Correct me if i’m wrong, but wasn’t it 6 years to this day that Conrail was taken over?
Yes it is and it’s well missed.[:(][sigh]
Let us partake in a moment of silence for conrail passing.
Andrew
All hail the big blue. Truely one of railroadings greatest losses.
With the passing of Conrail,we lost a great,well run,railroad[:(].
Yes it was!!! Upon this time of Conrail’s 6 year aneversry of it’s passing I’m going to reveal a fact of Conrail’s past.
Conrail was in the commuter bussness for over six years. They stoped commuter service Dec 31, 1982, per Northeast Rail Service Act which was signed in 198.
I certainly miss Big Blue…Wonder what kind of Motive Power Conrail would have bought if it were still in existence right now…my guess would be SD70MACS and AC4400CW’s. Miss the alpha symbols too…made it so much easier to know what a train was…ALPI…Allentown to Pittsburgh, etc…Dave Williams @ nsaltoonajohnstown@yahoogroups.com
…Conrail was a first class appearing operation as it passed through here {Muncie}, on it’s ex. NYC…double track east-west line…with ever increasingly better looking power on it’s trains…and most of them were pretty well cleaned up…Nice appearance. Much nicer than CSX appears now…Actually believe there was more traffic count with the Conrail operation than at present…But that’s just my perception, don’t really know the figures.
Al Perlman passed away on April 30, 1983 at the age of 80. It is too bad he did not get to see Conrail in the 1990s. It certainly resembled what he was building out of the New York Central in the 1960s.
When Conrail was first made up, I did not like it. But it had that railroad feeling about it. Not like todays roads. Today they are nothing but a large holding co.
Why we miss Conrail (in part)…for many of us, we grew-up LV or NYC or PRR (etc.) fans…at least the lineage lived-on, and it became a fine grandchild…but w/ NS and CSX, it became somebody else…no longer descended from our past…sad…
Conrail went from being a quasi-governmental operation consisting of a collection of less than desirable components to a publicly traded corporation that was the subject of a bidding war between CSX and NS. Along the way, it abandoned or spun off an incredible amount of trackage and rebuilt the rest.
At its outset, Conrail was viewed as a precursor to nationalization since the financial malaise of the Northeast appeared to be spreading to the Midwest (RI, MILW). Prior to dereg, nothing much had changed from Penn Central besides the blue paint. Afterwards, Conrail was finally able to slim down and concentrate on doing what railroads do best, serve primarily as a transportation wholesaler.
The absorption of Conrail by NS and CSX may not have gone perfectly smoothly, but they did acquire a desirable property.
During the six years that Conrail operated commuter trains, they did receive specific subsidies for the service.
One morning about 1976, my Grand Central to North White Plains M-1 mu train broke down at Scardale. We waited and along came the peddler with an Alco road-switcher and a few assorted cars and a blue caboose. An adapter coupler was found and they pushed us the rest of way! So I rode a mixed train on Conrail! How many people can say that?
It isn’t quite the same without Conrail. They seemed to be going to accomplish a lot, but I guess they were TOO successful.
[bow]Conrail[bow] gone but not forgotten
PS THANKS CSX FOR KEEPING THE MARKER LIGHTS UNLIKE NS
kevin
Imagine a Conrail SD70ACe or some conrail GEVO’s…hang on while I wipe the drool off my lips…
Jeepers. I’m just getting used to Penn Central.
Mitch
ooooo CR White Nose SD70ACe’s that would have looked better that CSX’s
kevin
Conrail would have had a whole mess of SD80MACs and possibly some AC4400s from GE (just to keep EMD honest!)