Just thought about it, although it is greatly debated of which era is consider the “best” years of American Railroading, what do others think are the best years and for what reasons? Just to name a few that I consider to be in the running.
1.) Pioneering/Expansion Railroad era: Basically the the years of 1840s-1900, when the railroads were starting out, expanding their networks, and really taming the the country by rail. With the urge to build the sense of connecting the nation and great engineering tributes achieved.
2.) Turn of the Century/War Eras: Namely 1900-1950, a time when railroads were the dominate form of transportation and considered the peak era of trackage and railroading was in everyone’s lives.
3.)Post War: 1950-1960, the last years before everything went completely south. When the railroads ran all kinds of power, last years when railroads were a part of everyone’s life, and considered the Golden Years for the country.
4.) Rebirth/Era of the Super Seven: 1980-2000, although may not be considered the best years by many, it was the time when the railroads were finally free, era of new technology & old technology, having the caboose, & RR towers with FREDs, & CTC.
I suspect that if you were to search this forum, you’d find several threads with this very topic on them, with a bunch of thoughtful answers.
At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll pick #5. I think the best times lie ahead. The infrastructure is being improved (slowly) after it was “right-sized” in terms of route-miles (not necessarily track-miles), other improvements in technology are making for safer trains, if not faster, and I suspect that the railfan who wants to see more trains, and more impressive trains, the future will not be disappointing.
Sorry if this is a repeat, I looked through and has not looked liked this question has been brought up for a few years, I figure maybe new people would like to voice their opinions.
I have to agree with you, there are probably even better years to come, but it is looking more like it is going to be without much of the railroading spirit & culture that many of us have become accustomed too. It seems less and less of the human factor will be in the future of railroading.
I’ll take the 1st 10 years of era #2. The WWI was bad to the RRs. The 20’s were OK, except regulation and highway competition were really starting to show. The 30’s were miserable. The WWII years wore the RRs out and then they dumped their savings into ties, rail and new passenger cars. The latter proved to be a disaster.
I guess it all depends on what one’s idea of the best, or golden, is. For me, the “golden” years were some of the worst years for the railroads, the 1970’s. I grew up in a Georgia town, Thomson, that still had a station agent who welcomed visits, a friendly local crew who let a 12 year old ride in the caboose, and a railroad that chose to run a Budd passenger car on the end of 120 car freight trains everyday (and I partook often). Yet, the volume of trains was 4-6 on most days unless the O&W coal train or other SCL detours appeared.
I agree, the railroads of the future probably will have all the personality of the auto answering service of (insert your favorite corporation here) in comparison to what I grew up with.
If “golden” means being the best in market share of both passenger and freight, then the WWII years would be hard to top. If “golden” means variety, then the transition era would be hard to beat.
However, how does the freight volume of 2005-2008 compare to the earlier “golden years” such as WWII? I would imagine these recent four years would have to be close to the top for pure freight volume but not market share.
From a fan and a business perspective, I would have to say the present age is the golden age, with even better times ahead. I enjoy watching a brace of AC4400CWs grinding up a grade with a long train of double stacks in tow. And I also enjoy watching my rail stock investments grow.
As for the past I’d say 1945 to 1969 but I also need to agree entirely with Carl that the future (IMHO) is very bright if our politicians (and to a degree we voters who put them into office) don’t screw it up by being short sighted.
Most model railroaders pick the era they grew up in as the “golden years” and that’s what they choose to model. Model railroading is an older man’s pastime so the steam-diesel transition is popular with the over sixty gewneration. I’m 66 so I remember revenue steam and the classic diesels from boyhood. Modern railroading seems to me to lack drama and excitement and the motive power is very generic. A lot of the younger set are keyed to the most modern equipment and operations but I’ve ridden the California Zephyr and the San Jouquin Daylight in steam. An Acela train just looks like a tin worm to me.
…From my perspective…{a fan}: It appears the railroads are building {buying}, and using the best equipment now along with modern communication and seemingly it is going to get more upgrading in technology of operations going forward. Better infrastructure too.
As for another view: The railroads served their best {to this country}, under adverse conditions of WWII…Perhaps they helped to shorten that war a certain amount…Some transportation of certain items, {and people}, would not have been possible without them.
From my perspective, the golden years lie in two places, both mentioned already: the war years and the future. The railroads may have been run into the ground, so-to-speak, during the Big Exercise, but they were able to capitalize (cough) on their development during the late pre-war years in terms of motive efficiency and capacity and use it to good effect for the war effort…a most serious undertaking of the past 100 years. Folks relied heavily on the rails, even if they were fixtures and not thought about much…as is the case at present.
As for times to come, as world population densities rise, costs for movement of goods rise, and greater efficiencies are legislated (and there’ll be tons of that from governments everywhere…), railroads will once again prove their utility. I doubt anyone needing their services would understand that this represents a golden age, but the railroads and their fans/investors certainly would.
I would nominate the WW II era 1940 - 1945 because the railroads had to haul a great deal of tonnage and many passengers with whatever infrastructure and eqjuipment they had on hand; very little new equipment was available. Nevertheless a good case can be made for the present era (post 1980 and onwards) with more powerful locomotives available to handle longer trains, and digital technology applicable to many parts of the railroad business such as dispatching, train control, and communications.
Excellent points! You are making me rethink my opinion! I’ll add on a bit. The RRs made a big mess during WWI (the USRA made an even bigger mess when they took over, though) and they RRs were coming off a period where they were in really good shape. During WWII, they were coming off a period of greatly reduced traffic and able to operate at a very high level. This despite having a good chunk of the workforce turnover as men went off to war. The industry certainly rose to the challenge.
I’m going to stick with 1900-1915 as the “golden years” but, the WWII era is a close second.
On the other hand, I concur with the French TGV official who was quoted in the recent issue of Trains on that subject, as having said something along the following lines about 25 years ago:
"The railroad will be the preferrred mode of transport in the 21st Century -
Choice 5 is good, I like the 1950s as the last hurrah of the Streamliners, but my gut says go with choice 4, maybe a merger of the two.
Why? Because that’s when IC, and many others, trimmed off excess lines, and the regional railroads were born again. Many of them flopped (some spectacularly) but look what happened to the Indiana Railroad, and there are others with similar stories. Then you’ve got the Gennesee & Wyoming, RailAmerica, Corman, and others that are pushing boundries, concepts (the Gensets), and all kinds of new frontiers.
Reaslly, I can’t nominate WWI, because it killed a local hero. Because the Monon was North South, the USRA did npt feel it arranted a lot of attention. So while many roads around it prospered from new locomotives (some of them crap, but new nonetheless) and increases in wartime traffic, the Monon was running a farbehind second. A lot of factors went inot the CI&L, but most Hoosier Railfans will attribute that as a first real blow.
I would like to narrow it down even tighter and say 1985-1995 because it was the best time for me as a young railfan in the Chicago area and it was before much of the merger madness that homogenized the rail industry down to 7 Class 1 carriers… Just take a quick look at the variety of railroads operating within 10-15 miles from my house either on their own lines or on trackage rights:
Not only that but you could still see plenty of pre-merger paint schemes like Chessie/B&O/C&O, Seaboard/SCL/L&N, N&W, Southern, MP, etc on diesels trolling the rails of their new companies.
On top of all that, you still had plenty of 1st and 2nd generation diesels operating along with the newer breed of GE & EMD locos with the emerging safety cab styling which now dominates locomotive rosters. The variety was incredible.
I got my driver’s license in 1992 at the age of 16 and one of the first things I did was drive to Blue Island Crossing to videotape trains with my parents’ camcorder. Almost every single railroad listed above could be seen there on any given day.
The 1950’s. Steam and Diesel (and electric beyond the NEC, including a few interurbans), streamliners and heavyweights running on a national network, and a wide variety of railroads (pre-merger).