The subject title of this thread is not a brazen attempt by me to indicate that I know everything there is to know about the CNW. It is titled as the final word based on the success of the CNW 70’s style thread we had. I do not care to re-open that thread, but do have a little more to add.
I just finished reading H. Roger Grant’s Northwestern, A History of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway System. All of Grant’s works are pretty easy to read and follow a basic format of digging very deeply into historical resources to put together a good history book on the subject. I typically skip the first several chapters and jump in around the depression.
Such was the case with Northwestern. I began on Chapter 8, The Great Depression and Bankruptcy. It was a good chapter to begin, not only for the modern history content, but also to see a picture of one of the most striking women ever to work in railroading, Princess Redfeather.
I ended up with 5 pages of notes from the early 70’s on. This is a remarkable story and is well worth investing the time to read the book. I never quite realized how CNW evolved over the years. The story of the employee ownership in the early 70’s, as touched on by Bob Wilcox on this forum is truly amazing. Can you imagine a 60 for 1 stock split?
Grant discusses at length the UP’s choice for using the CNW to Chicago as the designated route. We discussed most of those reasons in the “70’s Style” thread, but one other reason was the refusal of ROCK to give UP “most favored nation” status by interlining westbound freight to them at Omaha, instead going for the long haul to Tucumcari or Denver.
Grant also discusses the Powder River Basin coal story. CNW simply didnt have the resources to get the Cowboy line fixed up and faced several options, one which would have been turning all rights and lines in Wyoming over to UP. In return
I remember the 60-for-one stock split (technically, with the shares being de-valued, it was more like 11 for 1, but still…), and knew a couple of fellow employees who profited greatly with it. I couldn’t afford to get in on that initial offering, but bought a batch of shares on the installment plan right afterwards. Best I could get was a three-for-one split down the road.
Possibly, when placed in comparison with the previous managements of Bud Williams and Paul Feucht. I wasnt there, so it is kinda hard to tell. Hence, the discussions.
I like the old Ronald Reagan motto…“trust, but verify”. I am usually the one checking Note 54 on the BNSF financials.
This discussion goes back to Gabe’s thread a few weeks ago about what happened during the 70’s. That decade set it in motion. Just wish I would have paid just a little more attention at the time.
If a railroad made it past 1981, wasn’t it the rule, rather than the exception, that they did much, much better than during the awful Stagflation 1970s?
I think CEOs can make a difference for good or ill. In my experience on one side of the ledger are CEOs like Mike Walsh (UP), Drew Lewis (UP), Larry Provo (CNW), Rob Krebs (BNSF), D. W. Brosnan(SRS). On the other side of the ledger there are CEOs like Mike Mohan (SP), D. K. McNear (SP), Jervis Langdon (CRIP) and Dick Davidson (UP).
Intimidation should not be underestimated as a management tool, but it should be used with discretion. I have found over the years that I can work well with a tough manager, as long as he/she treats everybody fairly and consistently. A tough manager who is also fair will inspire a surprising amount of loyalty.
Michael: I know from past discussions, that you sometimes find disagreement with some of the things authors have written in books. Which leads to a request-
Can you offer some recommendations for books about railroading? I know Ed looks more for the business end of railroading, I tend to look more for the historical end. Either way, I’ve always found it interesting to read about things from different perspectives.
My first thought on the Grant book comment was as follows:
I deleted it, people are going to believe what they want to.
And that’s my problem with most railroad histories. They are hagiographies, pure and simple. That’s what readers want to read – most readers and not looking for real-life case histories, they simply want a good story – and that’s all that most historians are capable of writing.
And my perspective on that has surely changed since I graduated with a degree in History, and spent my first years in a real job as a professional Historian. The reasons for that change are purely experience-based. Indeed, it started with a railroad history, "The Inv
Yes, a recommended list of books would no doubt make this winter go a bit quicker.
Spending this afternoon reading November 1989 Trains article on Powder River history. Written by Fred Frailey, it is an excellent article, almost a small book as it is 22 pages plus a ton of great photos by Gary Bensen.
I would certainly like a recommendation on a MILW book.
Well Michael, that sure was interesting. I guess Lowenthall had quite an agenda.
Personally, I am looking for something in the more recent era, say from 1960’s on. When looking at the entire railroad industry, lets say in 1960 and then fast forwarding to 1985 and then finally today; there has been considerable change, not only in the color of the lines on the map, but also Penn Central/Conrail, Staggers, mergers, mega-mergers, rationalization of assets, labor restructuring, passenger/commuter trains, globalization, technology, and much much more.
I find it fascinating what has occured in my lifetime in this industry…one could say the same for nearly any industry out there.
I always thought Jervis Langdon was a pretty good CEO at the B&O, where he turned a loss into a small profit in only a year or two and almost derailed the takeover by C&O. I admit this is based on very limited information. Anyone care to elaborate?
I never had a direct experience with Brosnan but I think that was a good thing. My first railroad job was as a summer intern assigned to the District Sales Office in Hattiesburg, MS. In Hattiesburg, in addtion to the two man sales office, we had the dispatcher for the NO&NE between New Orleans and Meridian, MS and the superindent’s office. In the summer of 1965 the presence of Mr Brosnan was felt everywhere at the Southern. As an example we had a problem with empty special cars being swiped enroute as the headed back for a load or their pool location. I managed a small pool of bulkhead flats for offline loading on the Mississippi Central with hardwood for the furniture manufactures in North Carloina. I would run short of empties because someone between NC and Hattiesburg had grabed one of my cars returning empty for their local customer. One day word went out to everyone that all of the empty special cars would move back on special empty waybills and the cars were not to be diverted en-route. Two days later word flashed over the local company phone line that the agent up in Meridian had swiped a DF enroute to New Orleans for a Meridian shipper. This was followed the next morning by a personal call from Mr Brosnan to the Meridian agent informing him that he was no longer employed by the Southern Railway System. No one swiped one of my flats for the rest of the summer. Staff meetings with Brosnan were also dreaded by the participants. The superintendent, George Burwell, was sweating bullets getting ready for a second quarter budget review. George must have done ok since he finished his days at the Southern as CEO.
I was only in one meeting with Rob Krebs in the short time his having CEO respondsiblities ju
Lowenthal was definitely NOT the person who influenced Harry Truman to overrule the oil-influenced State Department and reverse Roosevelt’s position (agreement with Ibn Saud at Yalta) to recongize Israel. That did not stop him from claiming such influence, but it simply was not so. The person who influenced Harry was his old Jewish Missouri business partner who argued that the DP’s had no other place to go and that now the Arab Jews were to face a holocaust in certain of the Arab countries unless they had a refuge. I’m surprised Michael that you would mention this without looking further than just Lowenthal’s own papers and statements. A good book on the period is Jerusalem in American Diplomacy, by Shalom Solnick (not absolutely shure of the last name, but it also begins with S.) Elvaser Press, Holand. Solnik teachers American History (as Emeritus) as Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem. His book is well footnoted with references to many primary sources, including Sate Department memoranda, messages between the British Foreign Secretary and the USA Secretary of State, Harry’s own statements, and even material from the Vatican!
I am unfamliar with the book you cite. I cannot find it anywhere. I am familiar with Truman and Israel, by Michael Cohen, 1990, which I have here on my desk, and which summarizes as follows:
“Through private letters, diaries, and interviews, Cohen introduces several characters who had an impact on Truman’s thinking. These include his “Jewish buddies” from Kansas City, Eddie Jacobson and Abe Granoff, as well as Max Lowenthal, whose private diary is used here for the first time and whose key role in Truman’s recognition of Israel has hitherto gone unnoticed.”
Truman is quoted in many accounts as to his association with Lowenthal who was counsel to the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee on which Truman had served, and who specialized in drafting Zionist memoranda. In 1952 Truman stated in a letter to Lowenthal, “I don’t know who has done more for Israel than you have.”
I have to concur with Mr. Sol. I was also unable to find any reference to the book. I even searched the faculty directory at Hebrew University and was unable to find anyone with a name even vaguely close to Shalom Solnick, or Shalom anything that worked in the area of History.
EDIT: Nor have I found anything on Elvaser Press in Holland.
Michael Sol’s writings always make for interesting reading.A different spin on accepted histories and practices as always.But you have to always remember that ‘To the victor goes the spoils’,be it war,politics,or history.Political and/or personal bias always plays into the mix.Who really shot JFK,Who is really buried in Billy-The-Kid’s grave,What was the best railroad,Who was the best railroad executive,etc.Nobody will ever agree on the same points or parts thereof.Michael tends to make some people annoyed,and others to think about reviewing things from different perspectives.I’ll entertain myself reading other views,but almost always return to the same bias thoughts and feelings that I developed years ago while learning about my favorite railroads at an early age(from the Santa Fe to the Boston & Maine to the Burlington Northern and finally Great Northern with some Rock Island,Milwaukee Road,and C&NW mixed in amongst others).
I’ve been following the Milwaukee and Great Northern routes on several different mapping sites and plan to do the same for the NP(easy to do NP and MILW in Montana and Washington).Looking at the ‘who had the best route’ theories presented by Michael and others.As always just subjective opinions to research and draw conclusions of one’s own.Beats the hell out of the crap they have on the other tube!