railway express agency
railway express agency, inc. v. virginia, 358 u. s. 434
railway express agency vintage repo embossed tin sign 14x9. 5 ships same or next business day
urltoken an undated poster advertises railway express agency’s shipping capabilities. courtesy of allen county historical society
railway express agency paper lot as pictured. nos and unused stickers, cards, tags, etc
railway express agency v. virginia, supra; spector motor service v. o' connor ,
urltoken this photo from 1964 shows lima’s railway express agency location. courtesy of allen county historical society
railway express agency, inc. v. virginia, 358 u. s. 434 (1959 )
a sign that likely once hung in the railway express agency location explains the service’s restrictions on mail .
thanks to tom heath for providing the photos of the railway express agency and wearever store display photos and background .
urltoken this undated photo shows a refrigerated car employed by the railway express agency. courtesy of allen county historical society
note: this model reflects railway express agency' s paint scheme in the
as delivered
colors (1947) .
near the front end of many passenger trains during the heyday of railway express would be a car bearing the red - diamond sign of the railway express agency. the trademark sign became a common sight across the country on baggage carts and the green railway express delivery trucks. in lima, the first railway express office (the company was known as american railway express until 1929) was at 333 n. main st. , according to the 1918 city directory .
urltoken a sign that likely once hung in the railway express agency location explains the service’s restrictions on mail. courtesy of allen county historical society
railway express agency, inc. v. virginia: : 358 u. s. 434 (1959): : justia us supreme court center
origional vintage railroad express agency small revolver leather gun holster. - on the front is marked railroad express agency - on the back where you would attach to the belt is marked 305cx 38 ...
porcelain railway express 6 ft x 1 ft. condition speaks for itself, check photos. .
railway express agency v. new york 336 u. s. 106, 69 s. ct. 463, 93 l. ed. 533 (1949 )
…american railway express company (see rea express, inc .), american express turned almost wholly to its banking operations and its relatively new travel services, which had been launched in 1915. …
some of the early delivery companies included wells fargo, american express, united states express, southern express, pony express (only in business 18 months), and others were all doing business by the time of the civil war. these companies began merging with other shipping companies. by 1900, just six companies remained: adams express, american express, pacific express, southern express, united states express and wells fargo .
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railway express agency, inc v. new york 336 u. s. 106, 69 s. ct. 463, 93 l. ed. 533, 1949 u. s .
photo captions: 1. richmond, fredericksburg, and potomac railway express agency car, 0 - 4 - 0 tank steam engine. 2. maintenance motorized unit for track inspection and repair .
district accounting system, illustration of and instructions on use of forms used by american railway express co. , 1921 april 1
hi! a visitor to our site felt the following article might be of interest to you: railway express agency: a once - booming shipping service. here is a link to that story: urltoken
railway express also was plagued by strikes, often during the busy christmas season. additionally, work stoppages occurred whenever the agency’s lifeline, the railroads, experienced strikes or other problems. in the aftermath of world war ii, when a coal shortage forced the railroads to cut back on passenger train service, railway express felt the pinch. on dec. 6, 1946, the news reported the lima railway express office would lay off 25 of its 46 employees ,
lima — today we have fedex and ups; we can ship goods anywhere in the united states within a day. one hundred years ago, the railway express agency was the way to transport goods across the country .
materials relating to the northwestern u. s. operations of the freight shipping company railway express agency (rea), consisting primarily of records created by the seattle office of the brotherhood of railway clerks in their relations with rea. includes correspondence (1921 - 1943), bulletins (1939 - 1963), express rates, delivery sheets, and ephemera .
just inside the flood wall on the south side of mayo bridge on hull street in richmond virginia is the richmond railroad museum. the museum is operated by the old dominion chapter of the national railway historical society. since 1994, the rrm has steadily grown from a temporary space in a restored railway express agency car into a collection housed in the restored southern railway station .
…into bankruptcy in 1975 as rea express, inc .). wells fargo’s foreign express business continued independently until 1924, when the american express company acquired a controlling interest in wells fargo stock and absorbed the remaining wells fargo express business. during the years under american express, however, wells fargo also developed security…
you can search for a long time and still not find one of these railway express agency porcelain signs in the 10 foot long version! it’s one foot tall and absolutely a commanding piece in any wall! for ...
american railway express company was established by the u. s. government in 1918, during world war i, at the same time that the government took over the nation’s railroads. the domestic express businesses and property of the nation’s major express carriers—adams & company (founded 1842), american express company (founded 1850), wells, fargo & company (founded 1852), and southern express company (founded 1861) —were expropriated and merged into a public corporation. after the war the domestic express businesses were not returned to their original owners (unlike the return of the railroads) but remained with the american railway express company .
the atlas ho master express 1947 reefer rea express 6118 models the new steel reefer cars with welded construction and high speed trucks designed for the faster post world war ii streamlined passenger trains. the car design featured collapsible ice bunkers that enabled these cars to handle both express and parcel traffic as well as perishable items as required. the railway express agency (rea) ordered 500 of these express reefer cars in 1947 in anticipation of the postwar passenger train boom. starting in the 1950s and continuing into the 1960s the demise of the passenger train caused the rea express fleet to decline as well .
with the announcement that pittston was designated an airport office for the railway express agency, direct air express service between pittston and 1, 000 airport cities in the united states and canada was established. the service via american airlines, colonial and t. w. a. created 16 flights daily. express shipments were handled by passenger and well as cargo planes. in 1947, express handled three million shipments with a total weight of more than 55 million pounds. railway express boomed during the post world war ii era after adding refrigerator service. but in the early 60s, the business saw a decline. by the late 60s, then named rea express, filed for bankruptcy .
the appellant, railway express agency (appellant), sells advertising space on the side of its trucks. the appellee, new york (appellee), recently passed a law forbidding advertising vehicles when the advertisements were not related to the business of the vehicle .
although closely tied to the railroads, some of which held stock in the company, railway express was not actually a railroad. it acted as a third party in handling all express shipments which the railroads otherwise would have to handle .
on december 7, 1928, however, 86 of the nation’s railroads joined in setting up railway express agency, inc. , which in 1929 bought out the american railway express company and proceeded to operate the express business under private ownership. forty years later a group of the company’s officials secured controlling interest in the company, and in 1960 the company’s name was changed to rea express, inc. faulty management, strikes by the brotherhood of railway & airline clerks, and competition from the u. s. postal service and united parcel service led to drastic financial losses, and on february 18, 1975, rea filed for bankruptcy and was adjudicated bankrupt nine months later .
railway express was born during world war i when, on june 30, 1918, after nationalizing the railroads the u. s. government did the same for express services, which at that time consisted of about five companies including american express and wells fargo. the move coincided with the introduction of motorized trucks to speed up delivery .
express service - - united states - - northwest, pacific - - history .
to preserve the railroad history of richmond the rrm has been patient and goal oriented to grow their museum. the old dominion chapter of the national railway historical society was given the building and bought the land; however, their riverside location prevented restoring the southern railway station until the flood wall was completed. their interim solution from 1994 - 2009 was a museum in a restored rf & p railway express agency car. finally, in 2011 the rrm opened their museum in the restored station .
the franchises of express companies. it provides [ footnote 3 ] in pertinent part that
uniform express receipt book, no. 797 - 1000 customers (old volume viii )
a great personal history which explains much about what made railway express agency work so well, and why it eventually collapsed, is
ten turtles to tucumcari: a personal history of the railway express agency
( isbn: 0826330495) by klink garrett & toby smith, university of new mexico press, albuquerque, new mexico, 2003. (hardcover) copies are available thru urltoken and other sellers: http: / / urltoken / servlet / searchresults? sts = t & amp; tn = ten + turtles + tucumcari & amp; x = 34 & amp; y = 8 - doug debs golden gate railroad museum
railway express agency came into existence as a railroad - owned organization in 1929, succeeding american railway express which had consolidated most of the nation' s several express operations in 1918. the standard operating agreement between individual railroads and rea presented accounting and efficiency problems which were never overcome. rea volume peaked in 1944 and began a decline. as revenues dropped, railroads were unable to identify costs but assumed express represented a deficit operation leading to a new basis for operation in 1959 which expanded highway operation, piggyback, containerization and palletization. railroad ownership ended in 1969 but new management was unable to stem decline of small - shipment traffic, rea entered bankruptcy in 1975 and liquidation followed .
on dec. 30, 1996, the first trinity railway express commuter train pulled out of dallas — and in doing so showed that it was possible to get around north texas without a car .
within this state of express transported through, into, or out of this state .
urltoken a photo from 1912 shows a gramm express truck. courtesy of allen county historical society
a statute promulgated by the state of new york (plaintiff) prohibited vehicles devoted solely to displaying advertisements, but permitted business vehicles to display signs related to their business as long as the business vehicles were not solely used for advertising. railway express agency, inc. (defendant) was engaged in a nationwide express business and operated about 1, 900 trucks in new york city. it sold the space on the exterior sides of its trucks for advertising that was primarily unrelated to its business. railway was convicted of violating the new york statute in the magistrate’s court and fined. the conviction was sustained by the court of special sessions, and the court of appeals affirmed. railway express agency, inc. appealed to the united states supreme court on the grounds that the regulation did not bear a rational relation to a legitimate state purpose and was thus unconstitutional under the equal protection clause .
that same year, in lima, the news reported, narcotics agents uncovered a “gigantic dope ring. ” early in november 1921, agents tracked a shipment of morphine and cocaine worth $ 100, 000 from st. louis, missouri, to the railway express facility at the baltimore & ohio station in lima. eventually, several local people, including railway express workers, were convicted for involvement in the drug ring .
first and second class express rates, i. c. c. 8460, 1959 september 1
copy of address given by john f. griner at national association of retired and veteran railway employees, 1960 may 2
from live turkeys and chinchillas to soap box derby cars to jewelry and other valuables, the railway express agency handled almost anything that could be shipped. this proved irresistible to criminals. as early as 1919, the lima news reported a thief was caught attempting to sell a $ 100 clarinet he’d pilfered from the railway express office for a bargain price of $ 20. that same year, the news reported about $ 500 worth of goods, including a typewriter, was stolen. in 1923, a man was caught stealing two cases of ginger ale from the lima office .
although the company hung on for years, the end finally came along with the recession in 1975. in february, the railway express agency, known simply as rea since 1969, filed for bankruptcy. with the company losing money hand over fist for years, it was now in exponential debt. on average, rea had lost $ 50 million a year since 1969 .
the railway express agency delivery truck photos show three different pens. the second photo in this article shows the pacemaker model, easy to read in the advertisement. the pacemaker was heavily advertised by wearever and featured a 14 karat gold nib for only $ 2. 75 and a matching set with pencil for $ 3. 75. the pen came in maroon, golden brown and green striped plastic or solid black. wearever frequently advertised the pacemaker, zenith and de luxe models from 1945 to 1947, but the other two railway express agency delivery truck photos don' t appear in any of the major magazine advertisements i could find. fortunately, i had a page from a 1947 montgomery ward catalog that showed both of these two pens, though they are unnamed .
the appellant, railway express agency (appellant), brought suit against the appellee, the state of new york (appellee). the appellant argued that a statute prohibiting advertising on vehicles, except for notices upon business delivery vehicles engaged in the regular work of the owner, are unconstitutional for violating the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment of the united states constitution (constitution) .
1. a virginia statute provides a separate system of taxation for express companies. in lieu of all taxes on their other intangible property and rolling stock, it levies on express companies a
franchise tax
measured by gross receipts from their operations within virginia, including receipts derived from transportation within the state of express transported through, into or out of the state .
klink garrett and toby smith wrote a book titled
ten turtles to tucumcari: a personal history of the railway express .
the rea was a nonprofit corporation owned by several railroads, all of which owned several levels of stock in the company. its boardroom was located in new york city. the largest shareholders gained a seat on the board of directors. new rea presidents were voted in and conducted discussions on the company’s direction and affairs. the company provided a tremendous service because it acted as a third party in handling all express shipments that railroads didn’t have to deal with directly. the rea railroad cars were usually located near the passenger cars. the cars were decorated with a “railway express agency” sign. in newspaper ads of the 1930s, the slogan was “ship your christmas packages by the safe, sure way… the rea. ”
william harnden launched the earliest version of the railway express agency four years later. through the law of supply and demand, harnden perceived a need by the general public for parcel shipping. his company delivered its first packages using the railroads to new york city from boston in march 1839. he formed harnden’s first express as business expanded. harnden even began shipments using steamboats. when harnden died in 1845, his business merged with adams express thus creating a new industry of shipping. the expansion of the railroads sparked much growth for the shipping industry. the railroads could deliver parcels at previously unheard of speeds. what used to take days or weeks could now be accomplished in just a few hours .
bob baulsir, fort worth transportation authority vp for commuter rail, said the agency is looking into broadening the training of tre ticket checkers to help them respond to disruptive passengers .
before the modern companies fedex and ups, the railway express agency was the best way to ship express parcels across the country. when you needed to ship a parcel to chicago or new orleans or new york to los angeles, the rea was the best company to do so. it rapidly expanded to thousands of small offices located across america. its headquarters was in new york city. thousands of americans came to depend on the rea for their shipping needs. the company developed a unique logo which was a red diamond - shaped sign, green delivery trucks, baggage carts and railroad equipment .
generally, however, business was good in the 1940s. “more than 10, 000 trains traveling daily on 230, 000 miles of track throughout the united states on passenger train schedules are employed in carrying 179, 000 shipments annually, according to the railway express, ” an article in the news in october 1944 revealed .
although the accounts of drug rings and robberies grabbed the headlines, railway express on a daily basis was running a thriving business in communities large and small across the country. and, in 1927, the same year that charles lindbergh flew solo across the atlantic ocean, the company announced it would inaugurate aerial delivery across the continent .
i once had at least one master contract that railway express had with each railroad. mine was with the boston and maine and i donated it to the boston & maine historical society, but since it is a master contract, there are probably others reposing in many of the railroad historical societies. also, pullman had master contracts .
in august, 2015, after a trip to the washington, d. c. pen show, i was contacted by tom heath, who furnished the photos in this article. he told me they represented an advertising campaign on the sides of railway express agency delivery trucks in new york city by david kahn, inc. for its newest wearever pen lines. also included in the set of undated photos was one of a store display. this was going to be a forensic adventure until tom and i could meet and i could get more data .
volume v: claims made to express board of judgement no. 1; includes: claim statement of claiment, rubuttal, decision; decisions e1498 to e1574
check out our free graphics software and images to find out about tools like pixlr or photoshop express that help you make images the way you want them .
thieves in cleveland dreamed bigger. in 1921, according to a wire service story in the news, they tampered with rails near willoughby in the hopes of derailing a 14 - car railway express train carrying about $ 1 million in goods. although the train left the tracks, none of the cars overturned, and none of the loot spilled out .
, american company that at one time operated the nation’s largest ground and air express services, transporting parcels, money, and goods, with pickup and delivery .
alteration in the demonstration the court made on the prior appeal with respect to the status as a property tax of the gross receipts tax on express companies. while the tax may be a rough equivalent of some sort of property tax that virginia might conceivably levy on express companies, i do not see that it has been made clear that it bears any equivalence to any sort of property tax that she in fact levies on other sorts of businesses, or has in fact previously levied on express companies .
in march 1920, congress passed the transportation act known as the esch - cummins act. it returned the railroads to private control, which president woodrow wilson signed into law. thus, the rea became a private corporation. at that time, directors decided on a deep green and red and white logo color combination for the company. with the prosperity of the 1920s, a new company was formed known as the railway express agency on dec. 7, 1928. railroads then purchased stock from a pool of 1, 000 shares. the new york central bought 144 shares while the illinois central bought 29 .
two years later, in october 1946, the news wrote that “september saw the largest number of railway express shipments through the lima office in 20 years, possibly ever, according to w. m. dalton, lima agent. ” more than 25, 000 individual shipments were recorded, breaking the previous mark of 23, 000 set in august, dalton told the news .
the mits computer was ready that summer. ed said it could be sold as a kit for about $ 400, which was fantastic since i knew the radio - electronics mark - 8 computer was having difficulties (no peripherals, no language, etc .). one day he phoned to say his first computer was being shipped to me by railway express agency. a week later, no computer had arrived. i complained to the people at rea, who retorted :
our computer has never lost anything !
during the fourth week they went bankrupt, having lost not only the first mits computer but their entire shipping empire as well .
rex 4037 was one of fifty express refrigerator cars owned by the santa fe and assigned to the express pool. these cars were wide and restricted east of harrisburg on the prr as they would not fit through the new york tunnels. once one got through in error and did a lot of damage to platforms and to the car itself before the train was stopped .
north east rails © clint chamberlin. photos for personal use only. all rights reserved by original owner of image. reproduction or redistribution in any form without express written permission is prohibited .
the collection consists primarily of records collected by the seattle office of the brotherhood of railway clerks (b. r. c .). these detail the union' s dealings with rea over issues of wages, promotions, and employment classification. included is correspondence (1921 - 1943), bulletins (1939 - 1963), lists of express rates, delivery sheets, signs, tags, labels, pamphlets, and other ephemera .
to be all receipts on business beginning and ending within this state and all receipts derived from the transportation within this state of express transported through, into, or out of this state .
my father drove a rea truck for years after serving as an express messenger on the ny central. i' ll guarantee that the rea made home deliveries. dad would carry a trunk up three flights of stairs. he met every local at little falls, ny, loaded and unloaded express cargo, then delivered the incoming via truck. he retired in 1960 or thereabouts after 37 years of service. he left us in 1974 .
the pen set in the third photo, with the slogan ,
whichever you like... you' ll like wearever ,
is a less expensive pen offered with a gold plated stainless steel medium nib in black or dark green striped plastic. the pen had gold plated trim including the clip and wide cap band. it sold for $ 1. 00 and the set with matching pencil sold for $ 1. 75. what' s really interesting is the railway express agency delivery truck photo shows a matching ballpoint pen, also for $ 1. 00, a writing instrument i was completely unaware of. this photo shows that wearever was offering a capped ballpoint pen as early as 1946 or 1947, priced the same as the matching fountain pen, a pricing strategy also used by sheaffer and eversharp .
we are not convinced by appellant' s
bootstrap
argument that the express privileges it enjoys have no value to it, because all of its net income by agreement with the railroads is paid over to them. we believe it more accurate to rely on its admission that
no one would question the fact that appellant' s exclusive express privileges on the railroads are valuable contract rights .
this concession, when taken in the light of the expressed purpose of appellant that the payment of its net income for the use of the express privileges was solely to make certain
that the express company shall have no net taxable income ,
exposes the frivolous nature of this contention. we are not so blinded to business realities as to permit such a manipulation of the finances of appellant, the railroads' wholly owned subsidiary, to frustrate the commonwealth in its effort to collect an otherwise fair tax .
at this time, the rea had a monopoly on the shipment of freight on railroads. it was obliged to ship all kinds of good, including motion picture reels, circus animals, and hazardous materials. in 1965, the rea joined the seven arts associated corporation and travel theaters inc. to form rea express - seven arts transvision inc. besides handling domestic parcel shipping, the rea expanded into international shipments and even owned an air express service .
by the mid 1970s the company' s profits were decreasing due, in part, to the domination of the railroad companies, high inflation, and a decline in express shipments. in 1975 it filed for chapter xi bankruptcy .
[ e ] ach express company... shall... pay to the state a franchise tax which shall be in lieu of taxes upon all of its other intangible property and in lieu of property taxes on its rolling stock .
the foundation received the official papers of one of the foremost codebreakers of the 20 th century during the april 23rd event. the afternoon’s series of presentations from scholars and experts from the foundation, the national security agency (nsa) and the national archives and records administration (nara) discussed william friedman, who is considered to be the leading codebreaking pioneer in the united states in the 20 th century .
my dad started working for the railway express in about 1943 and ran as a messenger from ashland, wisconsin to antigo on the north western (the run actually ran all the way to chicago. we moved to okla city in
46
and he ran as a messenger out of okc on the
frisco and the santa fe. moving to phoenix in
48
for my mother' s health, he spent the rest of his career working inside or driving truck, retiring on august 10, 1969 on his 69th birthday. (he started his railroad career with the soo line in ashland, wisconsin in 1936. he lived to be 90 years old. dick h
as world war ii came to an end, there was a huge decrease in rail travel. americans were now having a love affair with the automobile and the open road. express parcel shipments had always been handled as head - on traffic during the rea’s heyday. however, railroads became disinterested in subsidizing a business model losing ever more money. finally, the rea filed chapter xi bankruptcy in 1975 and was liquidated. the company’s profits had been decreasing due to the domination of the railroad companies, high inflation, and decline in express shipments. older people in america and effingham county still remember the rea as one of america’s great institutions .
business did not stay good, however. “alas, things crumbled after world war ii which coincided with a rapid decline in rail travel, ” according to the america rails website. “express shipments had always been handled as dead - end traffic and railroads grew increasingly disinterested in subsidizing a business model losing ever - more money. ”
( d) the exclusive express privileges enjoyed by appellant on the railroads, admittedly valuable contract rights, cannot be said to have no value because all of appellant' s net income is paid over to the railroads for the specific purpose of precluding it from having any net taxable income, thus frustrating the collection of an otherwise fair tax. p .
( 1954). subsequently, the virginia general assembly enacted the act here involved, levying a
franchise tax
on express companies, measured by gross receipts from operations within virginia, in lieu of all other property taxes on intangibles and rolling stock. in due course, an assessment against appellant was made thereunder for 1956. both the state corporation commission ,
* the state informs us that the appellant' s trucks have been ruled to be
rolling stock ,
and therefore shielded by the
in lieu
provision of the new statute. while the virginia code does not, in terms, set forth a rate of taxation for the rolling stock of express companies, the rates provided for the rolling stock of railway and of freight car companies are 2 1 / 2% ad valorem. va. code §§ 58 - 515, 58 - 560. this rate would appear appropriate for exploring the equivalence of this
in lieu
tax to a corresponding property tax, and in fact the rate, as established by the latter section, has been used before the
in lieu
provision as a basis for the taxation of appellant' s refrigerator cars .
once again, the effort of the commonwealth of virginia to levy a tax against express agencies is before us for decision. nearly five years ago, this court struck down as a
privilege tax
violative of the commerce clause of the federal constitution its tax statute under which was laid an assessment on appellant' s
privilege of doing business
in virginia. [
rrm mission is to preserve the knowledge of why railroads have been important to richmond and central virginia. richmond has been served by several railroads during the past 175 years. the richmond and danville, the richmond and york river, seaboard, chesapeake and ohio, the southern railway, and the richmond, fredericksburg, and potomac to name a few. these railroads left stations, ruins, bridges, and open spaces on richmond’s cityscape. the passionate volunteers give tours to all visitors to the rrm where this history comes alive .
john’s daughter is nancy pals (husband, robert pals) of teutopolis. she remembers her dad being gone several days at a time while working for the rea. around chicago, the rea had a building where the rea agents had sleeping quarters. nancy remembers several occasions when her mother would fix john a hot meal and take it to effingham for him when the train stopped there. his children got to visit with dad for a brief time. the family donated the contents of his rea chest to the effingham county museum as a part of effingham county’s railway history. nancy’s daughter is now the proud owner of her grandfather’s chest .
in the 1940s and early 1950s my mother took my brothers and me from southern california to cleveland, ohio, for the summer. we always traveled by train. our clothes and other property were sent as checked baggage in a wardrobe trunk. the trunk was delivered to my grandmother' s home via railway express. i assume that the trunk was checked to either cleveland, or east cleveland, and because it arrived by train the rea was the chosen delivery method. for a brief period following world war ii we returned to cleveland. that, it turned out, was not a good move, and we returned to southern california. from that time until sometime in the 1950s we sent our christmas presents to cleveland via rea. i remember going with my father to the busy rea office at the los angeles union passenger terminal to send the boxes. later, the rea opened a seasonal office in alhambra and we shipped our boxes from there. rea establish a seasonal car loading facility east of the southern pacific alhambra station also. our presents from the family in cleveland were sent the same way. it was always exciting to come home from school and find that the box from cleveland had arrived! thanks for the chance to share some memories. ocv
and intrastate express business throughout the nation, save in virginia, where a constitutional provision bars foreign corporations from possessing or exercising any of the powers or functions of public service corporations. there, it operates a wholly owned subsidiary, a virginia corporation, which carries on its intrastate functions within the commonwealth. appellant' s virginia business is thus of an exclusively interstate nature. through exclusive contract arrangements with 177 of the railroads of the nation, appellant is the sole operator of express facilities on their lines, including virginia. it pays therefor all of its net income, thus achieving one of the stated purposes of the agreement - - that appellant
... shall have no net taxable income .
in turn, appellant' s virginia subsidiary pays all of its net income over to it for the privilege of exercising appellant' s exclusive contracts in intrastate business in the commonwealth. appellant owns property within virginia, its return filed with the commonwealth for tax purposes showing $ 120, 110. 70 in cash on deposit; automotive equipment and trucks $ 262, 719. 63; real estate of the value of $ 32, 850; and office equipment listed at $ 42, 884. 83 .
i am not sure when it went under but it most likely was either very early 80' s or mid to late 70' s. it also had an air arm i believe called air express. yes they did make home deliveries. it was owned by a conglomeration of railroads. in its hey day it was the ups only you did not have overnight service, etc. the us post office was limited in size and weight of packages as a result rea carried everything over these limitations and also carried under these parameters only it would have been more expensive then the post office in those days. the main package carriers were the rea and post office with ups a poor third or less back then plus common carriers as i recall .
had in virginia, and subject to the taxing statute here involved, substantially that percentage of the value of its national
goodwill ,
and of its exclusive express carriage contract with the railroads, which the ratio of the mileage of carriers which it uses in interstate commerce in virginia bears to the total mileage of the same carriers which it uses everywhere in such commerce. appellant contends that virginia' s claim in these respects is unconstitutional. which of them is right? i think it is appellant. i think so for two reasons. first, the exclusive carriage contract which appellant has with the railroads requires it, as the court observes, to pay
all of its net income
to the railroads. therefore, as a matter of both fact and law, that
appellant concedes that the commerce clause does not prohibit the states from levying a tax on property owned by a concern doing an interstate business. it agrees that it has rolling stock and money in the commonwealth, as well as intangibles, including its exclusive express privileges with the railroads. it readily admits that the latter agreements are
valuable contract rights ,
and contribute a principal element to the
going concern value
of its business in the commonwealth. subsuming that a valid tax levy might be levied on such intangibles, it argues, however, that the incidence of the tax is on appellant' s privilege to carry on an exclusively interstate business in virginia, rather than on intangible property. our sole question under the commerce clause is whether the tax, in practical operation, is on property or on privilege .
les solomon is technical director of computers & electronics. he is a member of the bug - eyed monster society and practices levitation in his spare time .
hen popular electronics ran its first cover story on the altair in january 1975, 1 was the technical director for the magazine and therefore fortunate enough to witness and aid in the birth of the personal / home computer. before those early years become set in stone, i would like to offer this reminiscence and give credit to those pioneers whose names may be unknown to the home computer users now benefiting from the fruits of their labors .
it all started for me in the summer of 1972, during a vacation trip out west. my wife and i were near albuquerque when i called forrest mims, a contributor to the magazine who lived in this town out in the middle of nowhere. his father had a small company called m. i. t. s. (micro instrumentation and telemetry systems), which occupied the bathroom of forrest' s mobile home and manufactured small electronic gadgets for radio - control airplanes and model rockets .
the mims invited us out to see them, and during the conversation forrest mentioned that he had a friend who was as crazy about electronics as i was. he insisted that i meet this fellow, ed roberts, so later that night we got together in a steak bar in downtown albuquerque. just out of the military, ed had this idea about offering an electronic calculator kit. and i had to listen, since he stands over six feet and weighs 235 pounds or so .
anyway, i decided to write about the kit in the pages of popular electronics. after the article appeared, many kits were sold and ed bought out m. i. t. s. , moved it into a real building and dropped the periods to make it mits. pretty soon, everybody and his uncle got into calculators and they were a dime a dozen. ed was giving serious thought to folding his company when we heard some electronic stirrings that sounded really wild. one of our competitors, radio - electronics, was preparing a story on a
computer
using an intel 8008 microprocessor chip. ed looked into it, obtained an even newer intel chip called the 8080, and with a couple of engineering friends set about creating his own computer .
luckily, ed had sent me another computer by a different route. there i was, in a small office in new york with a metal box marked pe - 8 on my desk, and an asr - 33 teletype as the only way of inputting or displaying instructions and data. between the frontpanel switch start - up routine and the noisy teletype, i was told to take
that thing
home, which i suppose made the pe - 8 the first workable home computer .
art salsberg, my boss, said he would go along with me on publishing a construction article on a microcomputer (
heaven only knows who will build one !
), so the next step was finding a catchy name for our 8 - bitter. after dinner one night i asked my twelveyear - old daughter, who was watching star trek, what the computer on the enterprise was called .
that' s a nice name, i thought, but not sexy. then she said :
why don' t you call it altair? that' s where the enterprise is going in this episode .
t itled simply
computer ,
with the subhead
build the mark - 8, your personal minicomputer ,
radioelectronic' s cover story for july 1974 introduced the first homemade machine to use a microprocessor .
my introduction to the mark - 8 came one bright spring morning in 1973, when a forceful young man by the name of jonathan titus called to tell me about his working model of a microcomputer built around the new intel 8008. (a bargain - priced 8008 microprocessor cost $ 125 at the time .) deciding that a personal visit was necessary, i flew down to blacksburg, virginia, where jon took me to a spare room in his college apartment and showed me the first micro system: a little green box decorated with a bunch of toggle switches and flickering red lights .
what, i wondered, would anyone do with a computer that needed to be programmed... one step at a time... by setting eight toggle switches to represent each instruction ?
despite my misgivings and after months of preparation, we published our article on the mark - 8 computer. there was no way we could squeeze it into a single issue, and for the second time in our history we offered a booklet of complete construction information. the booklet sold by the thousands: each new stack that came in from the printer was gone in no time, and we' d have to order more. to this day i don' t know how many people spent how many hours entering instructions and data into the mark - 8 ...
i am often asked whether i anticipated the current personal computer revolution when i was introduced to jon titus' original micro system. my answer is yes, but i still don' t think the computer is the ideal tool for everyone. in business and education there is no doubt that its growth as a tool and as a time - and dollar - saver will continue. when it comes to computers in the home, however, i have my doubts .
i am not convinced that the average person has enough need for a computer to justify its cost. yes, it' s a great game machine. yes, it' s a great educational device. yes, it' s a great typewriter. but unless you' re going to do your banking, control your home appliances, keep your holiday mailing lists, calculate your income taxes and your budget, it' s difficult for me to see a personal computer in every household. until the price of hardware comes down, and until software exists at low cost to do the kinds of things the average american needs done around the home, the computer revolution will remain largely a business revolution .
the next day i called ed to try out the new name. his answer was curt :
i don' t care what you call it, if we don' t sell two hundred we' re doomed !
so altair it became .
about a month before we ran the altair story i had a visit from another imposingly large person, roger melen of stanford university, who had written several articles for us. roger contemplated the altair set up on the table, and when i told him it was a computer his eyes glazed over. he muttered something about getting one for himself and his friend harry garland, who also wrote for us, and asked me for the name and address of the kit supplier. then he vanished. later i heard he took the next plane to albuquerque, marched into ed' s office and bought altair # 2 right off his desk .
a few months later i got a call from roger, asking me to fly out to san francisco to see something very important. when i got there, he took me to the apartment he shared with harry and showed me what he' d done with his altair. plugged into the machine was a double set of add - on circuit boards called the dazzler, whose video output could create an amazing display on a color tv - the first plug - in expansion board for a personal computer. the software was called kaleidoscope, a program that is relatively common today, but in 1976... ! because of its ever - changing color display, kaleidoscope would actually become a traffic stopper: stan veit ran the program all night in the window of his new york store, the first computer store east of the mississippi, and the nypd had to put an end to it because people kept slowing down to gawk at all those color images .
dazzler sales went over so well that roger and harry formed a new company to manufacture altair plug - ins. they decided to name it after crothers memorial hall, where they had lived during their undergraduate days at stanford. cromemco (crothers memorial company) was the first of what would become an entire subindustry of firms manufacturing add - ons to extend the capabilities of existing personal computers .
at about this time mits held the world' s first microcomputer convention, called, strangely enough, the world' s first altair convention. located in the airport - marina hotel in sunny downtown albuquerque, it was attended by an amazing number of people who came from all over the country to see what was going on .
the altair was a success, but the paper tape basic and paper tape software were an abomination. one day jerry ogdin, a computer consultant, had come to me with the idea of storing digital data using two tones (one for a zero, another for a zone) on an ordinary voice - grade tape cassette recorder. in september of 1975 we ran a construction article on what we called hits (hobbyists' interchange tape system), after which a number of manufacturers started using their own approach to two - tone data recording. wayne green, who had just started byte magazine, wanted all the manufacturers to get together in a neutral site and hammer out a cassette standard. the site picked was kansas city, missouri. we all met for a weekend, and after many loud and serious discussions the kansas city tape
standard
was born. unfortunately, it didn' t last long; before the month ended, everyone went back to his own tape standard and the recording confusion got worse.
the railway express agency ( rea ) was a national monopoly set up by the united states federal government in 1917 . rail express services provided small package and parcel transportation using the extant railroad infrastructure much as ups functions today using the road system . the united states government was concerned about the rapid , safe movement of parcels , money , and goods during world war i and rea was its solution to this problem . rea ceased operations in 1975 , when its business model ceased to be viable . 
the railway express agency (rea) was a national monopoly set up by the united states federal government in 1917. rail express services provided small package and parcel transportation using the extant railroad infrastructure much as ups functions today using the road system. the united states government was concerned about the rapid, safe movement of parcels, money, and goods during world war i and rea was its solution to this problem. rea ceased operations in 1975, when its business model ceased to be viable.
the railway express agency (rea) was a national monopoly set up by the united states federal government in 1917. rail express services provided small package and parcel transportation using the extant railroad infrastructure much as ups functions today using the road system. the united states government was concerned about the rapid, safe movement of parcels, money, and goods during world war i and rea was its solution to this problem. rea ceased operations in 1975, when its business model ceased to be viable.