Remembering that railroads and everything about them were developed for the exclusive purpose of moving freight and bulk commodities; and that passengers were from the origin of American Railroading, an expensive inconvenience. Nonetheless the railroads carried them proudly, and with much work, did make some small profit from it, this was particularly true of the extra fare express trains like the 20th Century Limited, the Broadway Limited, The Chief, and El Capitan.
Progressive politicians ruined railroading, and only William Gibbs-McAdoo made anything resembling a significant improvement, and the Final System Plan that the USRA [Administration, not the more current Association.] could have saved full service commercial railroading.
I never met or knew Jim McClelland, but I am sure he was a great man and a good person, but he was not the savior of full service commercial railroading, that Don Phillips and David Lester praised in the current issue of Trains. He and others of his time with the Federal Railroad Administration cooperated with the progressive politicians to destroy what was left of the greatest transportation system in the world. They could have tried to fix the mess, but couldn’t be bothered to do so; AMTRAK is the greatest failed tax boondoggle before Dodd-Frank and the Affordable Care Act, just compare it to The Broadway Limited, the 20th Century Limited, or the Super Chief. Instead we are left with the expensive loss of efficiency that are the aviation and motor-transportation industries.
Army_Sailor- Interesting premise you bring up..can you expand a bit on the "Final System Plan", what it would have saved and what it would have avoided.
Several comments on the "Final System Plan" from the Transportation Act of 1920 suggest that it used the approach of foisting weak railroads onto stronger roads. Even a cursory look at the various proposed systems will bear this out. What this would have actually accomplished is open to conjecture but I doubt that anything positive would have occurred compared to what actually did happen.
Army_SailorRemembering that railroads and everything about them were developed for the exclusive purpose of moving freight and bulk commodities; and that passengers were from the origin of American Railroading, an expensive inconvenience.
I suggest you read some actual histories concerning that. Even better, look at the original charters and news accounts of that period, as real historians do.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Army_Sailor ... and the Final System Plan that the USRA [Administration, not the more current Association] could have saved full service commercial railroading.
This was a fascinating part of railroad history. There was not just 'one plan' in this era (consider for example the Plumb Plan and the Reagan Plan) and I believe they were specifically designed to combine the strong with the weak in combinations that did not give operating preference to any one 'combine' over another from the standpoint of return from ICC regulated rates -- at least, that was a stated reason.
At least one book notes that the ICC by the Fifties, during the merger frenzy of that era, was implicitly conducting the acquisition of weaker roads (or 'fractions thereof') by stronger ones, with some of the effect of the 'five major systems' type plans, but without the careful attention to 'equality' the regulated versions would have (at least in theory) have had.
I would note that the current railroad picture would be very, very different if some of the mergers that started to be 'interfered with' or opposed after that era (for example, N&W-C&O or UP and the Rock) had been allowed to proceed under some sort of larger-picture oversight. Of course, the ICC (and perhaps any other Government regulatory agency beholden largely to forces and stakeholders outside railroading) wasn't, and its successor really isn't, the agency to provide, or even approve, such oversight.
(But I have to admit I'd like to see how a modern EL-to-NKP bridge line service would be working out today!)
RME . . . (But I have to admit I'd like to see how a modern EL-to-NKP bridge line service would be working out today!)
Isn't most or all of that route now NS ? (I'll confess to being a little ignorant here.) If so, then consider this: Why is NS spending $70MM to replace the Letchworth Bridge/ Viaduct/ Trestle*, starting late year and projected to complete in 2018 ? Sure, it'll help access its recently acquired (from CP) ex-D&H and the Pan Am Rwys. route from Mechanicville, NY towards Boston. It also has the ex-Erie line along the upper Delaware River and into northern NJ** from NY above it. I can think of some interesting intermodal possibilities there . . .
* http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/news/-norfolk-southernandnewyorkstatebeginreplacementofkeyportagevill.html -
$52.5MM of NS' own money, plus $17.5MM from FHWA (!), NY State, other agencies, &etc. See also:
http://www.modjeski.com/projects/detail.aspx?Portageville-Arch
**Per this brochure (7 pgs., 9.2 MB electronic file size):
http://www.panynj.gov/port/pdf/rail-guide-2016.pdf
Specifically, direct into Croxton Yard, and then to lots of other places via ConRail Shared Assets Operation (CSAO).
"Railroad geopolitics" - the best game of all ! [or insert your own better snappy line]
- Paul North.
I will have to check this, but the 'fifth system' (about 1925 or so) was going to involve the Lackawanna feeding into the Nickel Plate. Now that would be a railroad of high-speed destiny for intermodal traffic, and greater ease in establishing neo-regional service to eastern Pennsylvania from the New York area... we could also see what happened with a head-to-head comparison of first-rate Berks and Poconos on trackage knowingly optimized for high freight speed.
Erie in the mix (post-'61) would give the high-wide option to Buffalo, and a different range of what are now, as PDN notes, lots of prospective places.
The 1920 plan was a perfect example of overinvolvement by government in the private sector introduced by T.R. and accelerated by the short-lived government takeover of World War I.
Who asked them? Butt out!
The so-called merger excitement of the 1950s cited earlier in fact did not get underway until the Norfolk & Western/Virginian combine late in the decade. That was the milemarker always cited by DPM. C&NW/Minneapolis & St. L. quickly followed, and the race was on.
Who's to say the combinations were other than necessary, or that a lot of track didn't need to be taken up? These were decisions made by people on the ground who, if they hadn't made them, their bosses would have found somebody who would.
Government involvement in railroading has been largely a disaster from the start, ending by favoring the competition at the cost of a lot of widows and orphans (among others). A pox on it. That the rails have survived in spite of it (so far) is a miracle. But the pages have not all been written, as the feds contemplate more meddling.
dakotafredThe 1920 plan was a perfect example of overinvolvement by government in the private sector introduced by T.R. and accelerated by the short-lived government takeover of World War I. Who asked them? Butt out!
The 1929 Ripley Plan for eastern rails was not a mandate and did not materialize. Get it right.
schlimm dakotafred The 1920 plan was a perfect example of overinvolvement by government in the private sector introduced by T.R. and accelerated by the short-lived government takeover of World War I. Who asked them? Butt out! The 1929 Ripley Plan for eastern rails was not a mandate and did not materialize. Get it right.
dakotafred The 1920 plan was a perfect example of overinvolvement by government in the private sector introduced by T.R. and accelerated by the short-lived government takeover of World War I. Who asked them? Butt out!
information @ http://www.beardbooks.com/beardbooks/railway_problems.html
"...William Zebina Ripley was born Oct. 13, 1867, in Medford, Mass., U.S. American economist and anthropologist. Ripley was trained in civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in political economics at Columbia University, New York City (Ph.D., 1893). He spent most of his career as professor of political economy at Harvard University (1902-33). During World War I he served as administrator of labour standards for the U.S. War Department. In 1920-23 he drew up for the Interstate Commerce Commission the Ripley Plan for the regional consolidation of U.S. railways. In 1931-32, while testifying before the U.S. Senate, he advocated close federal restraint on investment trusts and on the financial practices of large business corporations. He died Aug. 16, 1941 in Boothbay, Maine..."
Other Beard Books by William Z. Ripley
samfp1943OK, You got my curiosity up..Here is a short 'bio' on William Z. Ripley:
(Ken) greyhounds has praised Ripley in the past.
Army_Sailor passengers were from the origin of American Railroading, an expensive inconvenience.
I think you might be taking on a perspective that is overly convenient to the case you are trying to make.
In order for the expanding railroads to benefit from eminent domain, they HAD to agree to provide passenger service. That pesky ol' "greater common good" thing.
Take away the benefit railroads received from eminent domain during the expansion era, and what kind of transportation network have you got?
Convicted One Army_Sailor passengers were from the origin of American Railroading, an expensive inconvenience. I think you might be taking on a perspective that is overly convenient to the case you are trying to make. In order for the expanding railroads to benefit from eminent domain, they HAD to agree to provide passenger service. That pesky ol' "greater common good" thing. Take away the benefit railroads received from eminent domain during the expansion era, and what kind of transportation network have you got?
In the 'expansion era' it was more 'take passengers out to the middle of nowhere', have them settle there and grow or manufacture products to ship on the railroads.
The MONEY in railroading has always been in the freight handled - for the people that the railroads moved to the middle of nowhere who then made it somewhere.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Nobody said anything about a mandate, altho that would have been a reasonable expectation, given the recent history when the Transportation Act of 1920 was passed. That act called for the consolidation study, which Ripley wrote for the I.C.C. in 1921 (even if the I.C.C. didn't get around to presenting it until 1929).
Get it right, yourself. (Or just quit blowing smoke for its own sake. Remember global warming!)
dakotafred schlimm dakotafred The 1920 plan was a perfect example of overinvolvement by government in the private sector introduced by T.R. and accelerated by the short-lived government takeover of World War I. Who asked them? Butt out! The 1929 Ripley Plan for eastern rails was not a mandate and did not materialize. Get it right. Nobody said anything about a mandate, altho that would have been a reasonable expectation, given the recent history when the Transportation Act of 1920 was passed. That act called for the consolidation study, which Ripley wrote for the I.C.C. in 1921 (even if the I.C.C. didn't get around to presenting it until 1929). Get it right, yourself. (Or just quit blowing smoke for its own sake. Remember global warming!)
And on cue, fred gets insulting, even though it is you who was fact-challenged. You sure suggested the feds were "overinvolved" enough for you to trumpet a loud "butt out" which was nearly 90 years late and irrelevant.
Global climate change is real and ain't going away, in spite of efforts by ideologues like yourself and DJT to deny the truth.
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Believe it or not, Ripley's appendix...
https://archive.org/stream/consolidationofr01unit#page/n14/mode/1up
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