“Unionizing has nothing to do with it. If railroads wanted to or could provide a service, the did. And what is available today has nothing to do with unions either”
Henry,
I take exception to that statement. I have an eighty two year old cousin who was a rail for many years. If given his way, trains would still have seven man crews. ie: engineer, fireman, conductor, flagman, and three brakemen.
Now please don’t mistake my post as being anti-union. They did a lot of good in the past, but in the last thirty years or so they have had to make concessions to keep railroads profitable and ensure their continued employment at the expense of those with low seniority.
Sure, conductors today have to spend a lot of time walking ballast that others would have done in the past. OTOH, they do get well paid for doing that. From the company’s perspective. it makes sense to be more productive with fewer employees. The cost savings when considering salary and benefits can be tremendous.
In the context of this conversation unions and unionism has less to do with matters than changing times. But like any other jobs in many other businesses, manpower is not as neccessary today and therefore there are fewer jobs. In railroading, firemen were no longer needed in the same capacity as with steam locomotives, air brakes negated the need for a man to ride cars to set brakes manually, safety and new appliances allowed for the elimination of cabooses, and running long distances without switching all moved everybody into the locomotive cab. Many other businesses and attendant jobs succumbed progress and efficiencies of automation. A seven man crew in today’s railroad environment would certainly be a waste of both money and men.
A lot of blame for problems of the time were laid against the unions but in the 40’s to 60’s period there were a lot of white collars looking at retirement and found it easy to give in to union demands and let the next generation handle the problems. The publicity of the fight with the unions was for public show while the agreements were a matter of convenience for both sides. Some of it was blind, some of it was just to get things done for the moment on both sides.
As for this thread or discussion. Unionism actually was not a factor. Railroads did interline tickets and runthrough cars and trains where it made sense(and dollars) as well as scheduling to make connections in the name of providing a marketable, usable, and warranted service. Investment business in this country changed the concept of being in business to provide product and services and turned toward the blind eye of being in business to make money. Soon it was realized that the further you ran a train without stopping it, the more money you made. Therefore running coast to coast, harbor to consignee, and shipper to consignee as well as being part of another business’s assembly belt, was found to be cheape
As to interline tickets, if you had a Guide, you could see what stations sold them; each one in a timetable was marked with a +, which indicated that it was a “coupon station.” There were many more non-coupon stations than there were coupon stations.
It was not always easy to buy an interline ticket, espcially if you had an involved itinerary. In such a case it was well to let the ticket seller know in advance how you wanted to go, so he could submit your itinerary to the road’s traffic department, which in turn would let the seller know what the fare would be. A coupon station also had a Pullman tariff book (not quite as big as the necessary railroad tariff books), so it was possible to reserve, and pay for, your Pullman accomodations; these requests went to the Pullman company (until 12-31-1968) and you received a separate ticket for your space.
Of course, Deggesty, mastering the interline ticketing was the blue ribbon success of being a passenger ticket agent…some enjoyed it, did it well, and often. Others, didn’t like it, missed alot of connections, etc., and were not heralded. Thus, the travel agent! He not only mastered the coupon station list, he worked in the best hotels and sidetrips and whatever else the buyer might be intersted in. Few of the genral public knew of or used the Guide, it was found in rail, ship, and airline ticket offices an travel agencies for professionals to pore over.
You could also find the Guide in lounge cars. In August of 1953, I traveled from Baton Rouge to Charlotte by rail, and learned what trains the Southern had cut off about 1 August by checking in the August Guide found in the MP lounge car as I went from Baton Rouge to New Orleans.
I think I am safe in saying that all agents, even freight-only agents, had their copies of the Guide. Of course, as your importance grew less, your place on the distribution list the company placed on the front of each issue was farther down, until the next possible distributee was the teenaged boy who frequented the depot.
Only once did I object to the passenger traffic department’s routing of my ticket. I had requested a coupon from Detroit to Washington via the C&O; someone thought that I should take the C&O/B&O (he apparently had never seen any of my earlier requests). I remonstrated, and was given the routing I wanted; every other time the response was in accord with my request.
Another time, After I had completed my trip, I was sent a refund for the difference between my actual route between Montgomery and Washington (via Jacksonville) and the direct route (via Atlanta). Apaprently the first time the fare was calculated the actual route only was considered, but the recal
Garyla, your post is not relevant to this thread and should be posted elsewhere, on its own.
As for the Guides…I know the DL&W, and have been told in other threads in the past here, that the Guides were passed down a chain of locations until thrown away…usually started new at prime locations where long distance and interline tickets were most often sold, then passed to lesser stations as new Guides arrived each month. I received several three and four month old Guides at the last station stop back in the 50’s as Denville, NJ was where they would be allowed to be thrown out!
Far be it from me to disagree with you. henry6, but are you sure garyla’s post is not relevant to the thread of “the good old days”?
K4sPRR expressed an opinion that, in Ohio at least, things are not “better today than in the 1970’s”, as was opined by Paul. But his example seems top focus on passenger service, and specifically the “black hole” that Ohio has become in the Midwest Corridor vision.
Garyla just seems to be asking “Yeah, but what about freight in the Ohio comparison?”
You know, Dragoman, going back to the very beginning of this thread and rereading the posts I have to agree with you…I think I got caught up in the mostly eastern passenger element of the discussion. So I do apologize to Garyla if I offended him…didn’t mean to.