This post may fit better under the Classic Trains forum, but there are some folks on this forum that seem to have a good perspective on the SCL/Family Lines/Seaboard System/CSX subject.
Having read about the disaster that was the Pennsy/NYC merger (The Wreck Of The Penn Central), I then read William Griffin’s Seaboard Coast Line Family Lines Railroad 1967-1986. The latter book didn’t go into nearly the detail as the The Wreck… did in its description, but it seems to me that the SAL/ACL merger went-off a lot smoother with much better planning and forethought to the combined operations from day one than what happened on the PC. Granted the ACL/SAL systems combined didn’t match the trackage of the PC, but they were still rather large Class 1’s serving many of the same destinations with a lot of branch operations, and they merged in the same time period of stifling over-regulation and bureacracy.
Does anyone have any general opinions on why the SAL/ACL merger seemed to go so much better than the PC? Was it better management? Better engineering? Better strategic planning?
My guess is that SAL/ACL were in a lot better financial shape than PRR and NYC. Without PC, we may have seen two (or more) bankruptcies of northeastern railroads. It appears they were all heading the same direction,PC simply allowed them to carpool.
Seems to me, there was a lot of time in between the wars and PC to fix them back up. Of more importance, is probably that the manufacturing base that supplied the traffic in the northeast was wearing down.
size is a major factor also. To merge GM and Ford would be a nightmare but Ford buying and selling Land Rover and Jaguar to Tata was fairly easy. Add that both railroads in Penn Central had huge numbers of switchers compared to other roads that could not be offset by through trains bringing in the bucks. This was do to the consumption of products in New York and Philadelphia and the switching required whereas SCl was basically a bridge line with a more manageable merger and dollars being generated
Both PRR and NYC were losing money before the PC merger.
A detailed merger operating plan was not prepared and possibly could not because neither railroad (NYC and PRR) ran a scheduled frieght operation in general. Both ACL sheduled a much higher percentage of freight operations and a very detailed plan was prepared and generally followed. Srill, the PRR and NYC could have done a better job of planning operations.
The SAL and ACL were hot competitors but always good sports and always cooperated with each other in emergencies without giving it a second thought. The best example was the Florida East Coast strike with the ACL trains immediately switched over to the Orlando - Auberdale SAL to Miami route the day the strike happened. These two railroads were run by people who were similar, knew each other, etc. On another thread I recorded how on the northbound ACL train at Jacksonville, an SAL sleeper was substituted because it was avilable when one fo the sleepers on the ACL train was bad-ordered.
The Northeast was losing it’s manufacturing base (and outbound freight).
The Southeast was growing it’s manufacturing base.
Freight moving from the Southeast to the Northeast (for consumption) was a long haul for SCL and a shorthaul for PC. However, the costs for operating for PC, with all the terminal operations in the NE were very high. Thus, they did a considerable amount of work for very small division of revenue.
There was not as much redundant trackage in the Southeast. Correct me if I am wrong, but perhaps the Civil War and the destruction of rail lines in the area, was a pruning which occured 100 year earlier than in the Northeast.
As previously discussed, there was not as much infighting. Segments of each line were rationalized over the years based on their operational defiencies.
This is PURE Speculation, I havent looked at the numbers, but my guess is that SCL’s passenger losses were considerably less than PC’s. No commuter traffic, the passengers were long haul (Florida) and probably came close to covering out of pocket expenses.
The Civil War didn’t prune any trackage in the South. There was relatively little trackage in the South at the time of the Civil War. The lack of an effective rail road system in the South was one of the factors that caused the defeat of the South…they couldn’t move and supply their armies to the extent that the North could.
While both ACL and SAL had some trackage and routes that pre-dated the Civil War, most of their systems were built between the end of the Civil War and the 1920’s. After the Civil War, myriad of small companies with big dreams began construction of various line segments which they operated through the 1870 & 1880. During the 1890’s Financiers began buying and merging these myriad of short lines into comprehensive properties that became the ACL and the SAL that we knew prior to their merger into the SCL
I’d always heard that the ACL thought seriously about not joining Amtrak because it was covering its out of pocket costs on Florida service, but did anyway because it was looking at fleet renewal in the near term. But I have no numbers to back up that story.
Both the SAL and ACL ran a clean window sharp passenger service and this tradition was continued by SCL up to Amtrak with the employees making it last well into the Amtrak era.
Re: #6. That jives with what I read somewhere once that SCL actually contemplated not joining Amtrak because their pass svc was covering, or nearly so, their short term variable costs. They had even done some modest investment in pass. svc. in the 60s - locomotives, stations, etc.
#1 and #2 were huge.
#4 - probably not. Most of the SAL was built long after the civil war, for example.
What I’m taking from all of this is that there were some economic factors, but the biggest problem was the various cultures.
The southern lines had a cooperative attitude.
The northern lines were bitter enemies.
Kind of makes you wonder what might have happened if the PC era had been skipped and there were not one but two “Conrails”, split much the way Conrail was eventually split.