So I find myself modeling the Powhattan secondary of the PC in 1975, mainly because I have been to the area many times and like the scenery. The tracks are still active owned by I believe CSX or NS. My first good model loco coincidently was lettered for PC. It’s great for a new modeler: simple paint scheme, flat black with some decals: shoddy trackwork causing derailments is prototypical etc…
I’ve done some reading on PC and like the scandalous backround and ultimate failure from the standpoint of a business degree but I do have a question:
Other than the obvious PRR NYC marriage and later the NH, what other railoads were caught up in this mess? Or what were acquired immediately prior to the merger? I seem to recall mention of one of the Lehighs being involved but not sure which. LV maybe?
PC was doomed from its inception. When Conrail was formed several additional roads were included including Ann Arbor, Reading, NH, EL and several other northeast roads. IO once saw the word conrail vertically with one railroad name for each initial. That means there were seven all together. The typical disgusting part of it as usual is the government took it all for 10 cents on the dollar, cut what they knew was unprofitable and wouldn’t let the railroads cut previously and had no idea what they were doing for over 18 months (sound familiar). CR was tied in knots with the yards plugged taking weeks to get fluid again.
PC was required to offer Lehigh Valley (PRR owned 97% of it) for sale to either N&W or C&O. When neither wanted it, LV declared bankruptcy three days after PC. PC wasn’t required to include it in the merger though, like the New Haven. New Haven was forced on PC by the ICC as a condition of merger.
That’s the connection I was trying to make. So LV never officially became part of PC but what happened to it’s motive power? Was it operated in recievership until Conrail?
The LV operated as an independent railroad up until CR. Then its motive power was folded into CR’s fleet. Much of it was retired or sold off since they had a lot of ALCO’s and very few newer engines. The LNE was being operated by the LV and the CNJ. The CNJ bounced in and out of solvancy and in and out of control by the RDG. The LV at one time was controlled by the PRR (as was the N&W). If you go back to the 1890’s the LV was controlled by the RDG. At the time of the PC merger the RDG was controlled by the B&O.
The Pennsylvania Railroad acquired a controlling interest in the Lehigh Valey via stock ownership in 1931 and elected to remain in the shadows and allow the LV to operate independently of direct PRR control until the mid-sixties, when PRR began to flood the carrier with its own field operations people, even seating PRR executives at the road’s headquarters in Bethlehem. The controlling interest ran right into the PC bankruptcy.
The Pennsy tried to provide what assistance it could to its charge, supplying worn out Alco diesels to the road, and assisting in unloading unusuable assets, but by 1969, the PC was in a direct firght for its own survival, so any assistance for the LV was virtually non-existent.
The PC was releived of certain care-hire and other charges against LV by the Federal Government, but the ruling did not allow LV the same luxury against the PC. Additional strains and government regulations regarding the PC merger and disposition of assets caused the LV to become tangled in the mess of the PC bankruptcy, and shortly after PC filed for protection, LV was forced to do the same.
The Lehigh Valley did lease (with the approval of the bankruptcy court and assigned trustee) the Lehigh and Susquehanna portion of the Jersey Central, i.e., the Central Railroad of Pennsylvania, after CNJ quit operations in PA.
Today, the NS operates the eastern main stem of the LV, and the R&N runs the line from Allentown north to Sayre and beyond to Van Etten Jct., where the old Passenger Main takes off toward Ithaca toward a coal plant. Beyond Van Etten Jct to the west, the LV main track is mostly abandoned. The Hazleton Branch in Pennsylvania is mostly intact, with short segments of the Oneida, Tomhicken and New Boston Branches still intact and doing a fairly good business for the R&N. The Hazleton Branch terminates near Pine Jct., just east of Delano, P
LV operated in recievership from 1970 until it’s inclusion in Conrail. Most of LV’s locomotives when to Conrail. However, 12 C420s, and 12 GP38-2s, as well as, 20 Reading GP39-2s, were transferred to the Delaware & Hudson.