Agreed. At no point did they indicate how saving the railroad would benefit society at large. It was entirely a woe-is-me argument.
I just finished reading Rush Loving’s “The Men Who Loved Trains” and I would recommend it to anyone who wants background on how bad Penn Central really was. The pages of TRAINS from 1969 to about 1976 also provide context for those who weren’t around during the Northeastern railroad near-collapse.
Perhaps those who produced the film assumed that the need for railroads was a foregone conclusion, so they focussed on why the current situation was detrimental to that conclusion.
I remember my undergrad microecon. prof in 1973 in class saying railroads weren’t needed. Trucks could handle everything.
As much as I loved trains, I could understand why railroads were disinvesting. There was inadequate return on capital across the whole industry. And it had three strikes against it.
A general “need for railroads” is not the same as compelling, specific details on why this one particular railroad was important to this region of the nation. Focusing on rusting rails and peeling paint does not instill much confidence in the applicant organization.
I don’t disagree. But sometimes a person can’t see the forest for the trees.
What seems obvious to one person may not be obvious at all to another.
Sometimes, appeals such as this have insidious motives.
Perhaps you might remember when in 1961 FCC chairman Newton Minow gave a speech now famously known as the “Vast Wasteland” speech, in which he criticized broadcast TV as being a procession of game shows and formula comedies about totally unbelievable families… etc …many at the time insisted upon regarding the speech as an unprovoked attack on Ward Cleaver.
When in reality, the Government had been looking to better exploit the new medium of television for a few years, but sought a smokescreen to shield itself from potential allegations of propaganda. What the government was actually saying was “get ready to see us spending significant money in this area, and here is the reason why”…and almost overnight the Education Television Facilities Act began pouring money into National Educational Television, with the goal of expanding what had been at best a half hearted effort, into a fourth network.
The eventual fruit of that effort becoming what we now call PBS.
In similar spirit, might the video you present have been part of a grander scheme designed to make Joe Taxpayer more receptive to the government getting involved in day to day matters of railroading? That’s what the video did for me, was to put me in a “well something is going to have to be done” frame of mind.
This was six years before Staggers, and the railroads were pretty much hamstrung with regulations that prevented them from getting the rate increases they needed. They also couldn’t sell off unprofitable lines or get their labor numbers out of the steam age. Worst hit were the lines in the Northeast with their short hauls… I guess the film was a last ditch effort at obtaining help… i.e. we can’t charge more because you won’t allow us to… we can’t cut our labor costs because you won’t allow us to… we can’t get rid of unprofitable business or aboandon unproftiable lines because you won’t allow us to… so… here you go… give us some money to keep going…
Whether or not the movie made a difference, a serious move toward dereg didn’t really begin until Congress got stuck with covering Conrail’s losses, which weren’t much less than those of the six predecessors prior to April 1, 1976.
I can’t help but wonder how many ICC regulators wound up with egg on their faces, that is, the ones who approved the PRR/NYC merger? The merger’s approved, then a few years later this film full of carnage comes out?
Few to none. Most of those problems would have emerged one way or another, merger or no merger.
Who should have had egg on their faces was the PRR and NYC for essentially lying to themselves about their true nature as real estate firms that happened to own railroads, not railroads that happened to own real estate.
No argument with you there. Al Perlman warned the merger was a bad idea, but no-one at the NYC would listen. That’s the reason Al came out of the whole debacle with his reputation pretty intact.
Would have likely happened anyway, even without the merger. The merger likely exacerbated things however, as the red team and the green team couldn’t get along… right on up to the senior managers who were of a different temperment. I guess combining two large failing companies into one colossus was bound to fail… but who would have known?
What’s going to happen now? Two North American trunk line carriers? One major carrier that’s regulated like AT&T used to be?
You need to read the book “The Wreck of the Penn Central”. There was far more at stake then just the railroad. The railroads liquidation would have dragged the entire Northeast into a deep recession and bankrupted several large state pension funds that had invested in the NYC and PRR. Up until that bankruptcy, railroads were thought to be safe investments similar to power utilities and most had AAA ratings on their bonds. Hence Pension Funds, Insurance Companies and the like were heavily invested in both the NYC and PRR. The merger was sold to the public as a financial gold mine of cost savings between the two, which drew more people in. The bankruptcy was a watershed moment for it’s size in assets and the specific fact it was a large railroad.
With a company as pathetically bankrupt as PC was, why would anyone expect them to produce a top level ‘cry for help’ movie. To make and produce a first class movie requires first class artists to write, produce and film such a movie.
PC could only access 3rd rank talent for the movie and it really shows.
So, I guess this is a clearcut case where regulators failed to anticipate the downside for the American public that might result from “too big to fail” entities that might result from a merger?
Respectfully, it’s not about what I need to read. It is about making a compelling case to the entities that controlled the purse strings. The film is a complete failure in this regard.
The film should be shown in grants 101, marketing 101, PR 101, and speech 101 classes as an example of how not to make a persuasive argument.
I think you’re perceiving it backwards.
They didn’t make the film to make the argument that they needed help. The film was supporting visuals to an argument that was already being made. It is basically Figure 1 to go along with the reams and reams of paper spent explaining what was wrong.
And lots of people in that chain would have watched ONLY the film and skipped over the paper entirely.
Visuals make an impression. Reports do not. The message of the film should have focused on the positive impact of Penn Central. The woe-is-me tripe could have been buried on page 572 of the report.