Museum of Transportation

On this day August 25th in 1950, in anticipation of a crippling strike by railroad workers, President Harry S. Truman issues an executive order putting America’s railroads under the control of the U.S. Army, as of August 27, at 4:00 pm. Truman had already intervened in another railway dispute when union employees of the Chicago, North Shore and Milwaukee Railway Company threatened to strike in 1948. This time, however, Truman’s intervention was critical, as he had just ordere...d American troops into a war against North Korean communist forces in June. Since much of America’s economic and defense infrastructure was dependent upon the smooth functioning of the railroads, the 1950 strike proposed by two enormous labor organizations, the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen and the Order of Railway Conductors, posed an even greater threat. In July, Truman ordered the formation of an emergency board to negotiate a settlement between the railroad unions and owners. The unions ultimately rejected the board’s recommendations and, by August 25, seemed determined to carry out the strike. In a public statement that day, Truman insisted that governmental seizure [of the railroads] is imperative for the protection of American citizens as well as essential to the national defense and security of the Nation. He used the same justification for seizing control of steel plants when the United Steel Workers union struck later in the year. The railroad strike lasted for 21 months. Finally, in May 1952, the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, the Order of Railway Conductors and another union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, accepted the Truman administration’s terms and went back to work.

On this day August 20th, 1911, a dispatcher in the New York Times office sends the first telegram around the world via commercial service. Exactly 66 years later, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) sends a different kind of messagea phonograph record containing information about Earth for extraterrestrial beingsshooting into space aboard the unmanned spacecraft Voyager II. The Times decided to send its 1911 telegram in order to determine how fast a com...Continue reading

August 14, 1864 - Union General Ulysses S. Grant tries to cut a vital Confederate lifeline into Petersburg, Virginia, with an attack on the Weldon Railroad at Globe Tavern in Virginia. Although the Yankees succeeded in capturing a section of the line, the Confederates simply used wagons to bring supplies from the railhead into the city. Grant’s spring campaign against General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia ended at Petersburg, 20 miles south of Richmond. In June, G...rant ceased frontal assaults, and the two armies settled into trenches for a siege. Grant sought to break the stalemate by severing the Weldon and Petersburg Railroad, which ran south to Weldon, North Carolina. The line was one of two that now supplied Lee’s army from other points in the South. Grant’s first attack, on June 22, failed. Now Grant attacked with General Gouvernor K. Warren’s corps at the Globe Tavern. On August 18, Warren’s men succeeded in capturing part of the line. In a battle that raged for the next five days, the Confederates tried to recapture the line, but the Yankees remained in control of a short section around the tavern. Despite control over this area, the Union did not prevent the Weldon line from supplying Lee’s army. The Confederates simply stopped their trains one day south of Petersburg and used wagons to haul the cargo around the break. On August 25, a Confederate offensive would return control of the railroad to the Rebels; but nearly four months later, Grant would finally succeed in destroying the railroad.

August 18. 1978 - The Double Eagle II completes the first transatlantic balloon flight when it lands in a barley field near Paris, 137 hours after lifting off from Preque Isle, Maine. The helium-filled balloon was piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman and flew 3,233 miles in the six-day odyssey. Human flight first became a reality in the early 1780s with the successful development of the hot-air balloon by French papermaking brothers Joseph and Etienne Mont...Continue reading

August 13, 1902 - German engineer Felix Wankel, inventor of a rotary engine that will be used in race cars, is born on August 13, 1902, in Lahr, Germany. Wankel reportedly came up with the basic idea for a new type of internal combustion gasoline engine when he was only 17 years old. In 1924, Wankel set up a small laboratory where he began the research and development of his dream engine, which would be able to attain intake, compression, combustion and exhaust, all while rot...ating. He brought his knowledge of rotary valves to his work with the German Aeronautical Research Establishment during World War II, and to a leading German motorcycle company, NSU Motorenwerk AG, beginning in 1951. Wankel completed his first design of a rotary-piston engine in 1954, and the first unit was tested in 1957. In other internal-combustion engines, moving pistons did the work of getting the combustion process started; in the Wankel rotary engine, an orbiting rotor in the shape of a curved equilateral triangle served this purpose. Fewer moving parts created a smoothly performing engine that was lightweight, compact, low-cost and required fewer repairs. After NSU officially announced the completion of the Wankel rotary engine in late 1959, some 100 companies around the world rushed to propose partnerships that would get the engine inside their products. Mazda, the Japanese automaker, signed a formal contract with NSU in July 1961, after receiving approval from the Japanese government. In an attempt to experiment with the rotary engine and perfect it for use in its vehicles, Mazda formed an RE (Rotary Engine) Research Department in 1963. The Cosmo Sport, which Mazda released in May 1967, was the planet’s first dual-rotor rotary engine car. With futuristic styling and superior performance, the Cosmo wowed car enthusiasts worldwide. Mazda began installing rotary engines in its sedans and coupes in 1968, and the vehicles hit the U.S. market in 1971. In the wake of a global oil crisis in 1973-74, Mazda continually worked on improving its rotary engines to improve fuel efficiency, and by the end of that decade its sports cars had become popular in both Europe and the United States In addition to Mazda, a number of other companies licensed the Wankel engine during the 1960s and 1970s, including Daimler-Benz, Alfa Romeo, Rolls Royce, Porsche, General Motors, Suzuki and Toyota. Meanwhile, Wankel continued his own work with the rotary piston engine, forming his own research establishment in Lindau, Germany, in the mid-1970s. In 1986, he sold the institute for 100 million Deutschmarks (around $41 million) to Daimler Benz, maker of the Mercedes. Wankel filed a new patent as late as 1987; the following year, he died after a long illness.

This short video features streetcars operating out of Wellston Station and through the City of St. Louis shortly before streetcar service ended in the 1960s. Historic footage is courtesy of Mark D. Goldfeder, President of The St. Louis Railway Enthusiasts, Inc. (SLRE).