Word: stainless
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...miles from Chicago to Aurora, Ill., the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad hauls some 15,000 commuters a day. Some cars are half a century old, draughty in winter, hot and sooty in summer. Last week the Burlington served up a pleasant surprise: it rolled out three new stainless steel, 148-passenger, double-decker cars, the first of 30 being built by Philadelphia's Budd Co. at a cost of $152,000 each. With them, and 70 modernized conventional cars, the Burlington hopes to wean many a new customer from the highways, put its money-losing commuting service into...
Supplying money-making equipment to railroads is an old story to the Budd Co., which sold the first stainless steel streamliner, the Pioneer Zephyr, to the Burlington in 1934. Since World War II the company has sold some $115 million of railroad equipment, gained such a fat share of the market that it is now second only to Pullman as a railroad passenger-car builder. With the help of this booming sideline (Budd gets 83% of its revenue by making auto bodies, wheels, brakes), the company rolled up $137 million in sales for the first six months of 1950, boosted...
When the depression flattened the auto business, Budd's loss snowballed to $1,785,000. To keep his shopmen busy, Budd began building lightweight railroad passenger cars, using the company's patented "Shotweld" process for joining stainless steel sheets. Roads bought the cars eagerly, but Edward Budd spent money hand over fist experimenting on such products as stainless steel masts for ships...
...Long Shots. Budd Sr. died in 1946 and Edward Jr., who had grown up in the company as tool & die maker, factory foreman and general manager, took over as president. He cut out the long-shot experimenting on such things as a stainless steel amphibious plane, and concentrated on railroad and auto equipment. Budd became the world's biggest independent producer of auto body parts, began paying its first regular dividends in 16 years...
...Santa Fe's stainless steel El Capitan, an all-coach express of 16 cars, glittered eastward at 90 m.p.h. on the last leg of the run from Los Angeles. It was 5:40 a.m., and Chicago was only 148 miles away. On an adjoining track, also Chicago-bound, the slower Kansas City Chief clicked along at a modest 65. In both trains, as they raced side by side near Monica, Ill., dawn and restlessness had prodded light sleepers into wakefulness. Washrooms were crowded with women prettying their faces and men shaving...