I'm increasingly aware of voices being raised in this country saying we are being led into socialism. Please calm down, people, we have had socialism in this country for hundreds of years. One can trace every private property title back to the royal sovereign, the state in other words. The very concept of private property in this country derives from the permission of the sovereign. In our case the sovereign being the citizens of the United States.
Early railroad pioneer Colonel John Stevens of Hoboken, New Jersey was granted the first charter for a railroad in America in 1815. The line was to run between New Brunswick and Trenton, New Jersey, approximately where Amtrak's Northeast Corridor is today. But, in Stevens' own words, "... the public mind was not sufficiently enlightened to induce moneyed men to embark their funds in a project then considered wild and impracticable."
In 1823 a charter was granted Stevens by the Pennsylvania State Legislature authorizing the construction of a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia. Although early surveys of the line were made at Stevens' expense, lack of sufficient funds prevented any construction. Few people at that time believed steam locomotion was practical, so it was perhaps natural that in 1824 the Pennsylvania State Legislature appointed a board of canal commissioners who were to report on the feasibility of a water route to the west. By 1828 the board, reacting to private inaction, decided to fund the building of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad and the state appropriated $2 million for this work. Thus, the birth of the private Pennsylvania Railroad was started by some 20 years of public ownership and funding.
Today, the very people making all the noise about a socialism they know little about say nothing about driving over government owned and operated streets to public highways taking them to public airports to fly on airplanes operated in a government owned and operated navigation and control system. The entire transportation system in America is largely owned and heavily subsidized by governments from the smallest village up to the national government. One exception is the nation's largely private freight railroad systems, the world's leaders in their field.
When the whining complainers try to raise fears about socialist medicine they don't stop to consider the role of government in health care. The entire field of trauma medicine from helicopters to surgical techniques was developed at the expense of government, mostly by government employed doctors treating government employed soldiers. The entire field of tropical medicine is run and funded by the federal government. The treatment and prevention of Hansen's Disease (leprosy) is a government operation as is the entire field of epidemiology. The federal government departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs own and operate the country's largest health care system. Our own personal protection ranging from the village police officer to the American soldier is almost totally government owned and operated. We, as a nation, approve of all the existing socialism. That's why the Tea Party folks and such sound like foolish little children, making noise about things they don't understand.
Could be just about any product.
Looking towards the Dillerville Road overpass and tracks which will remain after the yard relocation
Yard locomotive storage (GP38-2's) with the blue yard office.
Locomotive storage with the street beyond where trains used to run until the early 1930's.
Before Armstrong floor plant demolition looking across the tracks leading from the yardmaster's office and locomotive storage to the yard.
Locomotive servicing and storage.
Dillerville in 2005
Grain from the Upper Midwest
Caboose for the night local jobs
The inheritor of the Illinois Central and its run from Chicago to New Orleans
This is all you can see of the Norfolk Southern Dillerville Yard in Lancaster, Pennsylvania if you go up on the Dillerville Road overpass. When the yard is relocated (a job currently under way) the tracks will probably end somewhere behind the greenery in this view. This is to leave enough track length for handling daily NS trains 10G and 11G.
Above, the only remnant of days when the tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad penetrated the downtown area of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This track is used for locomotive storage and provides a little extra length to clear switches.
