Re: (rshsdepot) The "Great GM Bus Conspiracy"--balderdash......

[Seth Bramson <sbramson_@_bellsouth.net>]

Ahhh, Alexander, my friend, you may have misunderstood what I wrote or 
taken it out of context.
First, you must understand that I am a capitalist and fiscal 
conservative (although a liberal in other areas) and I have no beef with 
dieselization, believing that, indeed, there was no choice and if EMD 
was there at the right time with the right machinery, that was fine.  I 
do not think or believe that there was a "conspiracy" to end steam. 
 Anybody with half a brain can see that the economics of diesel make it 
a far better motive power choice, nostalgia aside.

MORE below.

Alexander D. Mitchell IV wrote:

>Seth Bramson said:
>
>>"Third, unlike, I feel and believe, the slime who destroyed the NYC and
>>PRR, PC and CONFAIL, the Vans were great builders and had the Depression
>>not come along MIGHT have pulled off their dream of  a trans-continental
>>RR.  Their belief in rail rapid transit and their future plans for it,
>>might also have gone far and well in staving off the Borg of the
>>highways, General Motors, which, of course, raped, robbed, looted,
>>pillaged and burned every rail transit system that they possibly could
>>in order to besmirch our cities and towns with their pollution belching
>>and inferior road monsters.  But that's another story for another list
>>at another time.  ( : > ))."
>>
>I just spent much of yesterday (at someone else's request) gunning down a
>bunch of what I would loosely term "anti-capitalism" websites that wave the alleged "GM Conspiracy" as "proof" of the evils of Big Business.  One site even brought up the old chestnut that GM "blackmailed" the railroads into buying diesels--an accusation based on horribly flimsy, very selective, and slanted analysis that I termed a "witch hunt".
>
 >>>While your thoughts and comments above are very valid, I am not 
quite sure exactly how you have taken my comments (which, of course, are 
based on fact, truth, and the Supreme Court decision fining GMC for 
conspiracy) regarding electric rail transit and metamorphosed it into a 
 discussion on railroad conversion from steam to diesel.  One has 
nothing to do with the other, and I never made any such comment or 
accusation regarding railroad dieselization as you have suggested above. 
 In fact, I specifically noted "rail transit system" and "inferior road 
monsters," neither of which sounds locomotive-oriented to me!

I do, however, based strictly on FACTS (Jesse Haugh and PE; those SOB's 
who went to jail for destroying TCRT's rail network and had been paid 
off by GM; HUNDREDS of other examples of conversion of electric rail to 
bus when it shouldn'thave been done, which is not to say that of course 
there should have been some, but nowhere near what was done, as the 
pollution and inferiority of rubber tired vehicles is proving in city 
after city) unquestionably stand by my comments on GM relating to the 
destruction of America's street and electric railways.  (We have had 
this discussion on several other lists, incidentally, and people from 
Don Leistikow to Lou Shapiro to Lew Rugani and many others have backed 
up these comments with PURE facts including the citation of the Supreme 
Court decision wherein GM was found guilty of conspiracy and fined (a 
paltry amount, considering the damage they had done) for their illegal 
activities.

That being said, I again ask you to note that you have brought up an 
issue that I never mentioned, and while it was not part of what I was 
discussing I do agree with you, as I have stated above, on the fact that 
the switch to diesels was necessary for the railroads and I have never 
heard of, much less accused, GM of doing anything illegal or unethical 
regarding the selling of diesel locomotives to the railroads, which was 
NOT the situation when it came to selling their busses to city after 
city, doing so after either buying up the local transit system operator 
or paying off those in power in order to get them to order the 
conversion from electric traction to bus. 

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