This has been discussed on the Fred Frailey blog, but since we have a number of UP employees and former employees, this might be of interest on the main forum.
Many of us consider “The Men Who Loved Trains” to be the standard modern historical book, particularly for east of the Mississippi railroading. Author Rush Loving took us behind the scenes for the corporate battle for Conrail.
Maury Klein has written the west of the Mississippi version of modern railroading history, particularly the Union Pacific. His book “Union Pacific, The Reconfiguration: American’s Greatest Railroad from 1969 to the Present” is the third volume in his look at the history of the Union Pacific. I have NOT read the first two volumes.
Fred Frailey’s blog on recently retired John Rebensdorf of the UP mentioned Mr. Klein’s book. I immediately purchased it on line at Abe Books and am six chapters into the book. The book, after a brief historical view of the UP, dives into the problems and challenges of the railroading industry, thru the Union Pacific from 1969 onward.
This is a very detailed look at this railroad, warts and all. According to Mr. Frailey, Klein was given access (and office space) at the UP. This is a behind the scenes look at not only the Union Pacific RAILROAD, but also the Union Pacific CORPORATION (the holding company created in order to maximize the land holding assets).
Currently I have only read the first 6 chapters, but the CEO - John Kenefick is already establishing himself as a strong manager and leader. He refers to himself as “MFICC”. I will allow you to determine the first two letter’s, but the last 3 meant “in complete control”.
This is one of those “cant put it down” historical books. I would highly recommend it to those interested in modern railroad history or who found “The Men Who Loved Trains” a fascinating book.
MP173 wrote the following post on Tuesday, July 10, 2012 [in part]:
“…This is one of those “cant put it down” historical books. I would highly recommend it to those interested in modern railroad history or who found “The Men Who Loved Trains” a fascinating book…”
Ed
Valpo Ed: Between you and Greyhounds;
Your really interesting and book ‘Reviews’ (Teasers?) are keeping me busy! Have ordered some of your recommendations and will probably order some more.
One of these days I am going to the Barringer library in St. Louis. I might not leave. Nothing like the smell of dusty old books in a library or book store.
I buy books that appeal to me, but have to hold back a lot, because the dungeon needs:
(Re)organization.
Shelving.
More shelving.
Replacement shelving.
Walking space.
Expansion room.
Maybe a little more shelving.
But none of this stops me from going into a good used bookstore for the smells and the occasional lucky acquisition! (We found an amazing bookstore along U.S. 1 in Maine west of Portland…not much railroady that I wanted or didn’t have already, but the experience of seeing room after room of organized books, in labyrinthine fashion, is what a bibliophile lives for!)
You should read this book. I would be interested to know your opinion. If you want, when I am finished, I can get it to you.
Lots of interesting insight into CNW. I am now on the chapter dealing with the merger with Missouri Pacific and Western Pacific.
The whole industry was one giant chess game back in the late 70’s. Someone would move and it would set off a series of moves. I am telling you, this is a great book about the Western railroad scene.
The manuevers by UP to get into Powder River coal were quite shrewd. BN literally had it locked up with CNW out of $$$ until UP figured out how to get it done. Changed the entire landscape.
I have been reading this along with my 1972 and 1980 Moody Transportation Manuals for the financials and an old Official Guide to look at the maps.
A few years ago Jimmy Page discovered some tapes in his basement of live Led Zepplin shows from the early 1970s and spliced two consecutive shows together into one 3 CD album. The shows were in Los Angeles and perhaps Long Beach, Ca. The album was entitled “How the West was Won” and displayed the raw power and workmanship that made LZ the power band of the decade.
I cannot help but think of that as I read this book. Maury Klein “discovered” thru complete access the railroading medamorphis during the 1970s/80s/90s of the Union Pacific.
The merger with Missouri Pacific (just finished that last night) was a brilliant move by UP. While the BN went for the Frisco, many think MoPac was the better franchise. MoPac was an extremely well run railroad…in many cases a better railroad than UP, according to Mr. Klein.
Dowling Jenks, CEO of MoPac, was a brilliant manager and established MoPac as perhaps the crown jewel of the western railroads. Mr. Jenks initiated a management training program which created a pipeline of talent. He then gave that talent the tools to work with. Their computer program TCS was the best information tool in the industry. Considerable time (and pages) are spent describing this software and how it changed MoPac into a lean operating system.
John Kenefick and the Union Pacific Corporation (the holding company) always wanted MoPac but waited until literally the last minute. One of UP’s corporate officers had a father in law who was on the board of MoPac and was privy to info that MoPac was seriously considering an offer to merge with Southern Railway. With Frisco already agreeing with BN, that would have left UP out of the Texas, Louisiana, Southeastern market. Remember…UP made a huge investment to tap the PRB coal.
Jenks always wanted to merge with UP and the deal was consumated quickly. The late 70’s was an amazing time for mergers and consolidation.
“Railroad Geo-Politics”, some called it back then (a University of Pennsylvania professor for one, whose name I forget, much to my chagrin).
Unfortunately, it seems to me that too many of those mergers (though not all) were mostly ‘defensive’ for survival to preserve territory and traffic share, and mainly to cut costs through consolidation. Despite the “reducing in-transit time by X days” press releases, there was little or no focus on using the mergers to provide better service with faster end-to-end times, bypassing bottlenecks, exploiting the longer hauls then available for unit trains, or in providing serious competition to the trucks on the highways. I’m sure that greyhounds (as well as others here) can - and has already - explained why those underwhelming results largely followed from the government’s (ICC) economic regulation of the industry that was in effect back then.
I know what you are saying, but this seems as if it was the first movement in the wholesale of railroading. In other words, let us hitch up as many cars as possible and move from big hump yard to the destination, with the terminal services being a challenge.
The “first and last mile” of railroading, land telephone lines, cable TV, utiliites, etc, are always the key.
These mergers in the late 70s and onward might have been defensive in nature, but most railroads went from regional to super regional. By super regional I am referring to either east or west of the Mississippi. Even today, that barrier has not been broken, and may never be.
UP had to have an outlet to the south and southeast, just as they did to reach Chicago. Their purchase of Western pacific was really defensive…it was made clear they wanted no part of Southern Pacific at that time. SP begged to merge with UP in the early to mid 70s…“no, but thanks for calling” was Kenefick’s reply. Yet, SP had valuable markets which UP depended on.
The unit train movements began with the PRB coal and this was critical to UP. They absolutely needed an outlet at Kansas City for all that coal.