May, beats Amy Johnson's 1930 speed by nearly 5 days, and becomes the first woman to complete the return trip. Batten abandoned a promising musical career in England 5 years ago, sold her piano, and studied for a pilot's license that she obtained in 1930. Next year she will fly across the South Atlantic to Argentina.

The Air Mail Act of 1934 (Black-McKellar Act) signed into law by FDR June 12 reintroduces the system of competitive bidding for airmail contracts but requires a separation of aircraft manufacturing and air transport companies. Congress orders a breakup of the United Aircraft and Transportation Corp. created early in 1929; United Airlines becomes independent, as do the newly incorporated Seattle-based Boeing Airplane Co. (see 1916) and Connecticut-based United Aircraft, which will become United Technologies in 1975 (see politics [Boeing B-17], 1935).

The Chrysler Airflow introduced by Chrysler Motors January 22 has a streamlined design based on aircraft principles that incorporate the world's first curved one-piece windshield; the car contains many innovative advances, but only 11,292 will be sold and by 1937 Chrysler will abandon the radical design as a costly miscalculation of public acceptance. Chrysler also introduces overdrive.

The Citroën Seven introduced by André Citroën is a low-slung, front-wheel-drive car that will be popular for more than 20 years, but Citroën goes bankrupt and loses control of the company that bears his name (it will be sold in 1936 to Michelin Tire Co.).

Adolf Hitler breaks ground September 25 for an extension of the Autobahn that opened in 1921. He has earlier opposed the limited-access road as elitist but by May 1935 it will extend 37 miles from Frankfurt to Darnstadt.

Greyhound cuts fares between New York and Chicago to as little as $8 in a rate war with competing bus lines (regular fare is $16) (see 1929). The company operates 1,800 33-passenger nickel-plated buses in 43 states; buys the buses from General Motors for $10,000 on a cost-plus contract; pays its drivers $175 per month plus a mileage rate; and grosses $30 million.

The City of Salina goes into service between Kansas City and Salina, Kansas, to begin a new era of streamlined passenger trains on U.S. railroads. The new Union Pacific train has air-conditioned Pullman cars of aluminum alloy.

A new Burlington Zephyr train goes into service between Chicago and Denver, using diesel engines that begin the end of steam power on U.S. railroads (see 1924). The first diesel-powered passenger train, the stainless steel streamliner has a top speed of 112.5 miles per hour and averages 77.6 miles per hour on a 1,017-mile nonstop run between the two cities May 26. Technical issues have prevented the use of stainless steel in large structures, but Edward G. Budd's chief engineer Col. Earl J. W. Ragsdale has devised a "Shotweld" method of controlled-resistance welding that makes it possible to join the elements of the alloy without diminishing its strength. Budd built the first stainless steel airplane 3 years ago, and the sharp contraction of the automobile industry has encouraged him to look for new markets (see 1935; Budd, 1916). By December 1941 Budd will have sold nearly 500 lightweight railroad passenger cars (see California Zephyr, 1949).

The Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad adopts the Chessie trademark of a sleeping cat to symbolize its smooth roadbed. The C&O has grown to serve Washington, D.C., Richmond, White Sulphur Springs in West Virginia, Cincinnati, Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, and other Midwestern cities.

Electrical engineer and trolley-car pioneer Frank J. Sprague dies at New York October 25 at age 77.

The Chinese ship Weitung burns January 21 on the Yangzi (Yangtze) River; 216 lives are lost.

The Cunard Line that began in 1839 as the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. becomes the Cunard-White Star Line May 10 by merging with the White Star Line, which it acquired in 1927. Cunard will drop the White Star name in 1957 (see Queen Mary, 1936).

The S.S. Morro Castle catches fire off Asbury Park, N.J., September 8; the crew cannot put out the flames, the ship sinks, and 134 lives are lost (see Merchant Marine Academy, 1943).

The S.S. Bremen that went into service in July 1919 sets a new transatlantic speed record November 2, arriving at the Ambrose Channel from Cherbourg in 4 days, 14 hours, 27 minutes.