the nyc and penn were hemoraging money ( $1 M a day) due to way too much trackage and not enough revenue for one railroad.
Thanks for clearing up the civil war statement…it was pure speculation on my behalf and I should have stated that.
ed
Just my opinion, but I think (especially) PRR and NYC had a lot of shorthaul traffic that required a lot of handling and was therefore unprofitable, because of the large manufacturing base in their service area. Seems like Wreck of the Penn Central mentioned that PRR management was very frustrated by Southern Rwy. derailing rate increases the PRR wanted, in order to drive away some of the shorthaul business. I also think it helped that ACL/SAL was less a merger of equals than a takeover of the SAL by ACL; the SAL people knew that, did what they were told and took their lumps more so than the NYC people did. One more opinion, maybe unfounded: I think both ACL and SAL had a better management team than PRR. For that matter, NYC had a better management team than PRR, but the PRR folks ended up in control.
Corrections welcomed.
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SCL’s predecssory had MUCH better asset to revenue ratios that PC’s. The built-up facility of the entire Northeastern railroad structure was far in excess of what was needed - but could not be abandoned or even reduced. SCL had the advantage of building to meet growing need.
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SCL owned a significant share of the L&N - highly profitable.
We must realize - Edward Harriman or James Hill could not have saved PC - the entire northeastern railroad industry was “over the edge” by the 1950’s. A successful Conrail was essentially running the same business plan as PC - but with correctly-sized physical plant for the available traffic and traffic blend, along with relief from the regulatory system that was still in place in 1973.
the original 3R’s act did include 2 conrails…big conrail was pc/nh/aa and lil conrail was to be erie/lv/lhrr…the erie balked hoping that then “parent” nw would bail em out but dereco…nw’s cushion against erie failing wouldnt fork the cash…final straw was hurricane hugo??? i think…crushed the erie main in a few places then the el’s managment had to concede they couldnt go alone anymore so opted into the 3r act…
i agree with most of that…but IMHO PRR had the better managment team and NYC were the ones with the chip…but i may be biased…either way the 2 had different philosophies that didnt mesh…as with all railroads of the era they were tied with “oldhead” style of RR’ing …
long live the Standard Railroad of the World
NYC was replacing multiple mains with CTC, creating mechanized track gangs and modern hump yards, getting rid of passenger trains, and had a well run marketing/sales department.
PRR was doing things as they always had.
NYC and PRR had no good business merging. Neither IMHO did the Family System (Seaboard, L&N, Clinchfield, etc.) with Chessie (C&O, B&O, Western MD). The former consists mostly of north-south routes and the latter, east-west. Picking up part of the Conrail inheritance did help, though. - a.s.
And a whole lot of government money.
During 1980 SCL was the target of a hostile takeover bid from Southern Pacific. Merger with Chessie was seen as the best escape. A major componet of the Family Lines was L&N, which at the time was in trouble. The “Old Reliable” was suffering a string of derailments (Crestview Florida comes to mind), and I seem to recall the the ICC was ordering them to remedy a serious coal car shortage. Chessie had a big car building shop at Raceland KY.
L&N also had a serious lack of functioning locomotives. Don’t remember if it was before or during the early stages of the Chessie merger, but the ICC ordered the parent company to provide 100 locomotives like yesterday. Must have been pretty bad.
Until 1969 I lived in Ohio.[Just stating a fact.]From the Columbus area westward,the PRR ran all trains at maximum allowable speeds.Within a short period of time speeds were down and track conditions started to get bad.A section in this area between London and Dayton was one-wayed using the PRR for one direction and the NYC for the other.Track conditions became worse.I never really understood how this happened.It’s a little clearer after all these years.
When I moved to Georgia,I was surprised to see track that was in considerably better condition.
I think,as some others have stated,that the animosity between PRR and NYC can be attributed to their longer histories and competition.The ACL and SAL were much younger and,at least in southern eyes,more gentlemanly.
I agree that the rust belt was growing in the north and that the south was becoming more manufacturing oriented.
By the way,I always thought that Seaboard Coast Line was like saying Beach Beach Line.
But I liked SCL as a name better than CSX.
No,I didn’t answer the question but I feel that this has been an interesting and informative topic.
Interesting how, over and over, circumstances have mitigated against a transcontinental merger. Will it eventually happen, or will alliances like Meridian - Dallas’s “speedway” be co-operation enough? That’s KCS bridging (mostly) NS with the western lines, (mostly) BNSF would be my guess. - a.s.
Wasnt the general poor to lousy conditions dominating both PRR and NYCs trackage and rosters also a major contributing factor to Penn Centrals failure as much as its management crisis?
In the 1st 4 years it existed, CR fixed the tracks, rehabbed the equipment and go rid of the Red/Green mentality (mostly, anyway. It transformed into PC/non-PC mentality[B)])
CR still wasn’t making any money…it wasn’t losing as fast, though (it actually cleared a small profit in the 2nd Qtr of 1979)
So, the problem was bigger than just bad mgt and poor physical plant.
BNSF and NS had a falling out over Speedway traffic. BNSF now comes all the way to Atlanta via ex-Frisco lines to B’ham and trackage rights and terminal space on CSX.
Can anyone give reasons for or insight into the falling out?
Rush Loving’s book “The Men Who Loved Trains” does a great job of describing the happenings inside the corporate offices during the PC merger mess along with most of the important happenings of East Coast railroading up to the NS and CSX division of CR.
I have not read “The Wreck of the PC”, but finding a more concise and entertaining history of this time period in Eastern railroading than Loving’s book is hard to do.
Jay
Thats an interesting statement. Because from what I’ve read, the Pennsylvania was in much greater dire financial straights than the NY Central. So much so that at the time of the PC merger on 1 Feb 1968, PRR had only 5 million dollars in operating cash left over.
So much for their “management”.
lol…hence the disclaimer…long live etc etc…
as i stated the PRR was suffering terribly from the maylaidy of “oldhead” managment in a changing economic enviroment…not willing to change or willing to except the fact they needed to…NYC was trying “new” things in the