I was reading parts of Frank Wilner’s Amtrak Story the other night, and he pegged crew costs as one of the things that were sinking private passenger service. Most notably was the engineer who got paid a day’s wages after 100 miles or so, and considerably more for every mile after that This got me to thinking:
Assuming a sensible agreement on crew pay scales—i.e. anything other than what seems to have been the case—could the passenger drain have been reduced to manageable levels?
It sort of leaves me wondering—would there be enough patronage to keep service afloat (assuming a dramatic reduction in crew costs) or would it have been bailing with a thimble? The theoretical picture I have is a situation where a given train would have to run nearly full with paying passengers in order to avoid running a deficit under the then-current rules as opposed to a train that only needs 15 people between say, Terre Haute and South Bend, in order to make money under the new reduced crew costs.
I’m also assuming that by 1965 and later, the vast majority of the equipment (locomotives and rolling stock) were paid for, so fuel, maintenance, and upkeep would have been the primary non-salary costs, right?
611, You hit the nail on the head. However the ICC formula for allocation of what a service cost included many costs such as replacement of all equipment, buildings and trackage that depreciated over very different rates of time. A problem was, that passenger facilities often were financed as long term investments. When business dropped, local and state governments continued to tax passenger facilities at top margin (premium) rates. This is why NYC put nearly all its passenger stations up for sale in the late 1950s. This also is why so many small town depots, freight houses and towers were torn down so fast by NYC after they were no longer used/needed. (Blame the NYSSR and the MassSSR for this.) As far as the tax man was concerned Central Terminal in Buffalo,for one example, was still not paid for, and was assessed for full replacement value as a consequence. Crew wages were the thorniest problem since labor was very effective in keeping some trains running by demanding-and getting-concessions in terms of receiving higher wages after being displaced from passenger service. This hurt New York Central, PRR and Penn Central for quite a while. If a carrier, like Southern had the income to pay its displaced passenger employees premium wages, this was the best way to keep the unions and brotherhoods quiet at ICC train discontinuance proceedings.