1950 - Transportation

Transportation

London dock workers strike from April 19 to May 1.

Federal troops seize U.S. railroads August 25 on orders from President Truman to avert a scheduled strike (see 1948). Railroad trackage for passenger traffic will decline in the next 22 years from 150,000 to 68,000, and electric railway trackage will decline from 9,600 miles to 790 as bus lines replace rail transit and more and more Americans drive automobiles (see General Motors, 1949).

Le Mistral goes into service for the French National Railways, whose workers have welded and polished seams between track lengths to eliminate the clickety-clack of the wheels. The new electric luxury passenger train between Paris and Nice has a barbershop and other amenities not found on U.S. trains, and it covers the 676-mile route in 9 hours, 8 minutes.

Stockholm's T-line subway opens with modern stations, inaugurating a system that will grow to have 60 miles of track with 94 stations.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is reestablished at Nagasaki (see 1885) and will be a major shipbuilder and producer of rolling stock, aircraft, and automobiles. The automobile division will become independent in 1970 under the name Mitsubishi Motors.

U.S. auto production reaches 6.7 million, up from 5.1 million last year. Used car sales exceed 13 million. Auto registrations show one passenger car for every 3.75 Americans, up from one for every 5.5 in 1930 (see 1960). Americans own some 40 million cars, up from 32.6 in 1941, and the figure will more than double in the next 25 years until U.S. families own, on average, 1.4 automobiles.

The Volkswagen Microbus goes into production in Germany with a design sketched 3 years ago by the first U.S. importer of VW Beetles, Ben Pon. The loaf-shaped, air-cooled van will be called the bulli in Germany, the combi in Brazil and Mexico.

The Henry J motorcar introduced by Henry J. Kaiser and his son Edgar has a four-cylinder engine and gets 25 miles per gallon (see 1946). A six-cylinder engine will be introduced as an option, but the car costs nearly $2,000, Americans who want compacts prefer Volkswagens, and although some 127,000 Henry Js will be sold, the make will be discontinued in 1954. The larger Kaiser make will expire in 1955.

Automobile pioneer Ransom E. Olds dies at Lansing, Mich., August 26 at age 86; former General Motors finance committee chairman John Jakob Raskob at his Centreville, Md., estate October 15 at age 71.

The United States has 1.68 million miles of surfaced road, up from 1.34 million in 1940, and only 1.31 million miles of dirt road, down from 1.65 (see 1960).

A second Tacoma Narrows bridge opens to traffic across Washington's Puget Sound (see 1940). The new suspension bridge has a 2,800-foot main span stiffened with a web truss.

Bridge designer Sir Ralph Freeman of 1932 Sydney Harbor Bridge fame dies at his native London March 11 at age 69.

New York's Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel opens May 25 and carries nearly twice the traffic anticipated; construction was interrupted by the war.

New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal opens on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 41st Streets. The facility will handle upwards of 7,000 buses and 200,000 passengers per week as it becomes the world's busiest bus terminal (it will be enlarged in 1989).

A chartered British Avro Tudor nosedives into a field near Cardiff, Wales, March 12, killing 80 of the 83 persons aboard in aviation's worst disaster thus far. Some Cardiff businessmen had chartered the plane for a trip to watch a rugby match at Belfast.