Monday, May. 28, 1928
Train & Plane
Air travel in the U. S. is soon to emerge from the spasmodic era of the thermos bottle, the cheese sandwich and the leather jacket. Passengers' safety and comfort are, above all else, to command the attention of the newly formed Transcontinental Air Transport, Inc., which announced its plans last week. It will put into operation, within six months or a year, a 48-hour train & plane service between Manhattan and Los Angeles.
Passengers will board a train at the Pennsylvania Railroad station in Manhattan at 6:05 p. m. Having dined and played and slept and breakfasted, they will step off the train next morning at 8:30 in Columbus, Ohio, where they will be whisked to an airport. Trimotored planes of 14-passenger capacity will be waiting to receive them. Each plane will have two pilots, a steward, light refreshments, room for hand baggage, a luxuriously furnished cabin with ample observation windows. Flying on a schedule calling for 90 m. p. h., occasionally sprinting at 120 m. p. h., the planes will reach St. Louis in time for luncheon, pause in Kansas City, arrive at Wichita, Kan., at 6 p. m. The passengers will then get on a Santa Fe train for a famed Fred Harvey dinner and a good night's sleep. Next morning, somewhere in New Mexico (the city has not yet been chosen), the travelers will again take plane and hop to Los Angeles, completing their journey at 6 p. m. Fred Harvey will also furnish the sky refreshments.
Going the other way, passengers will leave Los Angeles by plane at 8:30 a. m., arrive in Manhattan by train 48 hours later. Thus, the same plan of flying by day and railroading by night will be followed in both directions. This will, no doubt, comfort nervous passengers who might not like the sky at night, and please scenic lovers who might like the view by day. Also, greater safety will be achieved by the elimination of night flying. The treacherous Alleghany mountains will be crossed by train, in both directions.
The Manhattan-Los Angeles route is only one of many that the Transcontinental Air Transport, Inc., plans to cover by train & plane. For example, a daytime airline will operate between Columbus, Ohio, Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Paul. Not neglected will be Palm Beach, New Orleans, Dallas, San Francisco, Spokane, Denver, Detroit, Cleveland, etc. "I can foresee where we may be using a thousand ships or more within a few years," said Walter Sands Marvin of Hemphill Noyes & Co., one of the 19 directors of Transcontinental Air Transport Inc.
Cost. The total fare between Manhattan and Los Angeles will be some $375, as compared with the present railroad fare (including cost of drawing room) of $335.*
Organizer. Dominant in the formation of T. A. T., Inc., were General William Wallace Atterbury, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and Clement Melville Keys, president of Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Co., Inc. General Atterbury had noted that most railroads had failed to cooperate effectively with motorbus lines and he did not want the same thing to happen with airlines. For four years, he planned T. A. T., Inc., with Mr. Keys and executives of the Santa Fe Railroad, Wright Aeronautical Corp., National Air Transport, Inc. (carriers of U. S. mail), and others. "The time is ripe . . .," said General Atterbury last week when T. A. T., Inc., sprang into the public eye as a $5,000,000 corporation and a board of directors which was worth noting as a group of U. S. air leaders.
Directors: Charles Lanier Lawrance, president of the Wright Aeronautical Corp., designer of the Wright Whirlwind motor, winner of the Collier Trophy (TIME, Feb. 13), modest sportsman.
William H. Vanderbilt, son of the late Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, great-great-grandson of the Railroader-Commodore, part owner of an airline between Miami and Havana.
Fred Harvey, polo player, War aviator, young Harvard graduate, largely responsible for the building of an airport in Kansas City. He is son of Ford F. Harvey, who is president of the firm that runs the Santa Fe dining cars and 24 hotels, 41 restaurants, 54 lunchrooms along the Santa Fe route. The original Fred Harvey, now dead, father of Ford F., began business in 1876 in a shed of a depot at Topeka, Kan. His succulent chicken and his eye-easy waitresses quickly made him the Cesar Ritz of the Southwest.
J. Cheever Cowdin, a better polo player (8 goal handicap) than Fred Harvey, vice president and director of Blair & Co., famed investment bankers.
William Benson Mayo, chief engineer of the Ford Motor Co.
Harold McMillan Bixby, president of the Chamber of Commerce of St. Louis, Mo., and Harry B. Knight, of Knight, Dysart & Gamble of St. Louis. Both were backers of Charles Augustus Lindbergh's flight to Paris./-
Julian L. Eysmans and Daniel M. Scheaffer, representing the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Howard Earle Coffin, Earle Reynolds and Col. Paul Henderson, onetime assistant Postmaster General (1922-25), representing National Air Transport, Inc.
Chester Welde Cuthell, chairman of the Air Law Committee of the American Bar Association, counsel for several aeronautical firms.
Walter Sands Marvin, Thomas Eastland,
Richard Hoyt, Leonard Kennedy, James C. Willson--financiers all, members of the houses underwriting T. A. T., Inc. (see p. 30). All of the $5,000,000 issue of stock had been subscribed last week.
Clement Melville Keys, 52, is president of T. A. T., Inc. He had been an investment banker to whom Glenn Curtiss went for advice. The two became firm friends and later Mr. Keys bought the Curtiss Company. He sold out to John North Willys, automobileman, who found the airplane business hard sledding. Mr. Keys again took over the company in 1920 and reorganized it as the Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Co., Inc. He developed slowly at first, realizing that surplus war materials were crowding the market. Meanwhile he experimented with pursuit and observation planes, perfected them; and soon U. S. Army and Navy contracts boomed his production. The Curtiss Falcons were so swift and so sturdy that the British Army upset its usual domestic policy by purchasing several dozen of them. Last summer, Mr. Keys toured Europe by air, observed much that will help T. A. T., Inc.
Flexible are the plans of T. A. T., Inc. It has not yet announced contract awards for either planes or motors. No one manufacturer will be given a hog's share of the contracts. Curtiss, Ford, Fairchild, Glenn Martin, Ryan and others are possible plane builders. Wright, Pratt & Whitney, Curtiss, Ford are possible motor builders. As T. A. T., Inc., expands, it will include railroads other than Pennsylvania and Santa Fe in its network.
* The National Air Transport Co. has been carrying occasional passengers between New York and Chicago in its mail planes for $200. But it takes only one passenger at a time, and he must sit in an open cockpit with his feet surrounded by mail bags and express packages. He leaves Hadley Field, N. J. at 12:15 p. m., arrives in Chicago at 7 p. m. He can also fly to San Francisco for $200 with the Boeing Air Transport Co., in a 2-passenger cabin plane leaving Chicago at 7:50 p. m., reaching San Francisco at 4:30 p. m. next day.
/- Col. Lindbergh refused an offer of an executive position with T. A. T., Inc., but is friendly to its directors and may act later in an advisory capacity.