Big, progressive Timken Roller Bearing Co., a railroad supplier for 37 years, last week went out of its way to offend one of its best customers. In full-page newspaper ads, run in 23 U.S. cities, it stingingly rebuked the railroads for technical backwardness, urged them to avoid "serious freight congestion" by converting all their freight cars from friction bearings to roller bearings at once.
Roller bearings, said Timken's intrepid ad, would permit "one-speed" railroading (identical speeds for freight and passenger trains), would accelerate the whole defense program, save building many new cars....
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
