My N Scale Layout is “The Pennsylvania & Atlantic Coast Railroad.” It’s based on a fictional merger of the Pennsylvania railroad and Atlantic Coast Line. What if this merger had happened in real life instead of Penn Central?
I have a few ideas. For one thing, both PRR and ACL would have gained access to new markets instead of duplicating redundant services in the same market. New York Central would most likely have merged either with Seaboard Air Line or Southern. What do you guys think?
An interesting thoujght if the gap betweeen D.C. and Richmond were closed. After that, PRR was primarily an east-west or west-east railroad, ACL north-south along the coast. Unless PRR had a lot of north- south traffic on the coast rather than from the midwest, it would not have been a good fit. NYC was a fit because of parallel routes and duplicated facilities which could have been merged and redundent trackage elminated. Unless PRR and ACL could have also hooked up over in TN or KY or OH, it would not have made too much sense
Personally, I think that just about any “end to end” merger would have proven better for PRR that what did happen. (disclaimer here about hindsight, “morning after” mentality, etc)
So much of NYC and PRR’s plant was reduplicate in the other, that mere sensible rationalization made surplus of far too much equity.
History has proven that the real meat and potatoes for rail is in east-west traffic, so I personally believe that Santa Fe or Southern Pacific would have been a better match (than NYC) . But the one you outline seems sure to have potential.
With regard to the Wash., D.C. - Richmond gap between those 2 systems as mentioned by henry6 above, the RF&P was the quintessential and very effective “bridge line” for many railroads across those 110 miles or so. No reason to think it couldn’t have continued in that role - or maybe it would have become a merger partner, too.
Actually, today’s CSX is a kind of ‘alter ego’ of that thought - just with NYC instead of PRR after the ConRail split-up and acquisition, and of course the RF&P and the remnants of the ACL. Nevertheless, I don’t sense too much more traffic in any of the resulting lanes.
"….Nevertheless, I don’t sense too much more traffic in any of the resulting lanes…"
- Paul North.
From Paul’s statement and some small experience with dealing in outbound freight from Florida. It is much more a consuming area than a producing area.
Agricultural Products (Fruits and Vegetables,plants,) and minerals and mineral based products. The Ag side is, of course, many degrees of perishable. The Mineral Products, are not and lend themselves to bulk type Transport- Rail) The Perishables have historically utilized the more mobile trucking industry.
Rail has made some very noticeable in roads, ie; THE Tropicana Trains, and the bulk Minral Business. And somewhat in the TOFC area of Transport for Perishables.
And, Sam, while the Tropicana train is strictly and east coastal venture, a lot more of Florida’s output goes north and west, away from PRR territory or to PRR’s western territory. It would be too expensive to drag stuff up to D.C. to give to PRR to take to Pittsburgh via Baltimore than to give to whoever was at Jacksonville heading toward Cleveland and Chicago in a more direct fashion… ACL and PRR would not have made much econoimic sense…that’s why Family Lines and CSX developed.
Both the PRR and NYC were drowning in passenger losses they could not get rid of, Both had excess track, routes, and employees that were eating them up from the inside. Any merger partner could not have supported the insuportable.
The failure of PC illustrated that a famous name is no substitutre for sound finance. Also notice that serious regulatory reform did not happen until congress found itself paying for the insane policies that it enforced on private owners.
Mac
I’ve always thought that an “Overland Route” merger of UP & CNW & PRR would have been a good one back in the day. Well, at least we got the first two together! [:)]
But, do you think it impossible that the PRR might have salvaged itself with the right merger candidate? One whose plant complemented the PRR’s, for instance MOPAC, or the Rock? Giving it the longer haul on traffic it originated, as well as a bigger network of spurs feeding it from the west.
PRR +TPW+ CRI&P might have been interesting
In the late 50’2/early 60’s PRR wanted to merge with Wabash and Norfolk & Western, both RR’s it held large ownership stakes in. Rush Loving in his excellent book “The Men Who Loved Trains” makes the case that this would have created a much better system than PC…
It might have been mentioned in the book-but I know I have read it elsewhere-that the PRR/WAB/N&W combine was in conjunction with (or reaction to?) the C&O/B&O merger, to which the NYC was attempting to become a party. Apparently, the C&O wanted to wait until they had fully absorbed the B&O and until the NYC had improved its financial position. The ICC agreed with the C&O and the PRR’s combine would have been too big to sanction without it. Since both the PRR and the NYC felt they couldn’t wait, the NYC bowed out of C&O/B&O and the PRR spun off N&W/WAB and the two decided to go it together.
One wonders what would have played out if the NYC and the PRR had been able to wait things out for another five or so years. If it would have avoided the PC debacle, what other proposed mergers of the era might have received approvals: UP-SP/RI, NKP/DLW, some of the granger proposals that were floated around…now that could be an interesting Map of the Month: The US rail map if these 1960’s era mergers had been approved.
I also thought of the Erie-Lackawanna and Milwaukee Road as a merger.
I don’t know if the ICC would ever have been ready to approve a transcontinental merger. Even without it we still haven’t achieved one.
It is mystifying why a water to water transcon has not been forged in the US, especially in this day and age of the bigger, the more encompassed, the more investment, the greater chance of return, the better the bet. Except that possibly the UP meltdown, the NS and CSX struggles, and other trip ups have shown that what looks good for investors on paper doesn’'t necessarily bring a return in operations. It is understood you don’t run trains in and out of New York area like you run trains across Ohio and Indiana, into Denver, over the Rockie, and through California…each is different that the McDonald Principal (Big Mac = Big Mac in Portland, Maine and Portland, Oregon). A lot of industries in the country are losing ground because of biggness and are stumbling back toward more localized control and service. So why should we have a Transcontinental railroad in the US just to have a Transcontinental railroad in the US? And don’t tell me because Canada has two because Canada is a different country in so many ways.
[:-,] Get caught up with the times, henry6 - Canada has had only 1 transcon for a couple decades now, ever since CP pulled out of pretty much everything east of Montreal . . . [sigh]
In the midst of the early 1970’s travails of the railroad industry, John Kneiling used to advocate that the Erie-Lackawanna merge with the Santa Fe to create a transcon with minimal burdens and a great route and R-O-W for intermodal. Too bad that didn’t happen . . .
Others have pointed out that any transcontinental merger now would upset the current “balance of power” between the “superpower” railroads and so force the others into the same. The result would be proprietary exclusionary alliances which would not be of much benefit to anyone, as compared to the present “arrangements” - kind of like “Mutual Assured Destruction” doctrine of nuclear weapons stand-off between the US and the USSR back in the Cold War days . . . [:-^]
CP reaches Atlantic waters with St. Lawrence River and Bay terminals and could if they were to excercise rights from Allentown, PA to Oak Island, NJ, in NY harbor, too.
henry6 - You’re right - even CP’s map shows it that way - see:
Kindly accept my apologies for not thinking of that, and jumping the gun on you that way. [:$]
Just a little more info about the NW/PRR relationship.
From the 1955 Moody’s:
PRR and it’s wholly owned subsidiary Pennsylvania Company owned 2.4 million shares of 5.6million total issued of NW. This is about 41%…if anyone has more accurate info, please advise.
It appears PRR/PennCompany received dividends of about $8million on common stock. Dont have time to dig further, but NW was a cash cow for PRR.
Ed
There are probably several reasons why we don’t have a “water to water” transcon railroad. The most important is that, compared to other traffic flows, relatively little rail traffic actually moves coast to coast. Railroads have historically tended to merge in ways which create single line routes for their major traffic flows (one of the reasons that the reach of individual railroads has increased as length of hauls increased and shorter distance moves were lost to trucks). But they don’t do this with less important traffic flows.
Another reason is that, given the current structure of the industry, the eastern and western roads have probably determined that, at this point in time, they are better off with neutral partners in the other territories, which give them full access to the points served by the railroads in those territories, than if they paired off with one of the railroads in the other territory and made the other one a hostile connection. In other words, if you are a western railroad, you have probably concluded that you are better off with two neutral RR’s in the east than you would be if you paired off with one of the eastern roads and forced the other eastern road (and the points it serves) into the hands of your competitor. This dynamic could change quickly if one of the big roads makes an attempt to merge east or west, but that’s the way it is right now.
Actually with container landbridging there actually is a lot more water to water,coast to coast, traffic than ever before…plus European imports to West Coast urban areas and Asian imports to East Coast urban areas. But your concept of neutral partnering is very interesting and sounds very pracitcal, Falxon48…