I like them all, but three that stand out as my favorites:
Penn Central:
Erie Lackawanna
Lehigh Valley
If you’ll recall, the OP wanted to look at RR’s innovative greatness and not their personal appeal. The first two I thought of were B&O for being an industry and Conrail for turning a disaster into a profitable road.
U.S. Military Railroad in the Civil War? All railroads for their WW1/WW2 performance?
Rick
The USMRR in the Civil War? Superb organization! And God help anyone who attempted to throw his weight around and interfere with it, Abe Lincoln himself saw to that.
Performance in WW1? No so good, the co-ordination was shoddy, hence the formation of the USRA. How good that organization was is debated to this day, so I won’t get into it.
Performance in WW2? Great! I don’t see how it could have been humanly possible to do better! In fact, find yourself a copy of Don Ball’s and Rogers Whittaker’s “Decade Of The Trains” for the best telling of the story, you won’t be sorry!
Remember WW 1 was a ‘foreign war’ that the US had no interest in getting involved in until the sinking of the SS Aztec on April 1, 1917 and the resolution of War that was passed by Congress on April 6, 1917. The military draft got implemented May 18, 2017. In December 2017 the USRA created with a effective date of Dec. 28, 2017. November 11, 2018 the Armistice is agreed to. June 28, 1919 Germany forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles - the US refuses to sign. The USRA authority ceased a some time in 1920, thus it existed for slightly over two years.
The US ramped up from isolation - not my problem stance - to becoming a full participant to announcement of the Armistance in 11 months.
I feature there was whole lot of disorganization in the USA War effort than just the railroads. Trying to harness the means of production sourcing raw materials, handing finished products and moving military manpower to training camps and thence to sea going vessels to go ‘Over There’. With all levels of port congestion that was a part of early 20th Century shipping.
rixflix, two that didn’t last long but not because of not trying:
New York Central early containerized freight
Southern Pacific “Overnight” Freights - LA-San Francisco pairs and LA-Phoenix pairs. Not quite Fed Ex but a precursor of it with the technology available at the time.
And 4 to 5 years later, the US was essentially dictating the terms of the Washington Naval treaty - using the stick of carrying on with the war time levels of capital ship production.
Another crash program was the construction of railway guns using 14 inch naval rifles whih manage to get about two months of use.
Not an innovation, but quirky, was the C&NW with left-hand running.
And Lincoln never lost his interest in railroads.
I can’t help but wonder if during the dark days of the Civil War Lincoln banged his head on his desk and wondered why the hell he didn’t stay in Illinois handling railroad cases.
Just for general infprmation: 1972 Southern Pacific [Corp] Communiocations began divesting/ selling excess (or surplus) communicatons capacity. On its microwave and fiber optic telecom system (laid along their railroad rights of way) to corporations for use as private lines. This became the telecom corp known by its former railroad’s designation of SPRINT…Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Networking Telephony…[:-^]
Santa Fe Railway, the opener of the southwestern United States, is my favorite. Their perception to optimize the indigenous culture of that region into their advertising and calendars, painted by famous artists, lasts yet to this day.
They also built the El Tovar on the Grand Canyon rim and promoted the still renouned Fred Harvey food, hotels and restaurants. Their part time employee, along with Fred Harvey, Mary Elizabeth Jane Coulter, designed and supervised building of the Watch Tower located toward the eastern end of the Grand Canyon.
Their Super Chief was the favorite of Hollywood stars prior to airplanes, and also for business executives. Their Mimbreno china, designed by Mary Coulter, was created exclusively for the Super Chief and remains a very active collectable.
Yes! Can’t forget about SPRINT. See the Espee was ahead of it’s time [:)]
Not only is SP a fallen flag so is Sprint. T-Mobile bought them last year.
Actually SPRINT purchased T-Mobile and then immediately changed its name to T-Mobile, but all T-Mobile’s management is in charge of the combined company.
And now T-Mobile is implementing Precision Scheduled Reception so your text and emails only come in to your phone in longer but less frequent groupings.
They are also implementing extended sidings of fiber lines so that data packets going in opposite directions can get to their destination with less conflicts. They had been working on laying double fiber lines but were able to determine it was less capital-intensive to lay longer and more closely-spaced fiber sidings. This resulted in more cash being available to return to shareholders.
T-Mobile also refurbished the largest analog telephone switch box that they used in their network before the digital revolution. They are taking it on a tour of cities on the T-Mobile network and displaying it so people can see it up close, feel the heat coming off of it as it operates, and see the analog switches moving back and forth on the unit. They call it the Big Boy. T-Mobile is not forgetting their heritage.
They are also end dating the LG Stylo5 I got from Sprint two years ago. It needs to be traded to something 5G before the end of the year.
Well, so much for the Father, the Son, and the Holy Sprint.
Change the size and capacity of cars ? SOU RR’s Big John grain car fight with the ICC completely changed the capacities of cars.
Verizon’s LTE service has been pretty crappy as of late with their adoption of 5G. I’m in the same boat. I’ll need a 5G capable phone before the end of the year…
Chicago Great Western. Noted for 10 F-Unit lash ups, early developer of TOFC, unique rural rail hub (Oelwein), and one of the last Class 1 railroads ever built. At peak, less total route miles than the Milwaukee Road’s Pacific Coast Extension but magaged to serve the major gateways of Chicago, Kansas City, Omaha, and the Twin Cities. Nearly all track has been abandoned.
CB&Q Obviously - the road of Presidents i.e groomed more presidents for other RR’s than any other RR. The innovator of Zephyrs, etc and THE 1st name of America’s biggest/best RR - BN! (after all the wizard of Omaha bought them rather than the UP despite it being in his backyard!)