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What Brought About the Demise of Great Lakes Shipping? I found Joel Stone’s article, “Fighting Head Winds, not Windshields,” in Sea History 169 an interesting read. He makes a number of good points concerning increased labor cost leading to the demise of Great Lakes “Less than Container Load” (LCL) shipping. However, I fear he does not give enough credit to the truck in destroying the Great Lakes LCL shipping. His focus was on long distance movement of LCL goods by truck, which in truth had little effect on Great Lakes shipping in the early part of the 20th century. What he overlooked was the partnership that developed during this period between the railroads and the trucking industry in moving LCL shipments, the Railroad Express Agency (REA). The cost of moving LCL by combined REA truck/train operations was far less than the cost of using a combination of boat and horse and wagon to move LCL goods. The REA truck could daily cover a larger geographic area than a horse-pulled wagon. REA thus provided cheaper and faster LCL service than Great Lakes overnight shipping could. During the 1960s the trucking industry, in the form of FedEx and UPS, deserted the railroads for the airline industry for moving LCL long distance. This FedEx/airline partnership quickly led to the end of overnight passenger train, just like REA/train partnership ended overnight Great Lakes passenger ship service. You continue to provide a nice mix of articles and great information in your sidebar comments. Charles H. Bogart Frankfort, Kentucky NMHS and Saving Historic Ships– In It For the Long Haul Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your excellent email article about the John W. Brown (Sea History Today,* sent by email on 5 December 2019) and her dire need for a permanent berth. I also greatly appreciate your consistent dedication to the
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preservation and promotion of the Brown that goes back to at least 1978 with the creation of “Liberty Ship Preservation” by NMHS (and here’s the announcement!).
As a student in the 1960s, some of the best days of my youth were spent aboard my schoolship in the company of a fraternity of my fellow students and some of the finest men I’ve ever known for instructors. The vast reach that the readership of Sea History and our large and diversified membership has added immensely to the efforts by Project Liberty Ship and the John W. Brown Alumni Association to reach as many people in our Maritime Community as possible. Rick Lai John W. Brown Alumni Association Copper Hill, Virginia The WWII Liberty Ship John W. Brown was faced with a potential crisis in the last several months, as she was being evicted from her longtime home pier in Baltimore. But there is good news! The ship has found a new berth and will share the pier with NS Savannah, the world’s first nuclear-powered combination cargo and passenger ship. The new address is at Pier 13, 4601 Newgate Avenue, Baltimore. Further information can be found at the ship’s website (www.ssjohnwbrown.org). *Sea History Today is a biweekly e-newsletter written by Shelley Reid, NMHS senior staff writer. Sign up to receive Sea History Today and other maritime news at www. seahistory.org/signup, and join thousands of fellow enthusiasts who are raising awareness of our seafaring heritage and creating a constituency to advocate for our maritime legacy. SEA HISTORY 170, SPRING 2020