I’m curious as to how BN, UP, AT&SF and other western roads survived when the eastern ones were faltering and falling. I know regulation wasn’t the only reason why the eastern roads were going bankrupt but I still don’t fully get how the other roads thrived.
Some - though by no means all - of the reasons:
- Much longer hauls, on average.
- Not so much of a decline in the traffic base (e.g., anthracite coal, heavy manufacturing such as steel mills, etc.).
- Less terminal opertions in big cities.
- Very few commuter operations and much less passenger-train miles by comparison.
Others can and will add more. You could also pretty much list all the reasons that the eastern railroads were failing, and use the converse condition to identify why and how the western ones survived.
- Paul North.
Also, most of the eastern railroads jumped the gun on merging, or just chose a bad time to, with Penn Central being a prime example. Hence why the N&W and Southern held off until 1982 for merging.
After the Pennsy and Central merge, the federal government burdened the troubled Penn Central with the bankrupt New Haven in 1968, which just didn’t do the railroad any good at all. This, among other reasons, caused the Penn Central to go bankrupt in 1971. How did the BN avoid the potential trouble? I don’t know really. However, Paul named all of the potential reasons as to why the trouble was avoided.
Powder River Basin coal.
Oh yeah, forgot about the Powder River Basin.
The answer is: “They weren’t.”
In addition to the rairoads you mention there were the Southern Pacific, Western Pacific, and Milwaukee Road who were all either at death’s door or getting there. Come a little further east and you get to near corpses such as the Katy and Rock Island. The North Western was not in good shape. It goes on.
BN was formed to shrink the physical plant to fit a declining traffic base. It was saved by the Powder River coal field. UP had a simple route structure with simple terminal operations. With the exception of Los Angeles, it was a bridge carrier between California and the east. Long hauls and limited terminal expenses mitigated the effect of regulation on the UP (It did loose the perishable busines, a core market, due to regulation.)
Santa Fe had the longest hauls and the advanage of being the only rail carrier under one management to link Chicago and California. It could sell speed and reliability
These factors mitigated the adverse effects of regulation on these three carriers. But none of these three was really a growth business with a bright future. They were just dying more slowly than some of the others.
Regulation was a terminal illness for the US railroads. But like cancer in humans, it affected different railroads differently. The Southern did RELATIVELY well because it served a geographic area experiencing good economic growth, it had more marketing smarts than most other rail lines, and it was willing to fight a Texas chain saw caged death match with the re
They were simply sitting ducks waiting to be sucked into oblivion.
Yes, will quite a few western railroads weren’t doing any better, but they went bankrupt much later than the eastern railroads.
The regulations were a plague to the railroad industry. If staggers hadn’t been passed, I bet you that the industry would have been no more.
How do you mean this? They were regulated just the same and faced the same fates. UP sucked up as many railroads as it could as did the Burlington people. But they had longer hauls, got rid of duplicated lines and facilities quickly, laid out their end to end routes for strength and were not dittled by the same Wall Streeters as PC was. So they were in better shape than the Eastern roads because manufacturing moved to them, the Eisenhower Interstates were not a big a factor in the long haul traffic, and the St. Lawrence Seaway brought them the traffic instead of the New York Central or Pennsy. But look what did happen to the Rock Island and Milwaukee Road and Soo…they also were similar to the EL’ s, LV.s and CNJ’s of the east.
Once the Power River Basin got to ‘production’ BN tonnage handled about doubled.
So they weren’t as well off as I thought. Though the Rock Island declined because it served too many cities and paralleled other rail lines. I was thinking that the ones I previously mentioned were thriving because they were maintaining passenger and getting new locomotives and such.
And one important part of that change was the decline in traffic on the commuter rail roads while they were required to maintain commuter service. There was also the issue of hiring personnel for 8 hours when you needed them only for 4 hours during the rush hour.
And, it was extremely difficult to raise the fares charged even when the cost of operating the trains was increased.
I recall that at one time base RR fares of western locations were slightly higher. I have some old brochures that state on the listed price '" slightly higher Denver and west " what was that ?
But it is not extremely difficult or even difficult at all for New Jersey Transit to raise fares. Our fares are among the highest in the country if not the world.
I don’t mean to knock our transit agency. In this world you get nothing for nothing and we do have a very good rail transit system. But just supposing the Pennsylvania Railroad, Delaware Lackawana and Western, Eire and Central Railroad of New Jersey had been able to raise their fares as easily as New Jersey Transit can. Things might have been very different.
I would opine that one reason railroads in the Northeast didn’t do well (all other factors notwithstanding) was that there were so many of them, with numerous duplicate routes. Shedding redundant/little used lines was probably as trying as was getting a rate changed.
While there were certainly duplicate routes in the west (ie, Rock Island), methinks there was a lot less ‘local pride’ railroads built as compared to the east.
One more small contributing factor was property taxation. This wasn’t exclusively a Northeastern problem, but I do recall that some of those bankrupt lines had been paying horrific tax rates for the honor of having a track through some town.
One other factor was density of population and shippers.
It was almost impossible to abandon an unprofitable line East of the Mississippi because the shippers would call the ICC and protest. More often than, not, it was potential shippers and not actual bill-paying shippers that complained. Fewer factories per mile in the West meant fewer protests to line rationalization.
People with “local pride” could call their congressmen to oppose an abandonment or rate increase. With smaller congressional districts in the East a twenty mile line could concievably cross parts of up to three congressional districts, so you have 3 conressmen talking to the regulators instead of just one out West.
Then PC happened, and many people (and congress) finally woke up to reality.
[quote user=“greyhounds”]
The answer is: “They weren’t.”
In addition to the rairoads you mention there were the Southern Pacific, Western Pacific, and Milwaukee Road who were all either at death’s door or getting there. Come a little further east and you get to near corpses such as the Katy and Rock Island. The North Western was not in good shape. It goes on.
BN was formed to shrink the physical plant to fit a declining traffic base. It was saved by the Powder River coal field. UP had a simple route structure with simple terminal operations. With the exception of Los Angeles, it was a bridge carrier between California and the east. Long hauls and limited terminal expenses mitigated the effect of regulation on the UP (It did loose the perishable busines, a core market, due to regulation.)
Santa Fe had the longest hauls and the advanage of being the only rail carrier under one management to link Chicago and California. It could sell speed and reliability
These factors mitigated the adverse effects of regulation on these three carriers. But none of these three was really a growth business with a bright future. They were just dying more slowly than some of the others.
Regulation was a terminal illness for the US railroads. But like cancer in humans, it affected different railroads differently. The Southern did RELATIVELY well because it served a geographic area experiencing good economic growth, it had more marketing smarts than most other rail lines, and it was willing to fight a Te
[quote user=“oltmannd”]
[quote user=“greyhounds”]
The answer is: “They weren’t.”
In addition to the rairoads you mention there were the Southern Pacific, Western Pacific, and Milwaukee Road who were all either at death’s door or getting there. Come a little further east and you get to near corpses such as the Katy and Rock Island. The North Western was not in good shape. It goes on.
BN was formed to shrink the physical plant to fit a declining traffic base. It was saved by the Powder River coal field. UP had a simple route structure with simple terminal operations. With the exception of Los Angeles, it was a bridge carrier between California and the east. Long hauls and limited terminal expenses mitigated the effect of regulation on the UP (It did loose the perishable busines, a core market, due to regulation.)
Santa Fe had the longest hauls and the advanage of being the only rail carrier under one management to link Chicago and California. It could sell speed and reliability
These factors mitigated the adverse effects of regulation on these three carriers. But none of these three was really a growth business with a bright future. They were just dying more slowly than some of the others.
Regulation was a terminal illness for the US railroads. But like cancer in humans, it affected different railroads differently. The Southern did RELATIVELY well because it served a geographic area experiencing good economic growth, it had more marketing smarts than most other rail lin
Not yet mentioned as a problem for Northeastern Railroads is that when the Penn Central went bankrupt it no longer had to make per diem payments to the other railroads, but weak roads like the Lehigh Valley, Lehigh & Hudson River, Boston & Maine, et al. had to continue to make their payments to Penn Central. That immediately created a cash flow problem for Penn Central’s smaller neighbors.