Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/619872
56 | Overdrive | January 2016 ReaRview O ne of many battles waged by Overdrive in its first 20 years was against the rail industry, including its powerful lobbying arm and its cozy relationship with lawmakers. This cartoon in the June 1969 Overdrive corresponds with an eight-page article detailing about a dozen violent train crashes from the preceding decade. Overdrive editors blamed the rail industry's neg- ligence, as well as state and federal regulators, for allowing the fatal, expensive derailments and grade crossing collisions to continue. Editors urged readers to write their representatives and senators to ask them to investigate the problem and rein in what Overdrive pre- sented as an overindulgent, arrogant rail industry. At other times, Overdrive took on the railroads by lobbying lawmakers for fairer treatment for the trucking industry and eq- uitable infrastructure while campaigning for a more unified approach from trucking on such issues. Fighting rail in the name of safety BY JAMES JAILLET "Happy New Year from the Milwaukee Road" was Overdrive's headline for this Des Moines Register photo showing a two-train collision on New Year's morning of 1969. A Milwaukee Road freight train plowed into the rear of another train, killing an engineer and a brakeman.