In 1919, an Army convoy drove cross-country from Washington to San Francisco | Hacker News Reader

In 1919, an Army convoy drove cross-country from Washington to San Francisco

washingtonpost.com

126 pointswglb78 comments

For some time context, the first New York to San Francisco telephone call was in 1915:

“Six months later, amidst the celebrations surrounding the Panama–Pacific International Exposition, on January 25, 1915, Alexander Graham Bell, in New York City, repeated his famous statement "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you," into the telephone, which was heard by his assistant Dr. Watson in San Francisco, for a long distance call of 3,400 miles (5,500 km).” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_transcontinental_telepho...

And for some more context, Henry George remarked in Progress and Poverty (1879) that a banker in London could submit a trade order in London and have it executed (I assume by telegraph relays) in San Francisco that same morning (SF time).

"could he have realized the enormous saving of labor resulting from ... the order given by the London banker in the afternoon executed in San Francisco in the morning of the same day;"

https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/george-progress-and-pover...

(Please don't turn this subthread into a discussion of land value taxation.)

I wonder if that was really the first call across that line, or just the 'official first.' I know if I was one of those technicians trying to make sure everything was ready to be demoed by the biggest celebrity in American telephony, I'd probably test it myself first to make sure I wasn't wasting Bell's time working the kinks out of the system.

I also assume that as you're unspooling the line across the entire United States, you are also stopping every few miles and calling back to make sure the line is working.

From the article:

> A telephone call, which for marketing purposes is claimed to be the first transcontinental telephone call, occurred on January 25, 1915, a day timed to coincide with the Panama–Pacific International Exposition celebrations. However, the transcontinental telephone line was first completed on June 17, 1914, and successfully first voice tested in July 1914. A 1998 U.S. postage stamp commemorates the completion of the line in 1914.

For even more perspective, in 1916:

> On May 14, 2nd Lt. George S. Patton raided the San Miguelito Ranch, near Rubio, Chihuahua. Patton, a Pershing aide and a future World War II general, was out looking to buy some corn from the Mexicans when he came across the ranch of Julio Cárdenas, an important leader in the Villista military organization. With fifteen men and three Dodge touring cars, Patton led America's first motorised military action, in which Cárdenas and two other men were shot dead. The young lieutenant then had the three Mexicans strapped to the hood of the cars and driven back to General Pershing's headquarters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pancho_Villa_Expedition

>"Mr. Watson, come here. I want you,"

Old timey Grindr.

With Dwight Eisenhower on board.

> The heavy vehicles had damaged or destroyed 88 bridges and caused 230 road accidents.

No wonder he considered creating the Interstate system to be a critical piece of infrastructure.

According to Wikipedia, they also repaired the damaged/destroyed bridges. Strange omission from the article.

"The convoy broke and repaired 88 wooden bridges" [1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_Motor_Convoy

The most remarkable part of that is that they were willing to risk breaking bridges then broke them then fixed them on their own without being sued into doing so by the municipalities that owned the bridges. It truly was a different time.

Not sure why you're so shocked. This was standard practice back in the day for measuring & testing bridge capacity; you'd build the bridge then drive a bunch of heavy trucks over it until it breaks, then rebuild the bridge. That's just how things were done.

Reference: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1986/11/26

Sounds like modern day software development.

MVB. Minimally Viable Bridge.

I said it was remarkable though upon reflection I guess that was mostly sarcasm. I guess I mostly wanted to call attention to the fact that that's how things were done back then and that things <gasp> actually got done.

The post you're replying to is citing the father from Calvin & Hobbes, so I suspect it's sarcastic.

And yet, as evidenced, there's actually some truth to it! Who knew, eh?

It was a propaganda effort to get funding for road building. (That's what it means when they say the idea was “to develop a through route from coast to coast for motor transport”.)

Breaking bridges helped demonstrate the need.

Fixing bridges avoided lasting negative feelings towards the demonstration that could backfire politically.

That, together with his 1944 tour of the German autobahn.

EDIT: 1945, as observed down-thread.

Pretty sure that was 1945.

Well I think it should be clear that they were already thinking about it... the trip was more of a publicity stunt / experiment / illustration.

They largely knew it would be a difficult messy situation, and probably was a really good illustration of the challenges that needed to be solved.

> The auto lobby hoped a transcontinental convoy would grease the wheels for increases in highway appropriations and drive profits for the sign-making industry.

Neat, just like how gov projects still get done today.

To me one of the most sobering experience of my life was visiting Hoover Dam.

Yes, they needed a consortium of companies because no one company was big enough, they built a railroad, a town, the concrete is still curing, yadda yadda yadda.

But for me the biggest moment was at the end of the filmstrip, they said "the government contract was delivered early and under budget." I nearly fell out of my seat.

No way that ever happens today. Not only the Accentures, GD, Northrup Grummans of the world, but even the little guys like the ones I used to work for all use up every dollar available on the contract. If the contract is worth $291 million, then dammit you bill the government $291 million and not a dollar less! If anything you're figuring out how to do a contract mod to squeeze them for more money.

It's amazing that, together, multiple of the largest construction companies in the United States, not only got the job done in record time, but left money on the table. I'd like to think it might happen again because that's the type of thing that makes me proud to be an American.

The Human Genome Project was officially complete in 13 years, instead of the 15 years originally estimated. I'm not sure how it did budget-wise.

That's because of independent researchers forcing the government's researchers to go faster. They didn't want to.

Early vs late stage capitalism.

What does the government completing projects under budget in 1919 vs today have to do with capitalism?

Capitalism is still capitalism, really the only thing that changed between 1919 and today is the size and scale of administrative state (and subsequently far more lobbying groups to exploit it). The entire economy is way less capitalist than back in 1919.

Unless that’s what you mean by “late state capitalism”?

Big Sign always gets a piece.

Back when America was honest and true.

I just got back from a 2000+ mile road trip. I'm so thankful highway conditions have improved over the past 100 years.

"Some of the chaos was deliberately engineered mischief. One evening in Wyoming, Eisenhower convinced the soldiers that their camp was vulnerable to attack by Native American warriors."

Possibly the ultimate "Oh man this guy..." moment for the soldiers ;)

The guy who discharged his weapon later maybe thought "Ok fine let's play along and put an end to this..."

And Eisenhower chasing down the messenger to the War Department: "Crapcrapcrap, this is getting out of hand!"

Eisenhower had been at West Point a few years before, in 1912 when the Carlisle Indians football team, many of whom considered the game a rematch of the real Indian wars, beat the cadets to a pulp.

For those interested here's Lincoln Highway Assoc. map of the route: https://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org/map/

I plan on driving it by next year.

That sounds awesome.. One of my future road trips is to follow Highway 20 from the Oregon Coast to Boston (the longest highway in the US)

Stop by and say hi here in Bend!

Also: if you're not simply interested in following the route just to say you have, 26 east is much more interesting than 20 east of Bend.

Sounds like a fun trip. I only knew what you were talking about because I've been from Tooele to Dugway in Utah. Based on what I can recall, it seems likely that the route through there didn't really change, it was just finished and paved.

If you've watched Ken Burns documentary series* (it's on netflix) about The West, the comical anecdote about a faked attack by the clearly irrelevant natives isn't so funny any more.

*I had to give up after a few episodes, it was too depressing.

Probably relevant is "Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip", by Ken Burns - the story of the first drive across the United States, in 1903.

It's streaming on Amazon Prime at the moment:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B002P3IM3C/ref=atv_dl...

I wonder who the first president to ride a Chinese bullet train will be and say we need one of those in the US?

Or any bullet train for that matter... The French and Japanese have had a friendly rivalry for decades. But both like the Chinese are willing to dedicate right of way for high speed trains. The American system's shared lines for passenger and freight traffic creates limitations the other systems do not share.

Switzerland has shared lines, but the freight traffic is required to be able to go at the same speed as the passenger trains. They have shorter trains with more engines than you'd see in the US as a result.

I don't know if it's just where I happen to see them (near inhabited areas), but US freight trains seem to literally move at walking pace. Ringing the bell the entire time while they do it.

They can get up to 50-60mph but only outside of built up areas with long straight track (e.g. in the Great Planes). They mostly go slow for fuel efficiency (it takes a lot of power and distance to build up speed).

Here's one going 70mph in Texas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMhSRP7RBpo

Switzerland is also tiny, making travel time less of a concern.

The passenger trains are really fast so its not really a compromise there

Right, that's the point - a dual system can be made entirely workable. You just can't let the freight railroads set the rules like they have here in the US.

The UK system also has shared lines, but prioritize passengers and has a severe capacity problem.

No way not going to happen. The only way this will happen is if 1) they find a way to make high speed work on the NA railway gauges and 2) you convince the cargo companies to make passenger a priority.

1) seems like an engineering problem and 2) seems like a pipe dream.

Option 3) would be build dedicated high speed lines. Unless you’re a developing nation it sounds way too expensive. Especially a rail system as big as NA (US, Canada and Mexico are connected, maybe others in Central America).

Whilst I understand where you are coming from, the statement "Unless you’re a developing nation it sounds way too expensive" is a bit crazy.

Yes many countries without a legacy rail system are getting to hop straight to high speed. But that doesn't mean its not worth investing in for countries that already have a system. Doesn't mean it always is either of course.

0) Getting the right-of-way to straighten our existing rail lines anywhere useful is politically and financially impossible.

Also, too, not stopping at every podunk town and city. I take a train ~80 miles in New York each day, and the difference between the 90 minute train ride and the 135 minute train ride is how many stops they make along the way. Getting the political will to make a train go from Boston to DC and not stop at most of the cities in between -- especially after you seize a lot of very expensive land in those cities to build your nice, straight tracks -- is a tall order.

Isn't it possible to build some sidings for these smaller stops and have different lines (express/local) running along the same set of long rails, provided they join into the main line at the proper speed?

For 1), isn't most high speed rail in the world standard gauge (1.435 meter width)? That's also what most of North America uses, though existing tracks are probably not up to spec for high speed in other regards, such as 'smoothness', or turn radius and banking.

I'm not sure about the width but French TGV trains roll on standard lines in the city.

Never underestimate the ability of some President to waste tens of millions of dollars reaching the same conclusion after doing exactly what OP suggested.

The California High Speed Rail project failed miserably, and cost the taxpayers $12.4 billion[1] to go from Bakersfield to Merced or about 160 miles (two cities nobody commutes from...but I digress).

At it's cancellation point, it was estimated to cost over $98.1 billion for a Los Angeles to San Francisco route - but we should note the cost estimates were going up $10+ billion every year they were re-estimated. The entire thing was supposed to "only" cost around $30 billion when introduced.

To make a High Speed Rail line that covers the entire United States... you're looking at hundreds of billions, up into the trillions of dollars... if not more.

At these cost rates, it's well over $200 billion for a straight line between San Francisco and New York City... but of course it won't be a straight line and it'll need to go to more places than those two cities in order to attract any sort of reasonable ridershare.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

One way to interpret these facts is at face value - that 98 billion was how much the route would actually cost.

I argue otherwise - cronyism and a whole lot of contractor bullshit continually inflated the cost as everyone tried to stick their hand into the infinite jam jar of taxpayer's money, until suddenly the whole thing broke apart and now nobody's getting paid.

One day I'll sit down and actually research this theory of mine - right now I'm only working off my experience with contractors in large construction projects (oil and gas) in the past. Their mentality - if it's tax funded, the amount of money you can get from it is limited only by your ability to bullshit.

I think this has a large part to do with it too - however, that won't be any different with a national rail line... in fact, I'd wager it would be much, much worse.

The US is too big to make crossing it by train (even high speed) plausible when airplanes are a thing. High speed trains proved successful in medium distances. It sounds reasonable for California (LA-SF) and for east coast cities (New York-Washington), but covering the entire US is really not very useful.

However, I'm pretty sure that a large part of the costs of the California rail are related to private land, which probably isn't an issue through the majority of the route.

It took me a while to realize it, but one thing I like about Europe is that the financial centers and economically relevant places are centrally located

Compared to US where you have commute across the entire continent to leverage the largest pools and networks

This would be similar to commuting from Portugal to Estonia and thats not a thing.

And China is even bigger, yet they never tried any sort of excuses.

When you factor in check in, security, getting to and from the airport which often isn’t near the city, etc, high speed rail is way better. Drop in 10 minutes before you need to leave and the stations are right in the middle of town. For distances under a thousand miles, rail can easily be faster.

That is, until more Americans start riding rail and TSA gets involved and now it's exactly like an airport...

That's hardly even the cost of the exploratory committee, let alone the initial train ride. . .

Maybe some Boring Billionaire can come up with a few new ideas and change our perspective.

Is there a great unmet need to travel across the US on a 15+ hour train? We have airplanes and most people that need to travel across the country can afford a Southwest Airlines ticket to do so. The US also has 700 million people fewer than China, so there is less need for a China-style train system since air capacity handles the current needs just fine. Also, it’s highly doubtful than a long range train ticket would ever be cost effective. If people really want to cross the country on the cheap, buses exist. Trains also have the disadvantage of being inflexible. As populations shift, it’s much easier adjust air capacity to fit demand. While trains can only go where there are tracks. Airplanes are also safer than trains.

https://www.bustle.com/articles/83287-are-trains-safer-than-...

Aren't planes horrible for climate when compared to other systems?

Bullet trains have been around since the 60s in Japan, surely some USA president has ridden one on a trip there.

In terms of long distance travel can bullet trains compare with flights, especially if they shave time off with an easier check in system?

counter-intuitively, bullet trains offer a great alternative that airlines cannot: travelling from SF to NY in about 10-12 hours. 8 hours to sleep on a flat bed, and an hour or two for dinner and breakfast on either end.

This would be far superior to the 5-hour red eye flights.

Most bullet trains run around ~250-300 km/h - it'd take ~15-17 hours to go from NYC to SF/LA on a bullet train.

That's 8 hours of sleeping, two hours eating, and 5-7 hours wondering if the speed of an airplane outweighs the discomfort.

fair point - not sure why you are being downvoted.

Lets say SF to Chicago, then? Its about 2000 miles.

I was trying to illustrate a more general point that speed isn't necessarily the best or most optimal criteria even for long distances. My choice of example could have been better.

I mapped the route and if you followed Google Maps, your route would be very similar to the one they took in 1919.

I highly recommend the book "The Big Roads" by Earl Swift if you're interested in this kind of thing.

That article was good. Good length, informative, interesting. Most articles these days try to be excessively wordy and long - and end up with too much filler.

Also, good color on how someone's early experiences help shape their future. In this case Eisenhower got his highway system 37 years later with the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. Basically it took another World War to get this going: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_Highway_System

You don’t like 3 self indulgent paragraphs of what the author was thinking and doing before the actual story starts and before every new heading? Hey me neither

Journalists trying to be writers where they insert themselves into the story and who can actually pull it off are rare. And some have pulled it off successfully (which is why these people keep trying it). But so many journalists/bloggers are convinced they fit this category because they went to school for English literature, despite having little of their own literary success or a unique personality worthy of a story itself, and think they should do it for some random big story on a C list news platform. /rant

Interesting rant. I suppose that's one of the many reasons I dislike modern journalism (this New Journalism subjective style of writing ) and I appreciate you putting it into perspective.

For some reason the famous article "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" came to mind: https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has...

But, a quick read through indicates that the author doesn't reference himself until 10 paragraphs down.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Journalism

They teach New Journalism at most English courses in western universities.

Which isn’t a bad thing but it’s something that writers seem to cling to because it was cool at one point.

It’s easy to get caught up in the advanced (or artistic) stuff before you mastered the basics. Inverted pyramids get lost in that noise https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism...

I thought it was for SEO reasons. They want to add in phrases similar to what a user would search for.

Not sure this community's views on Louis CK, but he had an insightful bit on cross-country travel then and now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUBtKNzoKZ4

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