Re: (rshsdepot) "450-Ton Locomotive at the Waldorf-Astoria"

["JIMBEAR" <ribear_@_cox.net>]

Actually, Steve, in the history of the New Haven RR, McGinnis was
a minor miscreant. Nothing could match the financial razzle-dazzle of
the Morgan-Mellen era. Handymen and secretaries were sometimes
presidents of multi-million dollar corporations for an afternoon. The
financial records of the NH were twice destroyed by mysterious fires.
Senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island, the Majority Leader of the
US Senate (known to the press as the "General Manager of the US",
and future grandfather of Nelson A. Rockefeller) owned trolley lines
in and around Providence that were worth about 6 Million dollars,
but Morgan bought them for $19 Million (about $400 million today).
Hundreds of other less important politicians at the national, state, and
local level were bought off in similar, if less extravagant style. After
Morgan's death, NH President Charles Mellen was called to testify
before Congress about the NH's financial dealings. Under questioning
by future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Brandeis, Mellen admitted
that there were times when even he didn't know what Morgan was
doing. Now there's a "Bonfire Of The Vanities" for you.   ;-)

Jim.

- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Delibert" <stevdel_@_prodigy.net>
To: <rshsdepot_@_lists.railfan.net>
Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2002 11:49 PM
Subject: Re: (rshsdepot) "450-Ton Locomotive at the Waldorf-Astoria"


> Common, if not "typical", in kind if not in degree -- New Yorkers will get
> it if I say imagine Tom Wolfe writing "Bonfire of the Vanities" about
> railroads instead of about the city, and he would have come out with
> McGinnis's New Haven.  An overdrawn fun-house mirror, but on a basic level,
> disturbingly reflective of reality.


=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #308
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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org