Erie Railroad Marion Division

[Convicted One]

I believe there is somewhat of a "zero-sum" mechanism at work here. 

If visionaries had found some strategy to preserve the viability of the Erie, I suspect that in the long term it just would have caused one of the other trunks to be surplused. 

Look at the Eastern  lines into Chicago that were abandoned, The Wabash 4th district, the Erie, the  Panhandle,  the C&O, and for the most part the former P, FW,&C.

Compare that to what is left. 

Keeping the property taxes and maintenance expenses of the old Erie "alive" just to bleed business off the surviving  NS and CSX lines .....doesn't seem to me to present a compelling benefit.

[Overmod]

chutton01

From what I keep reading, no potential merge partner really seemed to want EL "lines west".  I guess the region was that overbuilt.

The problem is that, at the time, there was something of a failure of vision partly due to the absence of that good ol' 20-20 hindsight in the way the future would develop.  

I see a parallel with the idea of the Milwaukee Road developing a bridge connection east of the Mississippi 'near the end' -- we discussed this here a few months ago -- with effective promotion and rapid service.  To accomplish this a considerable amount of strategic improvement (not just remedying 'deferred maintenance') would have been necessary, and the Milwaukee at the time had, or could figure out, no way to justify the capitalization.  

If Conrail had selectively built a dedicated bridge route for intermodal out of the pieces of the vastly overbuilt infrastructure in Ohio and Indiana, a case could clearly be made that the Marion division should be part of it.  As a high-speed bridge route, originating traffic is not only not a necessary factor, but a potential operating impediment, so taking bits and pieces of the 'best' routing for that specific service on a kind of internal-alphabet-route model, and then 'watching that basket' with careful strategic improvement to reliable high speed, would have been desirable ... had the crystal ball revealed how desirable that would have come to be at the time scarce resources had to be devoted to it.

Add this to the very long list of expedient decisions regarding routes and trackage that were 'made wrong' in the '80s... 

[chutton01]

MP173

Agnes hurt big time, as did the commuter operations in New Jersey, but there just wasnt enough good business - coal only made up 12% of tonnage and 4.4% of revenue in 1971.   They originated only 1/3 of their total tonnage...most of it was interline from Chicago moving eastbound.

There's a thread on a different forum which, among other things, games out ways the EL could have survived outside of ConRail (well, there are a lot of thread like this around, but..). Anyway, it was pointed out that while EL could have conceivably limped along into the mid-1970s on its TOFC and other business, by the late 1970s the revenue-important steel industry in the EL service areas was starting to decline precipitously (and we know how that turned out). Coupled with closures in other on-line industries (like, for example, the early '80s closure of the Ford Mahwah plant). From what I keep reading, no potential merge partner really seemed to want EL "lines west".  I guess the region was that overbuilt.

[daveklepper]

And I'm glad I rode Hoboken - Chicago when I could, even via Scranton, the sleeper only to Youngstown, and the diner only to Huntington.

[david vartanoff]

In the  era of the PC bankruptcy, N&W wrote off E-L and the USRailway Assn tried to give it to Chessie Sstem.  Hays T Watkins wanted it but his BOD were afraid of the union demands--which ultimately did not prevail within Conrail.   B&O diehard that I am, the reality was/is that the Chicago to NY region market simply could not support as  many mainlines as existed at the time. (much similar to the issue between Council Bluffsand Chicago)   We lost the Erie,and much of the PRR.   I amver glad I rode E-L between Akron and Chicago in 1963 when one still could.

[Santa Ana Roadswitcher]

Back when perishables from the west coast were a major business for the railroads, the Erie/EL was a preferred routing out of Chicago to many eastern points.

 

[MP173]

There is an excellent book by H. Roger Grant - Erie Lackawanna The Death of an American Railroad 1938 - 1992 which gives a very good historical view of the final years and the bankruptcy proceedings of the Erie Lackawana.  I do not own the book, but have read it thru our local library.

The EL ran thru the southern part of our county (Porter County, Indiana) and the Kouts library has it on the shelf.

I never saw the EL in service...a big regret of mine but shortly after moving here to Porter County I did see an Erie Western freight from a distance.  Never chased the train, never pursue the short lived railroad.  

I have a collection of the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society magazine...The Diamond.  There is an excellent 3 part series of articles on EL and the UPS relationship.  Fascinating and well researched articles.  

 

Agnes hurt big time, as did the commuter operations in New Jersey, but there just wasnt enough good business - coal only made up 12% of tonnage and 4.4% of revenue in 1971.   They originated only 1/3 of their total tonnage...most of it was interline from Chicago moving eastbound.

 

I would suggest going to a large library and looking at a Moody's Transportation Manual from the early 1970s...I have several from 1955 thru 1990.  Filled with lots of finanacial data.

Ed

[rrnut282]

Gramp

It's too bad someone with can-do marketing vision wasn't there for the Erie. 

 

Didn't The Erie originate the marketing scheme, "We lose money on every car we handle, but we'll make it up in volume?"

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I remember that when EL declared bankruptcy, management originally believed that they could pull off an income-based reorganization.

[BaltACD]

Gramp

It's too bad someone with can-do marketing vision wasn't there for the Erie. 

Hurricane Agnes in 1972 was the big undoing of the Erie (EL) with all the flood damages throughout New York State, thus throwing in the bankrupt pool with PC, NH and the others.

[Gramp]

It's too bad someone with can-do marketing vision wasn't there for the Erie. 

[rrnut282]

Across Indiana Erie was famed for deep ballast.  And a lot of space between the two tracks of the main.  In one town (North Judson) Two railroads crossed at a diamond between the EB and WB mains of the Erie. 

There was so much room on the Erie R/W that another RR usurped part of the R/W and installed its own track from Huntington to Uniondale before it was finally forced to get it's own R/W.  (it's a railroad that didn't last, obviously)

I remember seeing everything from RS3s FAs, GP18s to SD45s on trains as I crossed the main twice a day going to/from school.  

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I was living on the far west end and EL looked better in person than it did on the balance sheet.  Various second generation power handled the through freights and RS2/3's worked the local freights.

[Overmod]

Don't forget the era of fast TOFC and SDP engines with high horsepower and extended-run fuel tanks.  This was in my era but I nearly completely missed it except what I watched in Wilkes-Barre or while chasing esoteric commuter trains in the early Seventies.

[Flintlock76]

As soon as the Berkshire types showed up on the property in the 1920's the Erie became a specialist in fast freights from the Midwest to the East Coast.  Wide clearances (A side benefit to the original six-foot gauge) and the Erie's missing of a lot of major cities on the way, and thus avoiding congestion, made the fast freights even more feasable.  

The Berks were the stars of the fast freights, no-one called them the "Weary Erie" after they  showed up!  For passenger traffic the Erie stayed with Pacific types.

The last Erie steam ran in 1954.  After that the freight was moved by Alco FAs and EMD FTs.  Originally the Alcos operated in the west end, the FTs in the east, but eventually the types could be seen anywhere.

[ncandstl576]

Recently, my attention suddenly shifted to the "Weary" Erie Railroad in the 40s and 50s, especially the lost main line to Chicago, the Marion Division, that is. I've learned some basic details about it - it was a well-engineered line that lent itself to becoming a fast freight speedway to Chicago. Was there any particular traffic that was common on the line, or was it only general freight? Also, what types of engines were common here in the 40s and 50s?