Just got it today (31st); liked it (though I agree it’s a bit heavy on cutesy). The 70s were ok for me…that’s when I started buying Trains… The 70s were also when I was old enough to railfan on my own…I lived in Cambridge, MA (Boston) from '70-'73 and saw the poor condition of the Boston & Maine and the dreary Penn Central. We were able to take day trips on the B&M to various historic sites…Concord, Lexington {that line is gone – now a bikeway}, Rockport…rode the “T” Green Line PCC cars out to Riverside on what I later learned was a former New York Central/Boston & Albany line…all for under $1…
I didn’t mind this “single theme” issue. In all the years I have read Trains, there were a few single-issue ones that I didn’t care for that much, but there are always the regular columns and news items.
And as for cutesy – way back in the 70s one cover featured the Rock Island and they titled it “Rock-A-Bye-Bye”, and a reader letter (or two) gave them grief for that.
Instead of a column, Mark has a story in the March issue explaining why the SP went down hill. It is a great article. That picture of the lumber train winding up the 3% grade is truly awesome.
His article was what I was thinking about when I said I thought the stories of the 70s help me understand why today’s railroads are what they are. I don’t really think one can understand the current problems of UP without knowing the information in this article.
Folks keep repeating "If I wanted old trains I’d buy CLASSIC TRAINS.
Consider this perspective: CLASSIC TRAINS is really a purely railfan’s magazine. Not much for contemporary railroaders there, including ads, other than what a poster formerly known as “Gabe” pointed out:
“Those that fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” Words apparently too often true in the RR business.
While a purely contemporary magazine might be a nice item, it’s sometimes necessary to know how things got how they are. If you’ve been a railfan or railroader for years, through all of the mergers and abandonments and bankruptcies and everything else, then you don’t need the background information. How many railfans are there, though, for whom Penn Central is just the distant past, like Erie, or Central Pacific.
I’m not saying that every issue should be on a par with “That 70’s Thing,” but it does shed light on railroading today, and next time an article about today’s railroads mentions a CNJ or RI, the reader will be less likely to shake their head and wonder where the author is coming from…
…I guess it takes all kinds of us: Having just received my March issue of TRAINS today and just now thumbed through it for a first look…I happen to think it has a bunch of real and different railroad photos through out the issue. I enjoyed my first look through. something different. Noted Mark’s article and will go back and read that an absorb more of the written matter. I give the issue a plus this time.
Even though I also get Classic Trains, I don’t object at all to TRAINS running articles about the past; after all, the series “Railroad Reading” is always about the past. But I have never been happy with an issue entirely devoted to one topic. I like the stories in the 70’s issue but it’s the ‘onlyness’ that I’m disappointed with; it’s like having a dinner with beef roast, ham, chicken, and mutton but with no 'taters, beans, and dessert!!
Art
I haven’t had time to read every article yet, but what I have read so far I’m enjoying thoroughly! It’s a great issue! I’ve always thought that the 70’s were a cool era for railroading and like ‘em or not, they were an important decade for the industry. If you think about it, there is pre-1970’s railroading and post-1970’s railroading. The 70’s, as the magazine itself said, was “the decade that changed everything.” It was the last decade that many things from railroading’s past existed and it was also the first decade that many things that make up railroading today started to come (with a few exceptions of course). The Conrail Bunch feature did look rather dumb at first glance, but actually reading it, it isn’t too bad. There were some very good observations made in it. Another thing is that the “That 70’s Issue” logo is quite noticable and the theme unique that it might attract non-readers’ attention/interest enough to buy the magazine.
For the record, I have no connection with anything or anyone in Montana. What I’m trying to point out is that there is a national interest in the feds forming regulatory policy that enhances and encourages competitive market pricing for our exporters. As we all know, the railroad industry is a fraction of the GDP, while the folks who make things to be shipped by rail represent a far larger portion of the economy. It makes no sense for a nation to establish regulations and/or take regulatory actions that benefit an economic minority to the detriment of an economic majority.
One of the reasons the USA has a trade deficit is that it costs more to ship an export commodity from the interior to a deep water port than it is to import commodities from port to population centers, and it is more expensive for US exports to ship from interior to port than it is for exporters to do the same in other nations. There are two major reasons for this: Massive consolidation of our franchise owned rail infrastructure (e.g. purposeful capacity limitations to allow greater pricing power for railroads), and artificial restrictions of trucks GVW and length that limit the viability of the competitive transport alternative of last resort. Some may say container repositioning may play a part, but that is also an adjunct of the fact that import containers are usually bound for population centers, while export production and manufacturing areas are more often than not located away from population centers.
What I have said from the start is this: It would be better for rail regulators to address the cost of capital/ROW disequalization of rail vs highway/waterway by keeping rail competition intact and instead afford tax incentives for ROW upkeep, including a surtax on railroads that defer maintenance. If the rail map from the 70’s was intact, we would have rail competition in just about every area of the country. Now that the ICC/STB has failed to maintain comprehensive access to competiti
If the rail map of the 70s was intact, we’d have no RRs now.
You want to regulate ROW maintenance?
A punative tax on deferring maintenance? Wouldn’t that have forced the RI, MILW, et. al. out of business faster? If I only have money for groceries and can’t afford to paint the house, you want to take some of my grocery money away as punishment?
A tax incentive for ROW upkeep? Based on what? Income? RRs in the 70s paid very little income tax. Property tax is also a drop in the bucket compared to what it would have taken to keep all the 70s routes.
Artificial restrictions on trucks? What’s artificial about them?
Manufacturing is located away from population centers? Huh? Ever look at a map of where the auto plants are? Steel mills? Paper mills?
Futuremodal seems to also ignore the fact that our trade deficit is also based on the fact that foreign-made goods are appreciably cheaper to the consumer than domestic-made goods, in part because foreign labor is much cheaper than American labor.
great great issue. liked it all, even if the routes of ns and csx were mixed up in a
part of central ohio. classic trains arrived the same day, hibernated to read the two.
pls send a makeup issue to keel middleton, a subscriber in wellington, kans, whose
copy is lost in the mails. he is a bnsf egr from there to amarillo tex. i liked the sketch
maps and recalling where i have been across the country and seen trains.
theo sommerkamp crosstie@wowway.com
Kudos to TRAINS!! I really enjoyed reading Paul D. Schneider’s article on the Rock Island. I still have the March 1983 issue of TRAINS with his “In The Violet Hour” when he traveled the Rock and interviewed it’s employees.
I enjoyed the '70’s issue. Wouldn’t want a steady diet of it, but as stated above the '70’s were a pivotal decade. The Staggers Act of 1980 (in my opinion anyway) was a direct result of the Penn Central bankruptcy and the railroad deterioration that took place in the '60’s and '70’s, and without Staggers and the changes in the regulatory climate that took place in the '70’s we wouldn’t have railroads to enjoy today. To steal an idea from an earlier poster, it’s easier to understand today if you know something about yesterday.
Labor costs (wages) are a very small part of why American goods are more expensive for Americans than are foreign goods. The transportation costs of shipping goods from overseas tends to wipe out labor cost savings. What really kills American manufacturing competitiveness is the level of regulation we endure and the subsequent inability to react quickly to market changes. You can also add the cost of labor protections to that list. By constrast, foreign firms have much lower regulation, are more elastic in terms of labor arrangements, and also tend to have substantial subsidies from their governments.
You also have to understand that we are not just competing on a unit for unit basis with other countries, e.g. it’s not just us trading with country A, and us trading with country B. We are competing with countries A, B, and C for markets in countries X, Y, and Z. The fact that it costs more to transport our goods from point of origin within our boundaries to the nearest deep water port, relative to other nation’s abilities to move their products from their points of origin to their deep water ports, is a significant part of why we are getting killed in foreign trade even with the depreciated dollar. We are saddled with a proprietary rail grid with access limited to the discretion of the owner, while other nations are blessed with open access of their rail lines. Also, other nations such as Canada allow heavier truck weights and longer truck lengths than the U.S. which means they can use the alternative of last resort more efficiently than we.
C’mon, CSSHE, don’t be so blatantly disingenuous regarding what I say.
Cool deal CSSHEGEWISCH,
Last week, I was disingenuous, this week its your turn…
Must be the new big word of the month…
As for the March issue,
Come on guys, the 70s were the cute and perky decade…we had Disco…Donna Summers, Grand Funk Railroad and Saturday night Fever, all in ten years…
I wouldnt mind if, in say four months, they do a 80s issue, so that the younger readers, or thoses new to this hobby, can see the difference just ten yards can make, and see that some things havent changed one bit in 30 years.
I got my first hankering for train in the 70s, got to watch BN take over the rail line just down the street…
I doubt the magazine has changed direction, but I bet it has a slightly different flavor with the new guy on board.
Lets see how it taste for a few issues, before we get too upset about any changes…
After all, I used to despise mushrooms and onions…
Ed
Mookie’s comments that about the value of our disagreements that make the forums so much fun was well put.
Upon first reading the comments about the 70’s issue, I thought all of us were going around like Chicken Little.
Now that I have received the issue in the mail(we get it last out west), I see that we may have misinterpreted the editors intentions. In Jim’s column at the beginning of the issue he made it clear that he was going back to the 70’s because he thinks that from that decade we can learn and better comphrehend the state of railroading in America today.
Therefore, I think it may be safe to say that the 70’s issue will not be a style repeated again real soon.
This reminds me of the days when I was a Safety Engineer for the Kwikset Lock Company. I worked with employees and foremens from all the departments in the plant to develop one set of safety rules for the whole plant. After over one year of meetings and many revisions I published the rules and had them posted plantwide. Then, I took a stroll through the plant and was jumped upon by countless employess in every department wanting to know why I changed the rules. They were mad. I crept into my bosses office and explained the situation. He dismissed their reactions by saying," They’ll get over it." He was right, they did.
The moral of the story, nobody likes change, myself included. Thus all the hub-bub over the 70’s issue is good fodder for the forum, but we won’t desert TRAINS, we love the magazine and the real trains too much.