Whats Up with the EAST???

alex999uk you got parts of it right, parts were really garbled.

The problem arose when the NYC backed the building of the South Penn railroad on a line roughly parallel to the existing PRR main and the PRR started building a line up the west shore of the Hudson parallel to the NYC. Both the NYC and PRR already went to Pittsburgh (with the “h” on the end).
JP Morgan had financial interests in both railroads and didn’t whant them competeing head to head, so he got both presidents on his yacht and "convinced’ them to stop the projects. The PRR sold its line to the NYC and it became the West Shore route of the NYC. The PRR abandoned the South Penn line. Later it was bought by the State of Pennsylvania as right of way for the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Two of the original railroad tunnel bores are still in use today as highway tunnels (widened and lined for a highway).

Neither of those lines caused either railroad to fail. However it did cause several other railroads that were trying to build empires which hinged on those routes to fail, such as the P&R (Reading). It went under and came under the control of the B&O, the P&R lost control of the LV.

Ironically the railroad that ended up benefiting the most was the narrow gauge East Broad Top with ended up hauling construction materials for the Turnpike in the 1950’s.

One other piece of trivia. Back in the early days there was a tremendous amount of confusion on the spellings of "burg"s. Some towns used “…burg” and some used “…burgh”. So the US Post Office decreed that all burgs had to be spelled “…burg” with the one exception that Pitteburgh, PA was allowed to be the only “…burgh.”

Dave H.

Dehusman pretty much nailed it. Conrail was bought by both Norfolk Southern (formerly Southern Railway and Norfolk and Western Railway - merged) and CSX (formerly the lines noted plus Louisville and Nashville, Clinchfield, and some others). NS bought about 55% and CSX the remainder. Interestingly, the purchase separated the old NYC and PRR with NS getting the Pennsy and CSX getting the NYC for the most part. Conrail equipment that has not been repainted is running on both NS and CSX. I guess as a salute to the old lines, the NS equipment has a small “PRR” painted above the Conrail number and the CSX equipment has a small “NYC”. Therefore if you see blue Conrail engines with a “PRR” on them, they are now part of NS.

Two books by Richard Saunders that provide excellent coverage are
Merging Lines
and
Main Lines

They are the best out there on the mergers and all that happened with them.

work safe

The PRR was incorporated in 1847,before the War Between the States.

Actually America’s First railroad was a Quarry Railroad in Mass.

It later became part of the New Haven. The charter for this RR pre-dates the B&O.

It would be amazing to think of what it would be like if big business didn’t buy out all the roads…and we had most…if not all the classics still running.

Or, all the “classic” roads would have gone bankrupt, closed up shop, and no trains would be running. For all the complaining that we (railfans, including myself) sometimes do about how “everything’s the same” when it comes to paint schemes and whatnot, I’d definitely rather see a lot of “same” NS units than no trains at all.

Long story short:

C&O + B&O + WM = Chessie System (1960’s-80’s)

SCL + LN + others = Seaboard System (1970’s-80’s)

Chessie + Seaboard = CSX (“Chessie Seaboard Multiplied”) late 80’s-today

BTW Pittsburgh was spelled “Pittsburg” until about 1910 when they changed it, don’t know why though??

That’s Pittsburg if you’re in Texas or Kansas or ??? or if it’s 1902 (?) to 1910 in Pennsylvania; otherwise it’s Pittsburgh.

Sidenote on the missing ‘H’: It was (is?) missing on the facade of the Pittsburg Union Terminal (aka the Pennsylvania passenger station) which was completed in 1910.

Chuck

PS: Yeah, I know my profile says I live in Allen, TX. I do but I was born and raised about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh.

No one has mentioned the Florida Eact Coast railway (FEC) which not long ago celebrated its 100th year aniversary. They have around 400 miles of first class mainline railroad between Jacksonville and Miami FL. I read somewhere that after 60 years they paid there first dividend on the stock and the president of the road said “Up untill now we had a perfect record on dividends, we had never paid one!!!” [2c] I know it is not a northeast road but at least it has EAST in its name… lol

BTW. Don’t forget Erie which lasted with the DLW into EL days. The EL itself lasted passed PC into 1974-5 with freight service through until the emergence of Conrail in mid-70s.

The basic infrastructure still remains along most of the main from Port Jervis to Chicago. And, in the Southern Tier of New York. NS, which owns the Erie Main, has upgraded the single track to where most from Meadville, Pa., to Hornell, N.Y. is up to 40-mph up from 0 (that is, tracks torn up and graded flat by Conrail) 10 years ago.

So, a lot of the oldies are gone. But there is good news. Sort of.