The Last Pullman Car

[Busjack]

Cruising through the reruns tonight, I ran into Channel 11's homage to Labor Day. which was described as "tense labor negotiations in 1981..." actually lead to the two car works being shut down.

What caught my attention is that the film was about the Hammond plant, which I recognized, as well as news clips from The Times.

There were the clips of the last Amtrak car being pushed out, workers in the union hall fighting over whether to demand their severance now or try to get the plant reopened, and the farewell union picnic, which I believe was in Wicker Park (the miniature train looked familiar).

What hit me was:

• They were talking about "if whoever bought Pullman (Wheelabrator Frye) would bid on a New York contract," or "Kawasaki would bid on the New York contract, they could get back to work," but "a Canadian company got the contract."
• The film was © 1983. IIRC, and Chicago Transit and Railfan backs that up, that was the same time as the local Congressman, Adam Benjamin, was boasting that he got "Japanese Bullet Trains" for the South Shore, but I didn't hear any reference in the part of the movie I saw that the work could have been done in his district. I told my mother (who had just lost her job at some other business in Hammond), when she said that she went to a meeting with Benjamin that "he is not the friend of workers in his district."

So, what do we now have 29 years later:

• That Canadian company opened a plant in Plattsburgh, N.Y., but was caught using cheap Chinese parts.
• Its competitor is a French company in Hornell, N.Y., which is apparently not competitive with the Canadian company.
• At least our governor got the Japanese company to move its assembly plant from Wisconsin to Rochelle.
• Kawasaki is still around.
• In the meantime, Morrison-Kundsen tried to enter the railcar business and quickly failed, but Amerail finished off the Metra order in Pullman, Ill., and the Canadian company took over Budd and closed its Philadelphia plant.

I don't know if there is enough rail car demand in the U.S. to sustain a domestic industry, but we sure threw away the one we had. Bus (except for Gillig and ElDorado National) isn't much better.