MAYTAG AMP ad featuring a railroad family in pod rotation
An ad for the Maytag automatic speaks of the generations of family men working on the railroads so their uniforms got plenty dirty. You have to wonder about the health concerns of all of that exposure to the byproducts of coal & Diesel combustion. In pictures of locomotive crews, you see a kerchief around their necks hanging down on their chests. I guess that was to pull up over their nose when the smoke was coming at them like when going through a tunnel.
Back in the 50s or 60s, while waiting for a haircut in a full barbershop, I read of one of the strangest railroad disasters of WWII where a train pulled by two locomotives stopped in a tunnel in the Italian Alps. One of the engines had begun to lose traction. I don't know if the sand tube was clogged or what, but when they found the train after the fires in the locomotives had burned out, one engine was set for reverse and the other had the brakes locked. Everyone on the train perished with the telltale marking of red just beneath the nostrils indicating carbon monoxide poisoning.
In the 80s, there was a big liquidation sale of a hardware/general merchandise store in Hancock, MD that John and I went to. It was right beside the train yard that was maybe a half dozen tracks wide and they had merchandise outside that had been in the place for decades, even stuff from the attic. There was a box with a doll in it. The cellophane window in the box as well as the doll's dress had been eaten away by the acids in the coal smoke & soot and there was a light layer of soot over the whole thing. In addition to the trains, I am sure the town used coal for heating and other purposes over the decades. It was probably not a healthy environment.