I am reading the back cover of my 1974 Official Guide. It has this advertisement claiming a “transporation crisis.”
Question: Was there really a transportation crisis in 1974?
The ad quoted in full:
How to solve America’s transportation crisis:
Start with 16,600 miles of track,
2,400 locomotives, 11,000 trailers
and 140,000 freight cars.
THE FAMILY LINES SYSTEM,
made up of the Seaboard Coast
Line, Louisville & Nashville,
Clinchfield, Georgia and West
Point Route railroads is the third
largest rail network in this country.
But today, that’s more than a corporate position.
Because diesel fuel is at a premium, both in expense and
supply. And the cost of moving freight is rising drastically.
Yet more people need more goods delviered. Right now.
And THE FAMILY LINES SYSTEM is ready with an immediate solution.
Altogether, we serve 13 of the fastest growing states in the
nation with 65 million consumers.
So the size and resources of our rail system are more vital
logistically and economically than ever before. Especailly since
railroads require only a third of the amount of fuel consumed by
other land modes of freight transportation.
Solving the nations’s transportation problems isn’t as
simple
Well, it’s a corporate ad … so take it with a grain of salt.
But there was at least a problem. It was the first gas shock that I remember. The Arabs attacked Isreal and were winning for a while, Then, with US support, Isreal just kicked their heads in. (I was in the US Army at the time and we were put on alert. Suposidly, Soviet troops were on their planes ready to interveen. If they went in, we were going in. One of those oh $hit moments.) Nixon handled it. Now, he had his faults, but that was the second time he possibly saved my life. The first was when he fixed things so no one in my high school graduating class of 1968 was sent to Viet Nam. I grew up in a very small town. We graduated 47 that year. Two guys from the class of '67 died in Viet Nam. One of 'em winning the Silver Star. Those aren’t good odds.
So the Arabs responded by cutting oil supplies. Gas skyrocketed to something like $0.60/gallon, which was a shock. Diesel fuel was equally affected. The governement involved itself with fuel sales/distribution and further screwed things up. You could only buy gas every other day, depending on your car’s license plate. If it ended with an odd number you could only buy gas on odd numbered days.
Truckers couldn’t find fuel. The stations were out. They’d need to refuel and couldn’t. They’d have a load of fresh meat that was a second morning delivery into New York and be stuck in Ohio with no fuel for their tractor OR the refrigeration unit on the trailer. So the driver was going to “loose the load”.
Was it a “crisis”? That’s subjective. But there was a problem.
I was trucking during this time of"Crisis." My point of view[subjective as it is,also] was that the only shortage was in"Cheap" fuel. Fuel was available, I
…And among all the rest of events mentioned above…It {oil embargo}, and all the rest of happenings did something else too…Created a massive recession that effected many, many of us and industries.
Gas stations often ran out of gas. It was illegal to make appointments, which alot of folks, including yours truly, managed to skirt, out of necessity. You watched your gas mileage, planned your trips better ie, consolidated errands. Unplanned trips, let alone commuting to work, could be daunting. Speed limits dropped to 55 in theory only. It was the real entry point for small, read “foreign” cars in the market in an era where “gas guzzlers” ( remember that term?) were the norm. It was real and a real pain.
At the time I lived in Northern Illinois in Lake County, specifically Fox Lake. The passage of 30+ years has dimmed my recall of specifics as to who or what instigated this. I had a guy who did all my repairs at a small gas station and he did this by appointment for his “regulars.” Alot of this went on. It brings to mind, there was also a big side business, at the time, in seat belt “retrofits,” as when these first came out as required, standard pieces of equipment, alot of models where set up where you could’nt operate the car without buckling up. So alot of shade tree and local mechcanics would defeat these for a small fee…good old American ingenuity and market forces at play…
True, the ad is a push for approval of the Family Lines merger, but there were problems.
Other than the gasoline shortage mentioned above, Penn Central and most of its neighbors were failing and there was also a freight car (specifically box car) shortage.
The gasoline and diesel fuel prices were skyrocketing. Nothing like that had happened before. Despite wage & price controls, CPI inflation in 1974 hit 10-12% and that was also unprecedented. Yes, and Milwaukee went ahead with terminating the Electrification June 14, 1974. Diesel was being rationed to the railroads at that point. Washington State Senator Warren Magnuson, who was a big railfan and a vocal opponent of the Electrification shutdown, felt the termination threat was a bluff – that Milwaukee had no way to get the diesel fuel supplies necessary to substitute for the electrics. Naturally, the Milwaukee went ahead anyway and turned off the power.
Milwaukee’s fuel costs shot up; then they discovered that their electric power costs on the RMD shot up as well – the railroad had been operating an entire division on a power contract negotiated at 1952 prices, and the power company was allowed to terminate the contract if it was no longer an “electrification” contract. With roaring inflation, esp. in the cost of diesel fuel, railroads began to fall behind – the ICC granted compensatory rate increases, but those were never retroactive to cover the costs that prompted the increases.
The year 1975 showed the full effects of the “crisis.” I vaguely remember something to the effect it was the first time post WWII that more Class I RR’s lost money than made money, and the ones that made money didn’t make much. Congress enacted the 4R Act, allegedly “emergency” legislation, but then the FRA couldn’t figure out how to disburse it and came up with all sorts of odd criteria, and very little money actually made it out the door to help the railroads in the fashion that Congress had intended.
The Year 1974 began the rollup to the “Midwest Rail Crisis” in 1977-1978, but even mighty BN began generating Operating Ratios in the mid-90s and looked like it was soon to the follow the Milwaukee Road “train wreck.” All of which ultimately set the stage for
It was pretty much the “perfect storm” of transportation. Now, my perspective was not exactly “real world” as I was in college then, but…gas did double and become more difficult to purchase at times.
The big transportation crisis situation involved the PC and all of the other carriers which were basically falling apart. It was a pretty lousy time in a lot of ways. Viet Nam was just winding down and there was alot of negetism. Nixon resigned, inflation was taking off, the free love era ended before I could participate…then disco hit and we were all standing around wandering “what’s next.”
Wasn’t it the summer of 1974 that a national penny shortage developed? For the first time spot price of copper shot up above 98-cents/lb., so suddenly the copper content of a U.S. minted penny exceeded one cent in value. Living in east central Missouri at the time, I remember
merchants using 1-cent and 2-cent stamps as change, and
thieves stealing copper wire from the MoPac signal lines along the DeSoto Subdivision and selling it for scrap.
This debacle led eight years later to the downgrading of the copper content of the penny coin. Although today it’s only a small fraction of what it was prior to 1982, with today’s prices for copper it’s now costing Uncle Sam 1.3-cents to mint each penny. And the nickel coin is running around 5.5-cents each to make.
There was also a Nixon-promulgated policy to save petroleum fuels wherein he pressured gasoline retailers to close their operations on Sundays. In fact along U.S. 66 between Chicago and Saint Louis there was only one truck stop openly dispensing gasoline and diesel fuel through the Sunday night time hours.
No siree, it wasn’t a pretty time in America at all, but I’d sure like to see 89-octane at 60-cents/gallon again!
Yep, I remember the transportation crisis. Actually lasted several years, but historically transportation and economic related crisis situations occur in cycles. Penn Central was mentioned quite a bit in the news. Because of its situation, the public in general seemed to have an overall negative view of U.S railroads as dying entities even though healthy railroads such as the Santa Fe were running fast freight service trains like the “Super C”. Amtrak didn’t receive high acclaims either even though Paul Reistrup was trying to turn things around.
Still, I was a teen in the 70s and having a ball!
The Corvette, Z28, and Trans Am were the sports cars to be “seen in”. $11 easily filled up many a hot rods gas tank.
All in the Family and Good Times were the top rated comedy shows for a good while.
McCloud, Marshall Matt Dillon, Shaft, and Columbo were among our favorite tv/movie cops.
The Doobie Brothers were cranking out some very cool hits that made you feel good to be alive…not depressed.
Too bad for you anti-disco types. For those of us that liked to excercise and dance to Latin and Soul styled music that had no mentions of blood and gore, it was a lot of fun.
Political correctness??? Ah, yes…non existent!
Men and boys did not have to concern themselves with exploring their “feminine side”.
I befriended a fellow teen in church who happend to be a modeler and railfan. Got me hooked and 30 years later I’m still hooked.
Thing I remember best about the oil embargo was that whenever we went across the Bay Bridge to see my grandma in San Francisco is that we also saw lots of loaded oil tankers anchored in the bay. It always seemed odd that with an oil “shortage” those ships were not being off loaded at the refineries.
The other thing I remember well is that my friends and I made pretty good money selling coffee and homemade pastries to commuters who were waiting in line to buy gas every morning.
I was born in 1974 but I seem to remember reading about a trucker’s strike that took place in the winter of 1974. I’m sure that made any railcar shortage much worse.
1974? No. The 55 MPH speed limit did not take effect until the Carter Administration, which started off in 1976. I got my driver’s license in 1971 and I remember gas prices of 35 cents a gallon. I do remember the cost of Bunker C oil going through the roof not long afterward, because old people in New England had to make the choice between paying for food or buying oil to heat the house. They froze to death. There was a flirtation with gas rationing at one point- odd numbered licensed plated cars got to fuel up on odd days, evens on even days. The lines at the gas stations were long, but I don’t remember any stations closing because of a fuel shortage.
The Carter presidency called for lower settings on thermostats, and the President appeared on national TV wearing a cardigan sweater. But it was not in 1974.
Railroads were in a sorry state all over the country. Penn Central had taken over in 1968 and failed about two years later in the largest bankruptcy the US had ever seen. (That record has been surpassed a long time ago.) EMD’s ruled the NHRR for mainline service, but ALCOs still pulled what little freight there was.
Cars still took “regular” gas which was NOT unleaded. Volkswagon Beetles were driven by hippies. Real men drove Fords, Chevvies and Dodges. My 1969 Dodge Polara 4 door battleship took about six gallons to go around 140 miles at about 65 miles an hour. It could (and did) take a side impact at 35 miles an hour from another car which dented the front driver door. No injuries and no side impact airbags, either.
The Connecticut River was so hopelessly polluted that someone figured out that it would take 15 years to fix. Summer sunsets were bright red in Connecticut, because New York didn’t have pollution controls and the air blew into CT anyway.
Our household had its own “transportation crisis” in 1974.
I remember my dad, a signal maintainer with the C&NW from 1952 to 1994, was quite angry when President Ford vetoed H.R. 15301 in 1974. He was one of those qualified to receive Social Security and Railroad Retirement upon retirement. Fortunately, the subsequent compromise, known as the Railroad Retirement Act of 1974, met to his approval. “It could have been a lot worse,” as he put it.
But no one seems to remember the real gasoline shortage during WWII. Then rationing meant for all practical purposes that your car was out of commision unless you needed it as part of medical practice or similar vital community essential function. But for railfans: passenger train discontinuous notices were ripped down off of bulletin boards and walls and doors and replaced by notices of additional service. Trolley wire was restored over abandoned streetcar tracks (Putnam Avenue in Brooklyn, for one), old streetcars were returned from the scrap lines to be thoroughly overhauled and put back in service, the overnight equpment on the State of Maine now made a round trip every day returning as the “Day Express” with the sleepers sold as parlor car space (but running up the Thames River Line between New London and Worcester instead of via Providence) and wood open-platform Second Avenue Elevated cars received pantograhs and were operated by the Key System on the Shipyard Railway.
Now if only the Indiana Railroad (the “Magic Interruban”) had been able to hang on a few months more.