When has a Republican investigated anything to do with deregulation.
But, also rember who helped push deruglation.
Tom
Remember who was the bankruptcy judge who created this fiasco. The former Republican Gov. of Illinois.
I was working for the CNW aat the time and our management thought it was a forgone conclusion that the CNW would get the MILWAUKEE. Well less than a year later we were thankful that we did not get them.
The SOO did what the CNW said they would do and look what happened.
Retired in 2001 from the UP and was never so happy to get away. I spent 43 years on the railroad, 8 on the former GREAT NORTHERN and the balance on the CNW & UP.
Ringer: The forum is looking for some good stories about the old railroading - bet you have some to tell!
Jen
H’mmmmm,…tough pick…on Mondays, wednesdays, Fridays and most weekends, it would have to be the UP,…the rest of the time it would be any of the Cannuck railroads, all pages in the mag devoted to cannuck railroads are wasted pulp imho…
CSX (Chicken S*&t Express)
As far as working with them for interchange they are a pain in the back side. They set loads on top of the empties so we have to run around them. Don’t turn boxcars that can only be unloaded from one side even though the friggin wye is right next to the interchange track. We had to show one of their female trainee conductors how to successfully line up the knuckles to make a good joint, after we got done laughing so hard we damn near fell out of the cab.
Their tracking system sucks and your cars can be anywhere.
Not like the CN/IC which is very nice to deal with.
Jsanchez wrote:
<<
Luzerne and Susquehanna- a mis-managed county owned railroad in the Wilkes-Barre, PA area, horrible track conditions, little marketing, and to many politicians running the show, helping to eliminate what little chance their is for decent sized industry to locate in the Wyoming Valley.
And what do you base all of this on? Newspaper accounts? Do you know much of anything about how this railroad is managed or is this all from Rumorpace?
LC
Norfolk Southern aka “the Dark Side”
It earns every lousy thing saidf about it every day…
LC
I have no personal grudge against the Guilford but it would have to be my least favorite RR by a long shot.
Chazmort
- Amtrak. If it wasn’t them I would be on the Super Chief.
- UP there power hungrey!
NS CAUSE THEY RUIN RAILFEST DOWN IN ALTOONA PA
Least favorite,Guilford Rail System without doubt.
My least favourite Railroad would have to be the U.P. as they sucked up so many of my favourites and then, it was just no longer anything but BIG business. A very important factor in the personality of a railroad company is who is running it, the folks at the top and how their philosiphy makes it’s way into the people and operations trackside. S.P. used to really suck at some locations while they were really cool at others. With the bigger roads each division can be, and often is a mini-railroad within the whole. Although fans of CGW or whom ever the particular predecessor, would yern for the old days, the C&NW was always for me, interesting and by far most of the employees I met or had contact with were great. Then it all ended with Uncle Pete, more than a few customers felt “shafted” too as we can all recall.
I’m amazed that N.S. gets such low marks as in the past what I’ve seen & heard of them and customers served, they were very proud to be a railroad, much, MUCH more so than CSX. But that isn’t saying much in it’s self is it. The CSX merger was a real morale buster too as it turned out.
BN often seemed to be needless jerks at best, but again depending on which fallen flag’s division it was, they could be very good. Railroad companies are the people behind the big machines, and where they go, places & people served. That is the weighing factor for me anyway.
Chris
I don’t think I could truly have a least favorite railroad; BUT, if I absolutely had to choose…
Amtrak. No question.
If the Railroads would learn from the past.railroads come in take over and say do it this way.Then you get a meltdown of the system.Look at what happened in Houston and on the east coast.Change is suppossed to improve customer response not slow it down.
stay safe
joe
Mine has to be the Providence & Wooster. A friend of mine and I were taking photos from a city sidewalk of them crossing over a street on a bridge. They radioed the local police that we were tresspassing which we most certainly were not.
I’m not a fan of NS much. I’ll watch their trains, but that’s about it.
As to PC, it wasn’t completely their fault that northeast railroading went to hell in the 70s. Much of the deferred maintenance problems was due to PRR and NYC back in the 50s, along with outdated government regulations.
Hands down — HALFTRAK (AMTRAK)
BNSF should reban (first ban was from ATSF) Amtrak from calling trains 3 and 4 the Southwest Chief.
Santa Fe --gone but NEVER forgotten
Some of you don’t like AMTRAK. It may not be as good as some of the class 1 trains before 1971 but, like it or not, it’s the only game in town. Those of us who prefer train travel to all other forms of travel need to support it and push for improvements. It’s unrealistic to hope that doing away with AMTRAK would result in any kind of improvement. Any service that remained would be fought harder by the freight railroads. As for my least favorite, I would nominate any railroad that can’t get a passenger train over its tracks on time. I nominate UP’s Sunset Route.
Most of my info has come from other railroaders, personel observations, customers, yes newspaper press, you have to see this railroad to believe it, supposedly the operating contract will be up for bid so hopefully some entity that knows how to run a railroad might be able to turn this mess around. I live 2 blocks from one of their under used, weedy over grown lines. Everything in Luzerne county is mis-managed , not just the railroad.
Well, I’d have to say my LEAST favorite is some railroad I’ve never heard of. Probably one that runs only a train or two a week. Sometimes it can be interest to photograph these lines, but I’m into the big stuff. I like lots of action and variety. But to name one railroad in particular, Penn Central. Although that fiasco wasn’t totally their fault, the railroad itself just sucked. The paint scheme was lame (at least NS keeps their locos somewhat shiny). Railfanning wasn’t the best (from what I hear). I wish we would have seen some of the other alignments that came close to happening, such as PRR and N&W. The face of railroading in the East, and possibly the entire U.S., would be different today (and maybe for the better).