A friend passed this issue on to me because of this article. I was a 37 year veteran of the Southern Pacific until I retired to get away from the Union Pacific Management Team.
After reading Mr Krebs account of the T&L Lines railroad and its woes, I cannot wonder just how many bruises Mr Krebs has from patting himself on the back. He is certainly a wonder boy bar none with that railroad. However he failed to continue in telling the story on how he bankrupt the Southern Pacific Railroad. The blame for sending a 132 year old railroad into the trash heap rested squarely on his shoulders.
He totally mismanaged everything to get the SPRR into Chicago so he could “play” with the ‘Big Boys’. When the article came out in the SP Bulletin, “We Finally Made It”, it was just a matter of months before everything went south and the ATSF bought the SPRR. I was working in One Market then when the hoard of Santa Fe officials came swarming into the building and started telling us “HOW” things were going to be done. But the Feds stepped in and said, ‘whoa boys, not so fast’. So the Santa Fe raped the SPRR of most of its Land Holdings and spit out what was left to Phil Anschutz. Phil was ecstatic about his new toy and couldn’t wait to put his locomotives on the point of SP trains. Yes, I was still at One Market and dumbfounded over these happenings. Then. Phil kept more SPRR land and sold the sold the railroad to the Union Pacific and threw himself on to the Board. More money, more money, more money. So now, the hoard of Union Pacific officers come storming into the building to tell us “HOW” things will be run.
During Mr Krebs wonder years of the 1980’s at resolving the T&L Lines woes, I worked at One Market in the Mechanical Dept. Once a week the whole 10th floor Managers had a ‘Round-table Conference’ with the Chief Mechanical O