February 1953 page 3

KEEPING TRACK...
THE UNITED STATES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE has come up with a new
way to illustrate the fabulous national budget and its resulting high tax rates.
"In 1953," says the Chamber, "you won't start working for yourself until April
22. Taxes will equal all wages, salaries, rents, interest and dividends received
by the American people from January 1 through April 22, 1953." In short, taxes
are equivalent to 30 per cent of the yearly national income.
* * * * *
THE INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT EISENHOWER proved how versa-
tile railroad cars can be. Some 600 extra Pullman sleeping cars were needed to
haul visitors to Washington and about 480 of these were parked in rail yards
and maintained as living quarters for 9,600 people. Thirty steam locomotives kept
the Pullman city supplied with heat and water, gas-driven generators supplied
the electricity, and sanitation facilities were installed under the supervision of
the Washington Health Department. There were even telephone booths. Maybe
Rome wasn't built in a day, but Pullman City came mighty close to it.
* * * * *
PIEDMONT & NORTHERN LOCOMOTIVES traveled a combined distance
of 552,704 miles during 1952-enough mileage to have gotten them to the moon
and back with room to spare. The S. C. Division accounted for 392,182 miles
and the N.C. Division for 160,522.
* * * * *
PHOTOGRAPHING THE P & N at work is not always the easiest job in the
world. Sometimes the weather and hard luck combine to make it a pretty
tough pursuit. In order to prevent long tie-ups of vehicle traffic at grade cross-
ings in South Carolina most of railroad's heaviest tonnage is handled at
night. That means the day-time trains are usually shorter and therefore not so
photogenic...but they are only ones the cmaera can see. Last month we
went out to try to get a good picture of a double-headed diesel freight. First of
all, the weather (it was raining pitchforks) all but drowned us out as we headed
for rendezvous with a freight train at an overpass near Williamston. Fortunately
the rain stopped just in time, some pictures were made, and everybody was
happy. But when the pictures were developed the happiness ended. Without
knowing it we had photographed a disesel which had only one side of its pilot
striped in the familiar black and white diagonal lines- the other side had just
undergone repairs and the paint had not yet been replaced. The lopsidedness of
the engine's paint job had finished what the weather had started out to do. We
haven't given up yet, though.
* * * * *
CITIZENS OF GASTONIA were militantly indignant when TV Cameras at
the inaugural parade looked elsewhere as the colorful American Legion drum &
bugle corps, the town's pride and joy, paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue. Their
pride was so wounded that they demanded retribution from Tarheel-born Ed-
ward R. Murrow. The CBS commentator sent a camera man down, filmed the
drum and bugle corps in action on home grounds, and televised it to the nation
on his program "See It Now." Afterward Gastonia magnanimously forgave CBS.
One of the star performers in the corps: P&N's T. V. McIntosh, lately of Gas-
tonia, now commercial agent in Charlotte.

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