130-560: A streamliner is a vehicle incorporating streamlining in a shape providing reduced air resistance . The term is applied to high-speed railway trainsets of the 1930s to 1950s, and to their successor " bullet trains ". Less commonly, the term is applied to fully faired upright and recumbent bicycles . As part of the Streamline Moderne trend, the term was applied to passenger cars, trucks, and other types of light-, medium-, or heavy-duty vehicles, but now vehicle streamlining
260-634: A deflationary spiral started in 1931. Farmers faced a worse outlook; declining crop prices and a Great Plains drought crippled their economic outlook. At its peak, the Great Depression saw nearly 10% of all Great Plains farms change hands despite federal assistance. At first, the decline in the U.S. economy was the factor that triggered economic downturns in most other countries due to a decline in trade, capital movement, and global business confidence. Then, internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. For example,
390-418: A silver standard , almost avoided the depression entirely. The connection between leaving the gold standard as a strong predictor of that country's severity of its depression and the length of time of its recovery has been shown to be consistent for dozens of countries, including developing countries . This partly explains why the experience and length of the depression differed between regions and states around
520-594: A 1,200-+-900-horsepower (890 + 670 kW) cab/booster locomotive pulling nine cars of the same form. Automotive-styled cab/booster locomotive sets with 1,200-horsepower (890 kW) engines powered the Union Pacific's City of San Francisco and City of Denver sets. The two City of Denver sets started service two cars shorter than the M-10002 and M-10004 sets, with roomier and heavier straight-sided cars. The Union Pacific's initial streamliner service to
650-417: A Century of Progress exhibit. The Zephyr covered the distance in 13 hours, reaching a top speed of 112.5 mph (181.1 km/h) and running an average speed of 77.6 mph (124.9 km/h). The fuel for the run cost US$ 14.64 at 4¢ per U.S. gallon (equivalent to $ 333 and $ 9 per gallon respectively in 2023 after inflation). The Burlington's event was covered live on radio and drew large, cheering crowds as
780-604: A former privately run bank, bearing no relation to the U.S. government (not to be confused with the Federal Reserve ). Unable to pay out to all of its creditors, the bank failed. Among the 608 American banks that closed in November and December 1930, the Bank of United States accounted for a third of the total $ 550 million deposits lost and, with its closure, bank failures reached a critical mass. In an initial response to
910-467: A greater reduction in credit. On 5 April 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 making the private ownership of gold certificates , coins and bullion illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold. British economist John Maynard Keynes argued in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money that lower aggregate expenditures in the economy contributed to
1040-440: A lightweight, wind-tunnel designed car with a rounded front that could run either singly or in multiple-unit sets, capable of speeds over 90 mph (145 km/h). Although Depression -era economics cut into sales, the design was highly successful in service, lasting into the 1980s. In 1925, the recently-formed Pullman Car & Manufacturing Corporation experimented with lightweight self-propelled railcars in co-operation with
1170-600: A modern industrial city handled shortages of money and resources. Often they updated strategies their mothers used when they were growing up in poor families. Cheap foods were used, such as soups, beans and noodles. They purchased the cheapest cuts of meat—sometimes even horse meat—and recycled the Sunday roast into sandwiches and soups. They sewed and patched clothing, traded with their neighbors for outgrown items, and made do with colder homes. New furniture and appliances were postponed until better days. Many women also worked outside
1300-402: A monetary contraction first-hand were forced to join the deflationary policy since higher interest rates in countries that performed a deflationary policy led to a gold outflow in countries with lower interest rates. Under the gold standard's price–specie flow mechanism , countries that lost gold but nevertheless wanted to maintain the gold standard had to permit their money supply to decrease and
1430-766: A more streamlined nose than do previous TGVs. In 2015, Eurostar began to operate the electric multiple unit (EMU) British Rail Class 374 , also known as the Eurostar e320, on its high-speed services through the Channel Tunnel . The train serves destinations beyond Eurostar's core routes to the Gare du Nord station in Paris and the Brussels-South railway station . Owned by Eurostar International Limited and capable of operating at 320 km/h (199 mph),
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#17327809902571560-810: A pair of partially-articulated ten-car trainsets in November 1936. The Burlington moved the Denver Zephyr ' s six-cat sets to the Twin Cities Zephyr , transferring that train's original streamlined cars to other Burlington routes. The last of the classic Zephyrs was built for the Burlington's Kansas City–Saint Louis General Pershing Zephyr route. That trainset, which contained GM's newest 1,000-horsepower (750 kW) engine and conventional coupling, entered service in June 1939. The Burlington's original Zephyr trainsets remained in service in
1690-415: A pointed "wind splitter" front, a rounded rear and round porthole style windows in a style that was as much nautically as aerodynamically inspired. The McKeen cars were unsuccessful because the internal combustion drive technology for that application was unreliable at the time. Further, the lightweight frames dictated by the cars' limited power tended to break. Streamlined rail motorcars would appear again in
1820-567: A serious issue in the 1930s. Support for increasing welfare programs during the depression included a focus on women in the family. The Conseil Supérieur de la Natalité campaigned for provisions enacted in the Code de la Famille (1939) that increased state assistance to families with children and required employers to protect the jobs of fathers, even if they were immigrants. In rural and small-town areas, women expanded their operation of vegetable gardens to include as much food production as possible. In
1950-480: A small cadre of Labour, but the vast majority of Labour leaders denounced MacDonald as a traitor for leading the new government. Britain went off the gold standard , and suffered relatively less than other major countries in the Great Depression. In the 1931 British election, the Labour Party was virtually destroyed, leaving MacDonald as prime minister for a largely Conservative coalition. In most countries of
2080-713: A standstill agreement froze Germany's foreign liabilities for six months. Germany received emergency funding from private banks in New York as well as the Bank of International Settlements and the Bank of England. The funding only slowed the process. Industrial failures began in Germany, a major bank closed in July and a two-day holiday for all German banks was declared. Business failures were more frequent in July, and spread to Romania and Hungary. The crisis continued to get worse in Germany, bringing political upheaval that finally led to
2210-546: A streamlined style. The South Manchuria Railway , which was under Japanese control at that time, also designed the Pashina class streamlined locomotive. The Railway operated the Asia Express , whose style was coordinated with that of Pashina locomotives. These streamlined steam locomotives took many man-hours to repair due to their casing. After the outbreak of World War II , the lack of an experienced labor force made
2340-557: A streamlined style. The selected locomotive was No. 43 of class C53. However Hideo Shima , the chief engineer of the conversion, thought streamlining had no practical effect on reducing air resistance, because Japanese trains at that time did not exceed a speed of 62 mph (100 km/h). Shima therefore designed the locomotive to create airflow that lifted exhaust smoke away from the locomotive. He had expected no practical effect on reducing air resistance completely, therefore he never tried to test fuel consumption or tractive force of
2470-535: A top speed of 112.5 mph (181.1 km/h). This was the fastest authenticated speed reached by a steam locomotive at the time, making #2 the rail speed record holder for steam and the first steam locomotive to top 110 mph (180 km/h). That record lasted until a German DRG Class 05 locomotive exceeded it the following year. The Illinois Central 121 trainset was the first of the Green Diamond streamliners running between Chicago and St Louis. It
2600-658: Is a consensus that the Federal Reserve System should have cut short the process of monetary deflation and banking collapse, by expanding the money supply and acting as lender of last resort . If they had done this, the economic downturn would have been far less severe and much shorter. Modern mainstream economists see the reasons in Insufficient spending, the money supply reduction, and debt on margin led to falling prices and further bankruptcies ( Irving Fisher 's debt deflation). The monetarist explanation
2730-619: Is so prevalent that it is not an outstanding characteristic. In land speed racing , it is a term applied to the long, slender, custom built, high-speed vehicles with enclosed wheels. The earliest known streamlined rail equipment in the United States were McKeen rail motorcars that the company built for the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific Railroads between 1905 and 1917. Most McKeen cars sported
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#17327809902572860-493: Is supported by the contrast in how the crisis progressed in, e.g., Britain, Argentina and Brazil, all of which devalued their currencies early and returned to normal patterns of growth relatively rapidly and countries which stuck to the gold standard , such as France or Belgium. Frantic attempts by individual countries to shore up their economies through protectionist policies – such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries – exacerbated
2990-620: The M-10000 (designated first as The Streamliner and later as the City of Salina when in revenue service from 1935 to 1941). The Burlington initially named its first train the Burlington Zephyr . The two railroads' trains each entered service as three-car articulated sets (including the power car). The Winton Engine Corporation , a subsidiary of General Motors (GM) , manufactured the engines for both locomotives. The prime mover for
3120-781: The Twin Cities Hiawatha run. The Hudsons could cruise above 110 mph (177 km/h) and were said to exceed 120 mph (193 km/h) on occasion. Otto Kuhler designed the Milwaukee Road's speedsters with "shovel nose" styling. Some of the class 7's details were evocative of those of the Zephyrs . Also in 1937, the Electro-Motive Corporation (EMC)—later incorporated into GM's Electro-Motive Division (EMD) —started production of streamlined diesel-electric passenger locomotives, incorporating
3250-539: The 1932 election , Hoover was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt , who from 1933 pursued a series of " New Deal " policies and programs to provide relief and create jobs, including the Civilian Conservation Corps , Federal Emergency Relief Administration , Tennessee Valley Authority , and Works Progress Administration . Historians disagree on the effects of the New Deal, with some claiming that
3380-538: The Burlington Zephyr' s diesel-electric propulsion was a new 600 hp diesel engine. The Union Pacific's M-10000 had a 600-horsepower (450 kW) spark-ignition engine that ran on "petroleum distillate", a fuel similar to kerosene. The two trainsets were star attractions at the 1934 World's Fair (" A Century of Progress ") in Chicago, Illinois . During its set's demonstration period, the Union Pacific named
3510-614: The City of Denver trains. The train's cars then became spare equipment. The two City of Denver trainsets ( M–10005 and M–10006), after cannibalizing power from the M-10001 and M-10004 , remained in service until 1953. Class GG1 electric locomotives brought streamlined styling to the Pennsylvania Railroad 's fleet of electric locomotives in late 1934. Meanwhile, the Boston and Maine 's Flying Yankee , identical to
3640-643: The ETR 401 ("Pendolino") , the ETR 450 ("Pendolino") and the ETR 500 . Streamliner service temporarily ended in the United Kingdom with the outbreak of WWII. During the war, the LNER and LMS streamlined locomotives had part of their streamlining removed to aid maintenance. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, the state of the railways was improving as deteriorated track conditions caused by delayed maintenance work were corrected. The repairs and new improvements enabled
3770-698: The Ford Motor Company concurrent with Ford's development of its Trimotor aircraft. In 1931, Pullman enlisted the services of the Trimotor design contributor William Bushnell Stout to apply airplane fuselage design concepts to railcars. The result was the Railplane (not the Bennie Railplane ), a streamlined self-propelled railcar with a tapered cross-section, lightweight tubular aluminum space frame and duralumin skin. In testing with
3900-629: The Gulf, Mobile and Northern Railroad in 1932, it reportedly reached 90 mph (145 km/h). The Union Pacific had been seeking improvements to self-propelled railcars based on European design ideas. The performance of the Railplane encouraged the railroad to increase its efforts in partnership with Pullman-Standard. In 1931, the Budd Company reached an agreement with the French tire company Michelin to produce pneumatic-tired rail motorcars in
4030-538: The Hobart to Launceston expresses. Despite — or perhaps because of — the strategic priorities of World War II, some new streamliner locomotives were built in Australia during and immediately after the war. The first five New South Wales C38 class locomotives were modestly streamlined with distinctive conical noses, while the twelve South Australian Railways 520 class locomotives featured extravagant streamlining in
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4160-475: The M-10000 as a three-car set until the railroad was retired the set in 1941. The trainset's 1942 scrapping provided Duralumin that was recycled for use in war-time military aircraft. The Union Pacific also commissioned the construction of five modified trainsets that had evolved from the initial M-10000 design. Those streamlined trains inaugurated the railroad's high-speed service out of Chicago while bearing
4290-540: The M-10000 as the Streamliner , providing the first use of the term with respect to trains. The Streamliner ' s publicity tour in February–May 1934 attracted over a million visitors and gained attention in national media as the herald of a new era in rail transportation. On 26 May 1934, the Burlington's Zephyr made a record-breaking "Dawn to Dusk" run from Denver, Colorado , to Chicago for its grand entry as
4420-582: The New York Bank of United States – which produced panic and widespread runs on local banks, and the Federal Reserve sat idly by while banks collapsed. Friedman and Schwartz argued that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to these key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of
4550-773: The New York Central Railroad 's Ohio Xplorer and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad 's Dan'l Webster . The pair were problematic and were withdrawn from service by 1960. GM 's project, originally called Train Y , was marketed as the Aerotrain . It featured a futuristic, automotive-styled EMD LWT12 diesel–electric locomotive pulling aluminum coaches adapted from GM's long-distance bus design. Two trainsets were produced in 1955 and were trialed by several railroads, but no orders were forthcoming. The two demonstration units were eventually sold to
4680-700: The Northlander until 1992. From 1961, the SBB used for TEE service the RAe TEE II , a set of five streamlined electric trains compatible with four different railway electrification systems . Italy used pre-war trains and new trains that the Italian State Railways—Ferrovie dello Stato (FS)—developed. The new trains included the FS Class ETR 250 ("Arlecchino") , the ETR 300 ("Settebello") ,
4810-547: The Portland–Seattle run until the railroad took it out of service again in March 1943. After running for 18 months as the City of San Francisco M-10004 , the locomotive spent six months being refurbished and then served from July 1938 as a second unit on the City of Los Angeles . The Union Pacific retired the locomotive in March 1939. The Union Pacific converted the M-10001 and M-10004 power units to additional boosters for
4940-565: The Rock Island Line , which was already operating an EMD LWT12 paired with Talgo II cars from ACF Industries as the Jet Rocket . Rock Island operated them in commuter service until 1966. The Speed Merchant project also produced only two examples. They consisted of Fairbanks-Morse P-12-42 locomotives paired with Talgo II cars from ACF Industries, and were used by the Boston and Maine Railroad for commuter service and by
5070-479: The aluminum trains are sixteen-unit versions of the Siemens Velaro . High-speed steam service continued in the United States after World War II, but became increasingly uneconomical. The New York Central's Super Hudsons went out of service in 1948 as the line converted to diesel for passenger service. The Milwaukee Road retired its high speed Hiawatha steam locomotives between 1949 and 1951. The last of
5200-539: The coming to power of Hitler's Nazi regime in January 1933. The world financial crisis now began to overwhelm Britain; investors around the world started withdrawing their gold from London at the rate of £2.5 million per day. Credits of £25 million each from the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and an issue of £15 million fiduciary note slowed, but did not reverse,
5330-474: The stock market , which resulted in growing wealth inequality . Banks were subject to minimal regulation under laissez-faire economic policies, resulting in loose lending and widespread debt. By 1929, declining spending had led to reductions in manufacturing output and rising unemployment . Share values continued to rise until the Wall Street crash, after which the slide continued for three years, which
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5460-584: The "silver streak" zipped by. Adding to the sensation of the Zephyr were the striking appearance of its fluted stainless steel bodywork and its raked, rounded, aerodynamic front end that symbolized its modernity. The train's design echoed in steam locomotive styling throughout the following years. After its Worlds Fair display and a nationwide demonstration tour, the Zephyr entered revenue service between Kansas City, Missouri, and Lincoln, Nebraska, on 11 November 1934. A total of nine Zephyr trainsets were built for
5590-447: The 1937 recession that interrupted it). The common view among most economists is that Roosevelt's New Deal policies either caused or accelerated the recovery, although his policies were never aggressive enough to bring the economy completely out of recession. Some economists have also called attention to the positive effects from expectations of reflation and rising nominal interest rates that Roosevelt's words and actions portended. It
5720-813: The British crisis. The financial crisis now caused a major political crisis in Britain in August 1931. With deficits mounting, the bankers demanded a balanced budget; the divided cabinet of Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government agreed; it proposed to raise taxes, cut spending, and most controversially, to cut unemployment benefits 20%. The attack on welfare was unacceptable to the Labour movement. MacDonald wanted to resign, but King George V insisted he remain and form an all-party coalition " National Government ". The Conservative and Liberals parties signed on, along with
5850-482: The Budd Company just a (much) more powerful engine away from producing a history-making streamlined trainset. The Great Depression caused a catastrophic loss of business for the rail industry as a whole and for manufacturers of motorized railcars whose primary markets, branch line services, were among the first to be cut. The interests of lightweight equipment manufacturers and rail operators therefore focused on
5980-664: The Burlington and put into service over longer routes. Twin-engine power units and eventually booster power units met the trainsets' additional power requirements. The Burlington's four-car Mark Twain Zephyr entered revenue service in October 1935 on the railroad's Saint Louis– Burlington, Iowa , route. Two partially-articulated six-car trainsets entered service in May 1936 on the Burlington's Denver Zephyr route, which connected Chicago and Denver. The Burlington then replaced those sets with
6110-596: The Burlington between 1934 and 1939. Each ran as named trains on various Burlington midwestern routes. The Burlington later renamed the Burlington Zephyr as the Pioneer Zephyr in honor of that train's status as the first of the fleet. In April 1935, two Twin Cities Zephyrs that bore the same three-car configuration entered service on the railroad's Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul route. Larger trainsets with more powerful Winton engines were built for
6240-530: The Depression. Businessmen ignored the mounting national debt and heavy new taxes, redoubling their efforts for greater output to take advantage of generous government contracts. During World War I many countries suspended their gold standard in varying ways. There was high inflation from WWI, and in the 1920s in the Weimar Republic , Austria , and throughout Europe. In the late 1920s there
6370-521: The Dow returning to 294 (pre-depression levels) in April 1930, before steadily declining for years, to a low of 41 in 1932. At the beginning, governments and businesses spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut expenditures by 10%. In addition, beginning in
6500-541: The Dutch NS procured five diesel-electric RAm TEE I (Swiss) and NS DE4 (Dutch) trainsets for Zürich - Amsterdam and Amsterdam- Brussels -Paris services. One set was lost in an accident 1971. The remaining four sets operated as TEE trains until 1974, were transferred to Canada for use on the Ontario Northland Railway (ONR) in 1976. The ONR operated three trains on its Toronto – Moosonee line as
6630-489: The Federal Reserve did not act to limit the decline of the money supply was the gold standard . At that time, the amount of credit the Federal Reserve could issue was limited by the Federal Reserve Act , which required 40% gold backing of Federal Reserve Notes issued. By the late 1920s, the Federal Reserve had almost hit the limit of allowable credit that could be backed by the gold in its possession. This credit
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#17327809902576760-442: The Great Depression is right, or the traditional Keynesian explanation that a fall in autonomous spending, particularly investment, is the primary explanation for the onset of the Great Depression. Today there is also significant academic support for the debt deflation theory and the expectations hypothesis that – building on the monetary explanation of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz – add non-monetary explanations. There
6890-642: The Great Depression. According to the U.S. Senate website, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act is among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history. Many economists have argued that the sharp decline in international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression, especially for countries significantly dependent on foreign trade. Most historians and economists blame the Act for worsening the depression by seriously reducing international trade and causing retaliatory tariffs in other countries. While foreign trade
7020-481: The New Deal prolonged the Great Depression, as they argue that National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 and National Labor Relations Act of 1935 restricted competition and established price fixing. John Maynard Keynes did not think that the New Deal under Roosevelt single-handedly ended the Great Depression: "It is, it seems, politically impossible for a capitalistic democracy to organize expenditure on
7150-459: The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad's John Quincy Adams . Both were retired by 1964. In 1956, the Budd Company produced a single streamlined, lightweight, six car DMU trainset that the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad operated as the Roger Williams . After a short period of time in high speed service, the train was split up and the cars were used in service with the New Haven's other RDCs . The advent of jet air travel in
7280-423: The Pennsylvania Railroad's class K4 locomotives. In 1937, Otto Kuhler used a variation of the bullet-front design on a 4-6-2 locomotive constructed for the Baltimore & Ohio 's streamlined Royal Blue . Henry Dreyfuss used a similar variation for the J-3a Super Hudsons that pulled the 20th Century Limited and other NYC express trains. In 1937, the Milwaukee Road introduced the class F7 Hudsons on
7410-538: The Pennsylvania Railroad's short-lived T1 class locomotives went out of service in 1952. All of those iconic locomotives were scrapped. The last steam streamliners built were three Norfolk and Western class J locomotives in 1950, which operated until 1959. In 1951, the Interstate Commerce Commission implemented regulations restricting most trains to speeds of 79 mph (127 km/h) or below unless automatic train stop , automatic train control , or cab signalling were installed. The new regulations minimized one of
7540-491: The U.K. economy, which experienced an economic downturn throughout most of the late 1920s, was less severely impacted by the shock of the depression than the U.S. By contrast, the German economy saw a similar decline in industrial output as that observed in the U.S. Some economic historians attribute the differences in the rates of recovery and relative severity of the economic decline to whether particular countries had been able to effectively devaluate their currencies or not. This
7670-435: The U.S. unemployment rate down below 10%. World War II had a dramatic effect on many parts of the American economy. Government-financed capital spending accounted for only 5% of the annual U.S. investment in industrial capital in 1940; by 1943, the government accounted for 67% of U.S. capital investment. The massive war spending doubled economic growth rates, either masking the effects of the Depression or essentially ending
7800-427: The US, as an improvement on the heavy, underpowered and shimmy-prone " doodlebugs " that ran on American tracks. In that endeavor, Budd would produce lightweight rail equipment utilizing unibody construction and the high strength alloy stainless steel , enabled by shot welding , a breakthrough in electrical welding technique. The venture produced articulated power-trailer car sets with streamlined styling, which left
7930-622: The United States, agricultural organizations sponsored programs to teach housewives how to optimize their gardens and to raise poultry for meat and eggs. Rural women made feed sack dresses and other items for themselves and their families and homes from feed sacks. In American cities, African American women quiltmakers enlarged their activities, promoted collaboration, and trained neophytes. Quilts were created for practical use from various inexpensive materials and increased social interaction for women and promoted camaraderie and personal fulfillment. Oral history provides evidence for how housewives in
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#17327809902578060-543: The United States, remained on the gold standard into 1932 or 1933, while a few countries in the so-called "gold bloc", led by France and including Poland, Belgium and Switzerland, stayed on the standard until 1935–36. According to later analysis, the earliness with which a country left the gold standard reliably predicted its economic recovery. For example, The UK and Scandinavia, which left the gold standard in 1931, recovered much earlier than France and Belgium, which remained on gold much longer. Countries such as China, which had
8190-539: The Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.151 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 940293518 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 08:03:10 GMT Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty; drastic reductions in liquidity , industrial production, and trade; and widespread bank and business failures around
8320-399: The advantages of diesel became compelling enough for a growing number of rail lines to select diesel over steam for new passenger equipment. The power and top speed advantages of state-of-the-art steam locomotives were more than offset by diesel's advantages in service flexibility, downtime, maintenance costs and economic efficiency for most operators. The American Locomotive Company (ALCO),
8450-405: The banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did. With significantly less money to go around, businesses could not get new loans and could not even get their old loans renewed, forcing many to stop investing. This interpretation blames the Federal Reserve for inaction, especially the New York branch . One reason why
8580-465: The behavior of housewives. The common view among economic historians is that the Great Depression ended with the advent of World War II . Many economists believe that government spending on the war caused or at least accelerated recovery from the Great Depression, though some consider that it did not play a very large role in the recovery, though it did help in reducing unemployment. The rearmament policies leading up to World War II helped stimulate
8710-422: The boiler in shrouding, streamlining of the GS-3/GS-4 series locomotives consisted of skyline casing flush with the smokestack and smoke-lifting skirting along the boiler that left the silver-painted smokebox on full display. The trend of streamliners also came to Japan. In 1934, the Ministry of Railways ( Japanese Government Railways , JGR) decided to convert one of its 3-cylinder steam locomotives class C53 into
8840-489: The builder of the Hiawatha speedsters, saw diesel as the future of passenger service and introduced streamlined locomotives influenced by the design of the E units in 1939 . The replacement of steam with diesel power was interrupted by the US entry into World War II, with a military premium on diesel technology that stopped all production of diesel locomotives for passenger service between September 1942 and January 1945. Streamlined steam locomotives continued to be produced into
8970-410: The collapse in global trade, contributing to the depression. By 1933, the economic decline pushed world trade to one third of its level compared to four years earlier. While the precise causes for the occurrence of the Great depression are disputed and can be traced to both global and national phenomena, its immediate origins are most conveniently examined in the context of the U.S. economy, from which
9100-477: The converted locomotive. The Japanese government planned to use this one converted streamline locomotive on the passenger express route between Osaka and Nagoya. The converted locomotive gained much popularity from the public. JGR therefore decided to build 21 new streamlined versions of the class C55 locomotive . Additionally, JGR built 3 streamlined class EF55 electric locomotives. Kiha-43000 diesel multiple units and Moha-52 electric multiple units also received
9230-475: The crash was a mere symptom of more general economic trends of the time, which had already been underway in the late 1920s. A contrasting set of views, which rose to prominence in the later part of the 20th century, ascribes a more prominent role to failures of monetary policy . According to those authors, while general economic trends can explain the emergence of the downturn, they fail to account for its severity and longevity; they argue that these were caused by
9360-625: The crisis, the U.S. Congress passed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act on 17 June 1930. The Act was ostensibly aimed at protecting the American economy from foreign competition by imposing high tariffs on foreign imports. The consensus view among economists and economic historians (including Keynesians , Monetarists and Austrian economists ) is that the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff had, in fact, achieved an opposite effect to what
9490-633: The decade. The Depression had devastating economic effects on both wealthy and poor countries: all experienced drops in personal income , prices ( deflation ), tax revenues, and profits. International trade fell by more than 50%, and unemployment in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities around the world , especially those dependent on heavy industry , were heavily affected. Construction virtually halted in many countries, and farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by up to 60%. Faced with plummeting demand and few job alternatives, areas dependent on primary sector industries suffered
9620-408: The depression. Not all governments enforced the same measures of protectionism. Some countries raised tariffs drastically and enforced severe restrictions on foreign exchange transactions, while other countries reduced "trade and exchange restrictions only marginally": The gold standard was the primary transmission mechanism of the Great Depression. Even countries that did not face bank failures and
9750-468: The development of a new generation of lightweight, high speed, internal combustion-electric powered streamlined trainsets that were primarily designed for mainline service. The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad (Burlington) and the Union Pacific sought to increase the efficiency of their passenger services by looking to the lightweight, petroleum-powered technology that Budd and Pullman-Standard were developing. The Union Pacific named its project
9880-435: The domestic price level to decline ( deflation ). There is also consensus that protectionist policies, and primarily the passage of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , helped to exacerbate, or even cause the Great Depression. Some economic studies have indicated that the rigidities of the gold standard not only spread the downturn worldwide, but also suspended gold convertibility (devaluing the currency in gold terms) that did
10010-402: The drop in demand. Monetarists believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but the shrinking of the money supply greatly exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression. Economists and economic historians are almost evenly split as to whether the traditional monetary explanation that monetary forces were the primary cause of
10140-646: The earlier EMC 1800 hp B-B development design locomotives, the twin-engine format and multiple-unit control systems that facilitated cab/booster locomotive sets. The E-units brought sufficient power for full-sized trains such as the B&;O Capitol Limited , the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway 's (AT&SF's) Super Chief , and the Union Pacific's upgraded City of Los Angeles and City of San Francisco , which challenged steam power in all aspects of passenger service. EMC introduced standardized production to
10270-533: The early 1930s after the internal combustion-electric propulsion technology that General Electric developed and that the Electro-Motive Company (EMC) promoted became the accepted technology for use rail motorcars in the 1920s. Streetcar builders sought to build electric cars with improved speed for interurban lines through the 1920s. In 1931, the J. G. Brill Company introduced the Bullet ,
10400-631: The early postwar era. Among the most distinctive were the Pennsylvania Railroad's duplex-drive 6-4-4-6 type S1 and 4-4-4-4 type T1 locomotives that Raymond Loewy styled. In terms of service longevity, the most successful were the Southern Pacific GS-3 Daylight locomotives introduced in 1938 and the Norfolk and Western class J locomotives introduced in 1941. In contrast to designs that completely encased
10530-427: The economies of Europe in 1937–1939. By 1937, unemployment in Britain had fallen to 1.5 million. The mobilization of manpower following the outbreak of war in 1939 ended unemployment. The American mobilization for World War II at the end of 1941 moved approximately ten million people out of the civilian labor force and into the war. This finally eliminated the last effects from the Great Depression and brought
10660-576: The end of the month. A large sell-off of stocks began in mid-October. Finally, on 24 October, Black Thursday , the American stock market crashed 11% at the opening bell. Actions to stabilize the market failed, and on 28 October, Black Monday, the market crashed another 12%. The panic peaked the next day on Black Tuesday, when the market saw another 11% drop. Thousands of investors were ruined, and billions of dollars had been lost; many stocks could not be sold at any price. The market recovered 12% on Wednesday but by then significant damage had been done. Though
10790-500: The explanations of the Keynesians and monetarists. The consensus among demand-driven theories is that a large-scale loss of confidence led to a sudden reduction in consumption and investment spending. Once panic and deflation set in, many people believed they could avoid further losses by keeping clear of the markets. Holding money became profitable as prices dropped lower and a given amount of money bought ever more goods, exacerbating
10920-503: The few women in the labor force, layoffs were less common in the white-collar jobs and they were typically found in light manufacturing work. However, there was a widespread demand to limit families to one paid job, so that wives might lose employment if their husband was employed. Across Britain, there was a tendency for married women to join the labor force, competing for part-time jobs especially. In France, very slow population growth, especially in comparison to Germany continued to be
11050-505: The first week of June, 540 million in the second, and 150 million in two days, 19–20 June. Collapse was at hand. U.S. President Herbert Hoover called for a moratorium on payment of war reparations . This angered Paris, which depended on a steady flow of German payments, but it slowed the crisis down, and the moratorium was agreed to in July 1931. An International conference in London later in July produced no agreements but on 19 August
11180-606: The government tried to reshape private household consumption under the Four-Year Plan of 1936 to achieve German economic self-sufficiency. The Nazi women's organizations, other propaganda agencies and the authorities all attempted to shape such consumption as economic self-sufficiency was needed to prepare for and to sustain the coming war. The organizations, propaganda agencies and authorities employed slogans that called up traditional values of thrift and healthy living. However, these efforts were only partly successful in changing
11310-519: The home, or took boarders, did laundry for trade or cash, and did sewing for neighbors in exchange for something they could offer. Extended families used mutual aid—extra food, spare rooms, repair-work, cash loans—to help cousins and in-laws. In Japan, official government policy was deflationary and the opposite of Keynesian spending. Consequently, the government launched a campaign across the country to induce households to reduce their consumption, focusing attention on spending by housewives. In Germany,
11440-527: The initial crisis spread to the rest of the world. In the aftermath of World War I , the Roaring Twenties brought considerable wealth to the United States and Western Europe. Initially, the year 1929 dawned with good economic prospects: despite a minor crash on 25 March 1929, the market seemed to gradually improve through September. Stock prices began to slump in September, and were volatile at
11570-777: The key advantages of rail travel over the automobile, which became an increasingly attractive alternative as postwar construction of highway systems progressed. Rail operators marketed their services on the basis of luxurious sightseeing, as airlines increasingly competed with rail lines for long-distance travel. In the mid-1950s, there were several attempts to revive the lightweight custom streamliner concept. None of these projects achieved any lasting impact on passenger service. The Train X project, first promoted by Robert R. Young no later than 1948, resulted in low-profile Baldwin RP-210 locomotives paired with articulated aluminum cars from Pullman-Standard . Two trainsets were built in 1956 for
11700-563: The lack of an adequate response to the crises of liquidity that followed the initial economic shock of 1929 and the subsequent bank failures accompanied by a general collapse of the financial markets. After the Wall Street Crash of 1929 , when the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from 381 to 198 over the course of two months, optimism persisted for some time. The stock market rose in early 1930, with
11830-442: The late 1950s brought forth a new round of price competition from airlines for long-distance travel, severely affecting the ridership and profitability of long-distance passenger rail service. Government regulations forced railroads to continue to operate passenger rail service, even on long routes where, the railroads argued, it was almost impossible to make a profit. streamline Too Many Requests If you report this error to
11960-604: The lightweight carbody construction and raked, rounded front end introduced with the Zephyr and the high-mounted, behind-the-nose cab of the M-1000x locomotives. One of the first, EMC's TA , was a 1,200-horsepower (890 kW) version produced for the Rock Island Rockets , a series of six lightweight, semi-articulated three and four-car trainsets. EMC/EMD manufactured streamlined E-unit diesel-electric locomotives from 1937 to 1963. These incorporated two features of
12090-544: The limitations of the locomotives' technology when meeting the demands of long-distance and higher capacity service. The M-10001 ran for only 32 months as the City of Portland before it was replaced, re-entered service on the Portland–Seattle run and retired in June 1939. Similarly, the M-10002 spent 19 months as the Union Pacific's City of Los Angeles , 39 months as the City of Portland and ten months out of service starting in July 1941. The locomotive then served on
12220-461: The locomotive industry, with its attendant economies of scale and simplified processes for ordering, producing and servicing locomotives. As a result, EMC was able to offer a variety of support services that decreased technological and initial cost barriers that would otherwise deter conversions to diesel-electric power. With power and reliability of new diesel-electric units improved with the 2,000-horsepower (1,500 kW) EMC E3 locomotive in 1938,
12350-521: The market entered a period of recovery from 14 November until 17 April 1930, the general situation had been a prolonged slump. From 17 April 1930 until 8 July 1932, the market continued to lose 89% of its value. Despite the crash, the worst of the crisis did not reverberate around the world until after 1929. The crisis hit panic levels again in December 1930, with a bank run on the Bank of United States ,
12480-414: The mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U.S. Interest rates dropped to low levels by mid-1930, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment remained low. By May 1930, automobile sales declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices, in general, began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930. Then
12610-423: The monetary base and by not injecting liquidity into the banking system to prevent it from crumbling, the Federal Reserve passively watched the transformation of a normal recession into the Great Depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that the downward turn in the economy, starting with the stock market crash, would merely have been an ordinary recession if the Federal Reserve had taken aggressive action. This view
12740-502: The most to make recovery possible. Every major currency left the gold standard during the Great Depression. The UK was the first to do so. Facing speculative attacks on the pound and depleting gold reserves , in September 1931 the Bank of England ceased exchanging pound notes for gold and the pound was floated on foreign exchange markets. Japan and the Scandinavian countries followed in 1931. Other countries, such as Italy and
12870-427: The most. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 ended the Depression, as it stimulated factory production, providing jobs for women as militaries absorbed large numbers of young, unemployed men. The precise causes for the Great Depression are disputed. One set of historians, for example, focuses on non-monetary economic causes. Among these, some regard the Wall Street crash itself as the main cause; others consider that
13000-423: The names City of Portland (June 1935), City of Los Angeles (May 1936), City of San Francisco (June 1936) and City of Denver (June 1936). The M-10001 set had a single power unit that contained a 1,200-horsepower (890 kW) Winton diesel engine. The power unit pulled six tapered low-profile cars that had the form of the original three-car M-10000 trainset. The M-10002 ' s set consisted of
13130-582: The need to balance the national budget and was unwilling to implement expensive welfare spending . In 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , which taxed imports with the intention of encouraging buyers to purchase American products, which worsened the Depression because foreign governments retaliated with tariffs on American exports. In 1932, Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation , which offered loans to businesses and support to local governments. In
13260-533: The original Zephyr, entered service between Boston and Portland, Maine , on 1 April 1935. The Gulf, Mobile and Northern Railroad Rebel trainsets were similar to the Zephyr in form, but were not articulated. Designed by Otto Kuhler , the ALCO powered diesel-electrics that the American Car and Foundry Company constructed were placed into service on 10 July 1935. While streamlining on steam locomotives
13390-483: The physical volume of exports fall, but also the prices fell by about 1 ⁄ 3 as written. Hardest hit were farm commodities such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and lumber. Governments around the world took various steps into spending less money on foreign goods such as: "imposing tariffs, import quotas, and exchange controls". These restrictions triggered much tension among countries that had large amounts of bilateral trade, causing major export-import reductions during
13520-480: The policies prolonged the Depression instead of shortening it. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) fell by an estimated 15%; in the U.S., the Depression resulted in a 30% contraction in GDP. Recovery varied greatly around the world. Some economies, such as the U.S., Germany and Japan started to recover by the mid-1930s; others, like France, did not return to pre-shock growth rates until later in
13650-459: The political situation in Europe. In their book, A Monetary History of the United States , Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz also attributed the recovery to monetary factors, and contended that it was much slowed by poor management of money by the Federal Reserve System . Chairman of the Federal Reserve (2006–2014) Ben Bernanke agreed that monetary factors played important roles both in
13780-511: The postwar era. The railroad retired the last of its six-car sets in 1968 after using it as the Nebraska Zephyr . On 31 January 1935, the Union Pacific's three-car M-10000 went into service between Kansas City, Missouri , and Salina, Kansas , as The Streamliner . The train subsequently became the City of Salina under the railroad's naming convention for its expanding fleet of diesel-powered streamliners. The Union Pacific operated
13910-470: The problems worse. As a result, many of the locomotives had their casings removed. Streamliner locomotives arrived relatively late in Australia. In 1937 streamlined casings were fitted on four Victorian Railways S class locomotives for the Spirit of Progress service between Melbourne and Albury . Similar casings were then fitted on two Tasmanian Government Railways R class narrow-gauge locomotives for
14040-464: The railways to provide additional mainline trackage for high speed trains. The first experiments with diesel streamliner services in the United Kingdom were the Blue Pullman trains introduced in 1960 and withdrawn in 1973. These provided 90-mile-per-hour (140 km/h) luxury business services, but were marginally successful and ran only a little faster than mainstream services. The Blue Pullman
14170-434: The scale necessary to make the grand experiments which would prove my case—except in war conditions." According to Christina Romer , the money supply growth caused by huge international gold inflows was a crucial source of the recovery of the United States economy, and that the economy showed little sign of self-correction. The gold inflows were partly due to devaluation of the U.S. dollar and partly due to deterioration of
14300-461: The set in 1950. The visual styling of the new trainsets made the existing fleets of locomotives and railcars suddenly look obsolete. Rail lines soon responded by adding streamlined shrouding and varying degrees of mechanical improvement to older locomotives and re-styling heavyweight cars. The first American steam locomotive to receive that treatment was one of the New York Central Railroad 's (NYC's) J-1 Hudson class locomotives built in 1930, which
14430-578: The speed record that the first DMU "Flying Hamburger" had set 1933 traveling between Hamburg and Berlin. A TGV high-speed test train set a world record for the fastest wheeled train, reaching 575 km/h (357 mph) in 2007. Conventional TGV services operate at up to 322 km/h (200 mph) on the LGV Est , LGV Rhin-Rhône and LGV Méditerranée . The power cars of the TGV Euroduplex (2N2) , which began commercial operations in 2011, have
14560-645: The style of the Pennsylvania Railroad 's T1 . In all cases, the streamlining on Australian steam locomotives were purely aesthetic, with negligible impacts on train speeds. In Europe, the streamliner tradition gained new life after World War II . In Germany, DRG Class SVT 137 trains resumed service, but at slower speeds than before the war. Based on the Kruckenberg SVT 137, the Deutsche Bundesbahn 's (DB's) streamlined diesel-electric Class VT 11.5 (later renamed to DB Class 601) built in 1957
14690-471: The west coast consisted of five runs monthly for each route. The railroad maintained its daily overnight service on the Chicago–Denver run by assigning three locomotive sets for two trains. The railroad then augmented that stable with locomotive equipment taken from other runs. Despite the breakthrough schedule times of the long-distance M-1000x "City" trains, the records of the Union Pacific's fleet reflected
14820-476: The world, recovery from the Great Depression began in 1933. In the U.S., recovery began in early 1933, but the U.S. did not return to 1929 GNP for over a decade and still had an unemployment rate of about 15% in 1940, albeit down from the high of 25% in 1933. There is no consensus among economists regarding the motive force for the U.S. economic expansion that continued through most of the Roosevelt years (and
14950-624: The world. The financial crisis escalated out of control in mid-1931, starting with the collapse of the Credit Anstalt in Vienna in May. This put heavy pressure on Germany, which was already in political turmoil. With the rise in violence of National Socialist ('Nazi') and Communist movements, as well as investor nervousness at harsh government financial policies, investors withdrew their short-term money from Germany as confidence spiraled downward. The Reichsbank lost 150 million marks in
15080-493: The world. The economic contagion began in 1929 in the United States , the largest economy in the world, with the devastating Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929 often considered the beginning of the Depression. The Depression was preceded by a period of industrial growth and social development known as the " Roaring Twenties ". Much of the profit generated by the boom was invested in speculation , such as on
15210-778: The worldwide economic decline and eventual recovery. Bernanke also saw a strong role for institutional factors, particularly the rebuilding and restructuring of the financial system, and pointed out that the Depression should be examined in an international perspective. Women's primary role was as housewives; without a steady flow of family income, their work became much harder in dealing with food and clothing and medical care. Birthrates fell everywhere, as children were postponed until families could financially support them. The average birthrate for 14 major countries fell 12% from 19.3 births per thousand population in 1930, to 17.0 in 1935. In Canada, half of Roman Catholic women defied Church teachings and used contraception to postpone births. Among
15340-604: Was a five-unit (including power car) articulated trainset for day service. The Pullman-built set had the same power format and 1,200-horsepower (890 kW) Winton diesel engine as M-10001, with some style aspects that resembled the later M1000x trainsets. The Illinois Central ran the 121 trainset on the Green Diamond from May 1936 to 1947. After an overhaul, the railroad placed the set on the Jackson Mississippi–New Orleans run until it retired and scrapped
15470-658: Was a scramble to deflate prices to get the gold standard's conversation rates back on track to pre-WWI levels, by causing deflation and high unemployment through monetary policy. In 1933 FDR signed Executive Order 6102 and in 1934 signed the Gold Reserve Act . The two classic competing economic theories of the Great Depression are the Keynesian (demand-driven) and the Monetarist explanation. There are also various heterodox theories that downplay or reject
15600-478: Was a small part of overall economic activity in the U.S. and was concentrated in a few businesses like farming, it was a much larger factor in many other countries. The average ad valorem (value based) rate of duties on dutiable imports for 1921–1925 was 25.9% but under the new tariff it jumped to 50% during 1931–1935. In dollar terms, American exports declined over the next four years from about $ 5.2 billion in 1929 to $ 1.7 billion in 1933; so, not only did
15730-500: Was accompanied by a loss of confidence in the financial system. By 1933, the U.S. unemployment rate had risen to 25 percent, about one-third of farmers had lost their land, and about half of the country's 25,000 banks had gone out of business. Many people, unable to pay mortgages or rent, became homeless and relied on begging or charities to feed themselves. The U.S. federal government initially did little to help. President Herbert Hoover , like many of his fellow Republicans , believed in
15860-474: Was endorsed in 2002 by Federal Reserve Governor Ben Bernanke in a speech honoring Friedman and Schwartz with this statement: Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again. The Federal Reserve allowed some large public bank failures – particularly that of
15990-541: Was followed by research into streamlined trains and tilting trains , the first to enter passenger service, in 1976, being the diesel powered InterCity 125 ( Class 43 ), followed by the electric, tilting, British Rail Class 370 , and Class 91 , in combination offering 125 mph (201 km/h) streamlined train services across the United Kingdom. High-speed service with the electric German ICE 1 (Class 401) began in 1991. The train, which has traveled at speeds of up to 280 km/h (174 mph) in revenue service, broke
16120-426: Was given by American economists Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz . They argued that the Great Depression was caused by the banking crisis that caused one-third of all banks to vanish, a reduction of bank shareholder wealth and more importantly monetary contraction of 35%, which they called "The Great Contraction ". This caused a price drop of 33% ( deflation ). By not lowering interest rates, by not increasing
16250-500: Was in the form of Federal Reserve demand notes. A "promise of gold" is not as good as "gold in the hand", particularly when they only had enough gold to cover 40% of the Federal Reserve Notes outstanding. During the bank panics, a portion of those demand notes was redeemed for Federal Reserve gold. Since the Federal Reserve had hit its limit on allowable credit, any reduction in gold in its vaults had to be accompanied by
16380-446: Was intended. It exacerbated the Great Depression by preventing economic recovery after domestic production recovered, hampering the volume of trade; still there is disagreement as to the precise extent of the Act's influence. In the popular view, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff was one of the leading causes of the depression. In a 1995 survey of American economic historians, two-thirds agreed that the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act at least worsened
16510-422: Was more about marketing than performance, newly designed locomotives with state-of-the-art steam technology were able to travel at high speeds. The Milwaukee Road class A Atlantics , built in 1935 to compete with the Twin Cities Zephyr , were the first "steamliners" equipped to back up their styled claim to extra speed. In a 15 May 1935 run by locomotive No. 2 and a dynamometer car, the railroad documented
16640-478: Was re-introduced with streamlined shrouding and named the Commodore Vanderbilt in December 1934. The Vanderbilt styling was a one-off design by Carl Kantola. The NYC's next venture in streamlined styling was Henry Dreyfuss ' 1936 full-length exterior and interior design of the railroad's Mercury trainsets. Raymond Loewy also designed in 1936 art-deco shrouding with a bullet-front scheme for
16770-470: Was the rollback of those same reflationary policies that led to the interruption of a recession beginning in late 1937. One contributing policy that reversed reflation was the Banking Act of 1935 , which effectively raised reserve requirements, causing a monetary contraction that helped to thwart the recovery. GDP returned to its upward trend in 1938. A revisionist view among some economists holds that
16900-608: Was used as the " Trans Europ Express (TEE)" for international high-speed trains. From 1965, the DB used the streamlined electric locomotives DB Class 103 with regular trains for high-speed service. From 1973, the DB used the DB Class 403 , a fully streamlined four-unit electric train with tilting technology. In East Germany, the DR Class VT 18.16 [ de ] was built for international express service. The Swiss SBB and
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