Hey all - do you think Congress could have done something else with the rail situation in the early 1970s? Granted, I love Conrail, but it’s always fun to think ‘what if’! Anyway, here’s my idea → I’d love to hear feedback from people on the viability of such an option.
2 RR system - 1 in the north, 1 in the south
Northern System
All lines from Chicago-Buffalo-New York City
This is basically PC (ex-NYC) and EL
Southern System
All lines from St. Louis-Pittsburgh-New York City
This is PC (ex-PRR), RDG, CNJ, LV
I have a more complete map in my head, but essentially, could Congress have created a two railroad system in the Northeast that would have remained competitive? Although the two lines are in the same general location, and both serve the Northeast, they are largely seperated and serve different cities (maybe both have connections to Cleveland and a few other cities along the way).
Maybe you have another idea on how Conrail could have been split up? Share it here! Thanks for the input (this idea could lead to a new model railroad…!!!)
One proposal was to build a Chinesse Wall from Buffalo to Pittsburgh. Every thing East of the wall would be a nationalized railroad awash in a sea of commuter trains losses. Every thing West of the wall would get help to rebuild the track but be expected to compete as a “private” railroad.
Well, possibly and N/S split could have been fashioned, but both roads would have needed access to North Jersey, Chicago and St. Louis.
You basically would have wound up with the PRR and NYC again with pieces of the EL, RDG and LV added in.
Could two, separate E/W RRs have suvived in a Post-Staggers environment? I doubt it. A good part of CRs success was that it had real pricing power on E/W shipment to and from metro NY.
I was thinking that the “Northern” system would be all lines from Chicago- Detroit/Cleveland/Columbus-Buffalo-Albany-New York City/Boston. The “Southern” system would be all lines from St. Louis-Indianapolis-Columbus-Pittsburgh-Harrisburg-Reading/Philly-New York City.
I don’t believe an East/West split would have worked either - as mentioned, Conrail (and all Class 1s) make their profits from long hauls, and stopping halfway between Chicago and NYC certainly wouldn’t work.
I’ve heard that it would have been difficult to split up PC back then, and hence the reason it was kept intact (look at the Conrail mess…). I have also heard of a MARC-EL system, essentially the EL, RDG, LV, CNJ, and PC’s Galion-St. Louis line, while the rest of PC became Conrail.
It’d be nice to have maps of all of these ideas, but I’m sure if there ever was, they’re long lost by now.
Don is right, both of your systems would need to reach Chicago (ATSF, BN, C&NW, MILW) and both systems would need to reach St. Louis (SSW, SLSF, MP, MKT).
The January 2002 Trains has a three page map of the early Conrail system showing where all of the lines came from. The Febuary 1976 Trains has a map of the C&O/B&O expansion into the northeast with 3000 miles of track, scuttled when the unionized workers refused to accept sensible work rules.
A couple of ideas come to mind…based on the premise that PC was a big, rotting, stinking corpse that no one should be tied to, so we’d have to unscramble that egg in order to put things right.
As a 2 system northeast:
PRR + everything overlapping into NYC territory (LV, EL, L&NE, L&HR)
NYC + everything overlapping into PRR territory (CNJ, RDG, P-RSL)
New Haven? I’d be inclined to say PRR but don’t quote me.
The idea would be to add the short haul carriers (all but EL) to somebody else’s long haul. By using the lines in the “other guy’s” territory, we would keep the NE competitive.
A 3 system northeast:
PRR
NYC
EL + everyone else (including NH)
Again, this makes the smaller carriers part of a long haul system (and, in the case of the EL, a system with nothing otherwise to feed its long haul) with enough common points to preserve competition.
The problem that neither of these addresses is branch lines. One of the biggest things Conrail did to become profitable was to abandon thousands of miles of branches that had bled its predecessor lines white. If the above systems (or most any other, really) had been able to shed the brachline losses, they could have made it alright, I believe. Of course, this assumes that the Staggers Act would still have been passed.
Your “Southern” system wouldn’t have had much of a chance without Chicago and New York (North Jersey) access. It would also be without any access to Detroit auto part/assembly. Traffic base would be Mon. coal plus a trickle of intermodal and finished autos and parts plus some Phila area chemicals.
Your “Nothern” system would have a chance - by having NYC basically sewn up - relying heavily on auto and intermodal, but lack of gateways at St.Louis, middle IL and Cincy would have made things difficult.
Not letting the “southern” system have access to North Jersey pretty much turfs them out of Gulf to NJ chemicals. The “northern” system loses this lucrative chemical traffic because of lack of gateways to the south. It would let NS and CSX into the game with your “northern” and/or “southern” RR acting as terminal road.
The almost final plan had the LV, RDG and EL going to Chessie and the DelMarVa going to the Southern but lack of a reduced crew consist agreement with Chessie and Southern killed the deal with o
I thought most of the chemicals were in South Jersey, on the CNJ… On which lines are the major chemical companies located?
I was thinking the Southern system would have the line from Columbus to Toledo, and could interchange auto traffic to GTW/CN. What about joint trackage over the MC and LSMS between Toledo and Detroit?
The Northern system would have interchanges in Chicago and Streator, and the Southern system in Peoria, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. In modern times, this would make the Northern system heavily aligned with BNSF in the West and NS in the South, handeling auto, intermodal and merchandise. The Southern system would have UP to the West and CSX in the South, and be heavy in coal, intermodal, and chemicals.
It would just be a mess. The Southern System would have to use a third railroad to interchange with the Chicago roads and the Northern System would need a third railroad for St. Louis interchange.
About two months ago, Bob Gallamore, now retired from the Northwestern University Transportation Center had some comments about his time at the United States Railroad Administration. (The USRA had the primary job of fixing up the PC mess.)
Bob said he was among the faction advocating splitting up the PC to form systems something along the lines of how Conrail was eventually split between NS and CSX. The subject was also discussed in Rush Loving’s book “The Men Who Loved Railroads”, and Don’s post above summarizes the general plan.
Generally, senior management of the roads that would have gotten the pieces were not interested, perhaps with a realistic fear that they would be stuck with the bill to bring the mess back to something close to profitable.
The “Chemical Coast” traffic all moves through Oak Island, near Newark. The plants are roughly between Newark and Elizabeth. Even Bergen County folk will concede this is all part of North Jersey (although some of them think New Brunswick is in the south…)