ns145The only real take away you'll get from this book is that John Snow was a BAD man! He DID NOT love trains. The NS-CSX fight over Conrail is the best part of the book. Everything leading up to that is pretty much a regurgitation of Wreck of the Penn Central. If Rush Loving Jr's theatrical approach isn't up your alley, might I recommend Jim McClellan's autobiography My Life with Trains? Not an epic book, but it provides a lot of inside baseball history from the perspective of a guy that witnessed all of the mergers, bankruptcies, and other developments in the East firsthand.
The NS-CSX fight over Conrail is the best part of the book. Everything leading up to that is pretty much a regurgitation of Wreck of the Penn Central. If Rush Loving Jr's theatrical approach isn't up your alley, might I recommend Jim McClellan's autobiography My Life with Trains? Not an epic book, but it provides a lot of inside baseball history from the perspective of a guy that witnessed all of the mergers, bankruptcies, and other developments in the East firsthand.
The best thing W ever did for railroads and CSX in particular was to appoint Snow as Treasury Secretary and get him out of running CSX into the ground.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Thanks for the suggestion.
The only real take away you'll get from this book is that John Snow was a BAD man! He DID NOT love trains.
I'm on page 60 of the book, and it looks unpromising. Every now and then I come across a waitaminnit -- something that suggests I better not trust this guy's judgment too much.
Bottom of page 6:
"most Americans born as late as the mid-1930s spent their formative years in a society of nineteenth-century ethics and principles where people took pride in work and were driven by a sense of honor to their commitments.... It was a simpler society where revival meetings and the ethics lectires of the Epworth League still influenced many American homes. Honor meant something; so did the work ethic and allegiance to friends and fellow workers and a firm adherence to principles...."
The problem isn't that he thinks that's true, but that he's offering it as an explanation of what happened to US railroads after 1960. "People used to be honest and hard-working, and now they're not." Maybe that's true, but the news bulletin won't make the front page.
"It was a different world from the one that has produced Enron, WorldCom, and the like. The men who ruled the railroads and many other portions of American business as late as the 1980s were inculcated to some degree in the mores of the nineteenth century. They did not take home the multimillion-dollar bonuses so common today.
"While most were not driven by greed, many did suffer the stupidity, the arrogance, the hubris, and all the other weaknesses of many executives today."
That sound like a good explanation of how what happened, happened?
Another non-explanation on page 8:
"Operating departments, which maintain the tracks and run the trains, were dominated by bands of tough, stubborn men, many of them civil engineers, who believed fixedly that people should function with the same certainty as machines.... Since the minds of the engineers were governed by the laws of science, where everything is presumably known, they distrusted the unknown. Thus change often was resisted assiduously."
There, the author needed an editor to laugh and say: you gotta be kidding. If you think they were blockheads, then say so, but don't wear out the reader's eyeballs with a silly analysis like that.
I'll eventually make my way thru the book -- no doubt there will be good desriptions and quotes here and there -- but I don't recommend it.
My first question is why? There wasn't really a stomach (or even economic need) for a transcontinental system until the 1990s. Freight simply didn't move in a way that needed anything more than interlinked regional systems until the late 1960s. It would be another 30 years or so before the line splitting domestic freight and international freight was so completely dissolved that it made sense to consider true coast to coast movements occurring inside a singular company. And that sort of vanished around 2010 or 2015 anyhow. The domestic land bridge movement for international freight is declining as East Coast ports regain ground on the west following the Panama Canal improvements. Look at the rate that Savannah and Norfolk are growing relative to the Los Angeles basin.
I just don't see the utility anyhow. Even a movement entirely inside a single railroad from Los Angeles to Boston isn't moving in one unbroken train. Cars are getting swapped around and moved between points on a chain. It doesn't really change if all the points are one company or not.
I worked with his McClellan's son, Mike, at Conrail in the intermodal group in the mid 1990s.
Later, about a decade ago at a rail planning conference in FL, Jim McClellan was a guest speaker. After, I introduced myself and said it was a pleasure to meet Mike's dad.
Boy, did I get a funny, sour look from him!
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
I have read the book 3x and always enjoy it. What a great (the greatest?) historical look at the Conrail era? It would be an outstanding volume if someone (Fred Frailey perhaps?) would write a comprehensive review of the 1976 - 1998 Conrail era.
The merger era (and the mergers that didnt occur) are intriguing. One picks up bits of information from various sources, but comprehensive coverage seems to be Richard Saunder's two volumes - Merging Lines and Main Lines. While I enjoyed both, I think a new look is in order.
One merger that didnt occur and would have been a powerhouse would have been Southern/MoPac.
One of the most interesting mergers was the Chicago and Eastern Illinois split into MoPac and L&N. Chicago became a market for both. I dont have the data to prove it, but my guess is that Illinois Central was hurt by the diversion of traffic. I grew up on the Evansville - Mattoon branch line of IC and there was probably interchange at Evansville with L&N which dried up after the direct route via C&EI. Likewise interchange at E.St.L with Mopac no doubt diminished.
It is enjoyable to look at old Official Guides and review routes, particularly in the 50's with considerable passenger trains. The rationalization of many of those lines, while not in the railfan interest has benefited the industry.
The Men Who Loved Trains is a great book and I will probably reach for it soon to read it yet another time.
Ed
I have had the book for a few years now and have re-read it a few times. McClellan's role in the narrative seems to be the thread that ties everything together. McClellan describes himself as the Forrest Gump of railroading, being in the right place at the right time to observe when and how the big decisions were made or not made.
I finished up reading "The Men Who Loved Trains" (and wish so much I had purchased this book much sooner) by Rush Loving Jr. and I first just have to say what an utterly fascinating read it truly was. The way the author was able to take you to the inside of what really happened out East from the late 1950s and the events that transpired from that time that got us to where we are today is incredible and some of the things that actually went down is nothing short of mind-blowing. In case you haven't read it, I strongly recommend that you do.
That said, the only fault I find with the book is how the author seems to portray the late Jim McClellan as an almost a Godly-like figure who single-handedly made it all happen. And don't get me wrong here. I have nothing but a ton of respect for the guy with his knowledge and experience and everything he accomplished throughout his storied career. I wouldn't even think to try and diminish that. At the same time, that doesn't mean I agree entirely with his train of thought and how he visualized things. I've thought about it many times and all the opportunities that were lost but if I could have had my way with things, this is probably how I would have liked to have seen things turn out:
PRR/NW/NKP - Combine with UP/CNW
NYC - Combine with ATSF
CO/BO - Combine with Hill Lines/BN
EL - Combine with MILW
Also....
SOU + ICG - Could be combined with BN
SCL/LN - Could be combined with SP
I always thought one opportunity that was lost was when SOU looked hard at ICG back in 1978 and although even I know that ICG was not - shall we say - the strongest property out there, I still think it would be have been a great combination.
Am curious as to what others think of this book who have read it so feel free to fire away with your arrows at me......I mean, I mean, I mean, your thoughts.
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