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Celebrating our two-lane highways of yesteryear…And the joys of driving them today!

1945 Road Trip


mobilene
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Given the announcement of the stops I would say this trip began in eastern Pennsylvania and ended in Pittsburg - I've been over the Pennsy numerous times over the years. I got a kick out of the fans on the steering column and one pointed toward the right side windshield. For you "you'uns" that was the defroster system back in those days.

Bus trips were pretty good back then - and not to shabby today. Last one I made was back in Dec 2007 from Memphis to Jackson, MS. Interesting - especially when you find talkative passengers to share the miles with.

 

Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

Memphis, TN

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Given the announcement of the stops I would say this trip began in eastern Pennsylvania and ended in Pittsburg - I've been over the Pennsy numerous times over the years. I got a kick out of the fans on the steering column and one pointed toward the right side windshield. For you "you'uns" that was the defroster system back in those days.

Bus trips were pretty good back then - and not to shabby today. Last one I made was back in Dec 2007 from Memphis to Jackson, MS. Interesting - especially when you find talkative passengers to share the miles with.

 

Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

Memphis, TN

 

Alex,

 

Good to see you back!

 

Jim didn't say where he got this movie, but a good spot for old road movies is www.archive.org. Try a search on "travelogue" to get started.

 

Dad was a street car conductor, later a bus driver, and still later he managed the transit system of a large California city. Those were the days when a farm boy, actually born in a log cabin, of immigrant parents, with only a high school education, could rise all the way to the "top." When I was a kid, Dad would sometimes drive a special bus run to someplace like the county fair, and we would get to sit behind him, so the view in Jim's movie is really familiar.

 

Did you note the shiny peddles on the air brakes? Till the day he died, when we were on a family drive, when he stopped the car, he "automatically" made the "hiss" sound of air brakes.

 

If you get to Archive.org, you can see a drug store where I worked as a "soda jerk." And you know you are getting old when a historical society wants your old home movies, and folks offer you money for them!

 

One great advantage of the interstates is that they have usually taken the traffic off the old two lane roads. When you see that coupe in the movie pass head on toward the bus, it brings back really unpleasant memories. Our two lane roads today have been cut down so there are far fewer blind hills, they have been widened a lot, with generous shoulders, and there is a lot less traffic. I can bemoan the loss of the "old" feeling, but I can also relax a lot more.

 

Dave

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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Did someone say blind hills?

 

5817845603_895e013edc_z.jpg

IMG_2140 by mobilene, on Flickr

 

Jim,

 

A pure classic! Should be in the old driving instruction books. Typical narrow roadbed, no shoulders, no where to escape....all you could do was keep your fingers crossed that the guy coming the other way was sober and not in a hurry to pass. Seeing that hill makes me want to get out and walk!

 

As much as I used to like to "get up and go," on roads like that I fell behind someone who would have to take it in the teeth. There was one section of the old road near Fallbrook, California where recruits from the local Marine base couldn't resist passing on the curves. The only way to survive was to ride what I called "shotgun," behind someone.

 

Thanks for the photo!!

 

Dave

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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Yeah, on this one you couldn't even really drive off the road on the right. You'd hit the hill on the side.

 

That's 97-year-old concrete, by the way.

Jim

 

I'm not surprised at the age. I use "single span with no center relief joint" as an indicator of concrete laid before the early 1920's. It probably isn't a hard and fast rule, but "experience" and review of road building bid specs sure suggests it strongly. Do you have a perspective on this "critical and popular topic?" Maybe we can get on TV with "How to date concrete roadbeds!" :lol:

 

The photo really is a classic.

 

Dave

 

Keep the Show on the Road!

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Dave,

 

I haven't formed my theories about roadbuilding practices across the ages and rely on research to tell me what I know, but I'm sure in time I'll start to notice commonalities and become better at dating things. I do have one theory now that I think about it -- when I see concrete or brick on an old road, I assume 1910s-1920s. Seems like the asphalt age took off in the 1930s and we have, with some exception, not looked back. But that's just from observation and what little research I've done on the roads I've encountered.

 

I lost an eBay auction for a 1923 copy of Concrete Highways Magazine showing Ohio State Route 1 -- i.e., the National Road -- concreted. I did get a screen shot of the cover from the auction page. I've attached it.

 

jim

NR Ohio Concrete Highways 12-1923.jpg

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"Right on time, too!"

 

Got a kick out of that line, as well as:

 

"Mr Fisher has to look out for all kinds of careless drivers on the highway."

 

 

Neat video.

 

 

As for "blind hills", we have a few of those around here, including one at a major intersection along US Route 20 in Elgin's east side.

 

 

 

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