Dieselization without EMD?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by up829


Had there been no EMD, I wonder if the capital investment would have gone into more mainline electification. Does the Brown paper address that alternative?

It is interesting that during the 1950's both GN and Milwaukee were analyzing the cost/benefits of rebuidling and even extending their respective electrifications. The GN's decision to ventilate the Cascade Tunnel to allow diesels to work through the tunnel upgrade must have been made with the experiences they had with EMD products. If EMD hadn't come around, it is likely GN would have rebuilt and extended their electrification as far west as Everett WA. Meanwhile, the Milwaukee went ahead and rebuilt their electrification, utilizing it well into the 1970's until stock price manipulation(?) forced the elimination of the catenary.

So if GN had kept and expanded their catenary into the BN merger, the added traffic through the Cascade Tunnel would not have been limited as it was (and still is) with diesels. It is a stretch of the imagination to think so, but perhaps we'd still have an electrified Stevens Pass route for BNSF able to handle 50 to 60 trains a day instead of today's 25, and thus Stampede Pass would be gone by now, and even grain trains might still be using Stevens Pass for Tacoma bound grain.

[Anonymous]

Interestng stuff.

Much of the fixed infrastructure investment would last many years and some of it is still in use today. How does the Brown paper allocate these costs? Also, at the time of dieselization, how much deferred maintainence to steam-related infrastructure had accumulated during the war and the immediate post-war boom. It's also worth remembering that the economy went into recession during the mid to late 50's.

Modern supersteam era locos were making extended runs with greatly reduced maintainence on many roads. For example NYC Niagras were running 25,000 miles a month between servicing, and even Northern Pacific which used a poor grade of coal greatly extended runs and service intervals. Just how reliable early diesels were is another question. I sincerely hope the MTBF of 20-30 days for SD70MAC's given in the recent Trains article in BNSF preventative maintenance is a mis-print. I suspect the Big Boys did better than that.

Had there been no EMD, I wonder if the capital investment would have gone into more mainline electification. Does the Brown paper address that alternative?

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

QUOTE: Originally posted by samfp1943

Wasn't the First Diesel a box cab built by General Electric and powered by a diesel built by electro-motive corp for New York Central?? Pre General Motors FT's deno set?

CNJ 1000 was indeed a box cab switcher built in 1925, with a carbody by Alco, electrical gear by GE, and a diesel engine by Ingersoll-Rand. Later versions had the carbody work also built by GE.

[samfp1943]

Wasn't the First Diesel a box cab built by General Electric and powered by a diesel built by electro-motive corp for New York Central?? Pre General Motors FT's deno set?

[Anonymous]

Re: Jay's post, one of the disadvantages of superpower steam was the high axle loads, which limited them to certain routes and the wear and tear on the track from the reciprocating motion at high speeds. Diesel electric and electric with their low axle loadings could go anywhere on a system and they didn't damage the track so much.

To some extent, these disadvantages could have been overcome by adopting the design practices of Andre Chapelon, particularly the adoption of compounding. As Chapelon showed with the 240.P.1 and especially the 160.A.1 you could get high power (48,000 lbs tractive effort), low fuel consumption, high power at low speed and low axle loadings. But American railroads didn't care for compounding because it required highly trained crew and more maintenance.

Further to my previous post, does anyone have information whether the avoided costs of double tracking and signaling were: a) real; b) entered into the decision process of railroad companies re: dieselization?

Also, is it anywhere documented what the railroads learned about improvements in systems efficiencies as a result of operating diesel electric switchers and powered railcars? And did that knowledge enter into the decision to adopt diesel electric passenger and freight road engines?

Thanks,

Mike

[SALfan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

QUOTE: JOdom "...made their stats look better,...

Do you mean stuff like profit and that?

Yes, and the stats unique to railroading, like locomotive utilization or locomotive miles per day, and some others I can't remember right now (it's been years since I read the article. Understand, with their "lubritoriums" and overall careful management, N&W was probably at or close to the top of the heap in getting the most out of steam locomotives, but still the diesels made it possible for them to improve.

[daveklepper]

A very interesting discussion. I think Michael Sol brings up some interesting points, but I still believe dieselization in total was a economic benefit for the railroads, and one can look at the rest of the world to support this position. Without EMD: Alco and FM would still be in business, and GE would be happy to supply the very best electrical gear to both while building low-production diesel electrics for speicalty markets.

[mvlandsw]

QUOTE: Originally posted by oltmannd

Alco? FM? Baldwin?

These guys made decent locomotives, just not up to EMD's stds.

It was the economics of the the new technology that drove dieselization, not EMD per se.

And it was the economic advantages of EMD's that drove the others out of business.

[jeaton]

Of course they impacted ROI, I am simply saying that you cannot attribute the difference strictly to those factors.

[MichaelSol]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

II still do not agree that there can be any direct correlation between the form of power, steam vs. diesel and ROI, simply because business volume and price also impact ROI and corelating these two items to the mode of locomotive power would be tenuous, to say the least.

The mode of power has nothing to do with it. The cost of the changeover, the capital investment required, and the finance charges incurred are what impacted the ROI.

Best regards, Michael Sol

[jeaton]

I had a chance to look at the Brown paper at Northwestern University's Transportation Library last week, but I did not have enough time to thoroughly review the logic that lead to his concludion.

The paper I was able to see was the initial paper prepared for presentation at the conference, but the title page indicated that it was not the final work on the subject by the author. Dated sometime in 1960, the latest data available was from 1957. The data collection for the paper was extensive and there are numerous graphs to illustrate the author's points.

In spite of my comments on this thread, I would not dismiss Brown's conclusions out of hand. A couple points that I did catch: Brown noted that he was not making the argument that the railroads should return to steam power. Also, at least as of 1957, the investment in diesel engines and support facilities for the period covered was $2.5 billion, (in contrast to $4 billion stated by Michael Sol), new car investment was $4 billion and other projects totaled another $2.5 billion.

I still do not agree that there can be any direct correlation between the form of power, steam vs. diesel and ROI, simply because business volume and price also impact ROI and corelating these two items to the mode of locomotive power would be tenuous, to say the least.

If I were to do a comparative analysis, I would look at operating cost and productivity. Operating costs would include fuel and supplies, repair parts, service and maintenance facilities, service and maintenance labor, and train and engine labor. I would measure productivity or output in gross ton miles. (Yard operations might require a different output measure, such as cars moved). Brown may have employed this method, I am not sure.

He did address an issue of productivity in the matter of train length. Certainly a selling point of diesel locomotives was the ability to operate multiple units and run longer trains with one engine crew. His counter arguement was that the development of high horse power steam engines offset this particular advantage, and noted that the labor cost of firemen did not alter the result. However, that position assumed that high horse power steam was as efficient and productive on a per horsepower basis as other smaller road units. In a Trains article within the last couple years, Ed King disputed the notion that "big" steam was all that efficient and productive.

While it could be argued that developmental improvements in steam engines could have addressed this, I think clean air requirements would have eventually compelled a change to internal combustion (or electrification). I also doubt that MU capability or the elimination of firemen could have come about until very recent times.

Jay

[jeaton]

QUOTE: JOdom "...made their stats look better,...

Do you mean stuff like profit and that?

[SALfan]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

I still find it hard to accept that so many railroad Boards, CEO' and CFO's could have made a mistake in moving to diesel power. It is my understanding that the N&W felt they had the best in steam power and had some motivation to buy fuel from their biggest customers. Still, they made the switch.

According to an article several years ago in TRAINS, N&W was dieselizing in an orderly fashion until the BoD decided to buy the Virginian Railway. They wanted to get their stock price up so that they would have to issue fewer shares to buy the VGN, and so they and incumbent N&W management would be firmly in control. They finished dieselizing in a mad rush (saw a picture of a leased purple ACL E8 on an N&W train), made their stats look better, the stock price went up, and they did what they wanted to do. This was another decision made not solely on the technical merits of diesels vs. steam, and on sound dieselization strategy.

[owlsroost]

QUOTE: One thing the Germans were ahead with was the design of hydraulic transmission.

....and they still are - I think most of the diesel MU trains in Europe have Voith hydraulic transmissions, and they are also popular for switcher/road switcher locomotives in some countries.

Tony

[MichaelSol]

My "H.F. Brown" paper is in a bunch of boxes of electrification materials, stored for years. However, when I get a chance hopefully during the next few weeks I would be glad to find it and make it available.

Best regards, Michael Sol

[Anonymous]

This is a fascinating discussion.

I am undertaking analysis of the substitution of motive power in all transportation applications as part of a multi-client study of energy technologies.

So far I have looked at horse to ICE vehicles in general, horse tram to electric tram, horse cab to ICE cab and steam loco to diesel electric.

There are some remarkable consistencies. In every case the time taken to go from 10% to 90% of the vehicle population is 12 years. The time taken to go from 0% to 10% is 14 to 19 years.

This suggests that there is some sort of social-institutional learning or adaptive dynamic going on which supplies the consistency.

I have been investigating what the drivers for substitution were in each case. There appear to be some interesting commonalities.

For example, the horse to ICE and steam to diesel electric 0% to 10% experiences seem to have both been associated with the ability of the new technology to ameliorate externalities or environmental impacts of the old technolgy. For the former it was the manure problem (which had severe public health impacts, recognised at the time), for the latter it was the smoke problem of marshalling yards in cities.

For the 10% to 90% phase I have several hypotheses which I am trying to confirm or disprove.

The first is that both sets of examples appear to have been associated with significant avoided costs and alleged improvements in system efficiency. The avoided costs for the ICE were those associated with widening and constructing roads. For the railways it was double tracking and signaling. In both cases it was made possible by the faster cycle times of the new technology. The systems efficiencies came from there being less down time for exchange and maintenance, fewer motive units required per ton or passenger and the shedding of support activities (changing horse teams and maintaining them, the higher supply efficiencies of gasoline versus hay etc; low operating factors for steam locos because of maintenance requirements, refueling and rewatering etc).

One thing I particularly want to understand better is the effect of avoided costs and systems efficiencies. I am very puzzled by the fact that the parameters for market penetration are identical or virtually so for all the substitutions even though the ICE vehicle owners could not appropriate the avoided cost and systems efficiency benefits (because they didn't own the roads and couldn't charge for the increased efficiencies of city economies) whereas the railroads could (because they owned both the roads and the vehicles). On the face of it, you would expect that the railways were more highly incented to make the switch than were the ICE auto and truck owners and so the penetration rate should be faster from the steam to diesel electric switch. But it isn't: it is identical.

I would be very interested in any thoughts anyone may have on all this.

Michael, I would very much like to read the Brown article, but unfortunately my local university library holdings of the Proceedings don't go back that far. I don't suppose you have an electronic version of it you could let me have?

Thanks.

Mike Hollinshead

[M636C]

QUOTE: Originally posted by up829

QUOTE: Originally posted by tree68Consider, too, that EMD produced a package. There is nothing to say that the individual components might not have still been developed. Integrating them is where EMDs success came from. A railroad could have successfully blended the components into a locomotive which would then have provided a template for other railroads, and manufacturers, to follow. Might have been interesting if, rather than moving into locomotives, EMC/Winton had speciallized in the diesel engines only, providing them to locomotive builders, much as Cat does today.

Remember that the earliest EMC/EMD's went into Budd built carbodies for streamliners. I wonder just how hard it was to produce a complete loco. GE and Westinghouse already made most of the electrical equipment and I recall pictues of Great Northern boxcab electrics with the overhead MU connections. All that was eally missing was the diesel engine itself. That technology was readily available from the Germans after WWI and again after WWII.

It is generally well known that the Winton 201A that went into the early EMC units was designed to US Navy specifications. While this engine might not have been built if GM, EMD and Winton were not in the market, there is nothing to suggest that Fairbanks Morse or Alco would not have supplied their 38D8-1/8 or 540 (based on the 539 but specialised for submarine use) to the US Navy.

Fairbanks Morse went into the locomotive field in 1945 realising that the railroad was a market that could allow them to maintain the high production rate that they had achieved during the war, where both submarines and anti submarine destroyer escorts used very large numbers of their engines. The FM engines worked very well in submarines, better than the Wintons, and virtually all post WWII USN non -nuclear submarines used FM engines.

The Russians somehow obtained FM OP engines and used them extensively in locomotives, including turbocharged versions in units built right up to the end of the Soviet era in 1990, and these might still be the most common diesel locomotive engines in Russia and the former Soviet states.

Without the competition from GM/EMD, FM may well have had a large enough market share to overcome the problems their engines showed in rail service. SP was still using Trainmasters in 1974 when I first visted the USA.

But the Germans were NOT further advanced than the USA as far as submarine diesel engine design was concerned. The first turbocharged diesel to run in a submarine was an Alco in about 1940 - the Germans didn't even try this until about 1975! (Although it could be said that their submarine industry was reduced significantly in 1945). Alco might have been further advanced in engine designs by 1940 owing to EMD competition, but the 540 was directly developed from the 531 which predated EMD competition.

So Alco and FM could well have been able to dieselise the USA railroads, maybe by 1960, given their relative lack of capacity compared to EMD. But there is no doubt the FM could do the job, it actually did the job for the Soviet Union and later for China! (And those were copies, without the advantages of the original design team).

One thing the Germans were ahead with was the design of hydraulic transmission. I was looking at data associated with the Voith L37 hydro-dynamic transmission, and it was said that at the beginning of dieselisation in Germany, 25000 of these transmissions had been built. I started adding up the locomotives with this transmission at that time on my fingers, and thought that I was about 24900 units short. "What could have used all these transmissions?" I asked myself and then thought "the Wehrmacht must have had about that many heavy armoured vehicles....." Problem solved!

But trust me, the US Railroads would not have had to rely on German diesels after WWII. The USN purchased and tested the best German engines in the late 1920s, and would have copied them and had them built under licence in the USA if the Alco and FM had not been better, not to mention the Winton!

M636C

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by tree68Consider, too, that EMD produced a package. There is nothing to say that the individual components might not have still been developed. Integrating them is where EMDs success came from. A railroad could have successfully blended the components into a locomotive which would then have provided a template for other railroads, and manufacturers, to follow. Might have been interesting if, rather than moving into locomotives, EMC/Winton had speciallized in the diesel engines only, providing them to locomotive builders, much as Cat does today.

Remember that the earliest EMC/EMD's went into Budd built carbodies for streamliners. I wonder just how hard it was to produce a complete loco. GE and Westinghouse already made most of the electrical equipment and I recall pictues of Great Northern boxcab electrics with the overhead MU connections. All that was eally missing was the diesel engine itself. That technology was readily available from the Germans after WWI and again after WWII.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by erikthered

We would have seen steam last a bit longer as a freight hauler. If EMD had never demonstrated the FT series when they did, and in the way they did, the country would have run right into World War II. That would (and did) limit development of new types of diesels. ALCO had the DL's running in MU form, but I think they had some maintenance issues that were new to mainline railroading.

I believe GE in the late 30's was more interested in producing electric engines of the GG-1 type- a lot of their diesel stuff appears to be either small horsepower switchers or prototype passenger power.

I had always wondered if we would have had more development in the alternatives to steam and/or diesel. What about steam turbine and turbine electric engines? What about steam/traction motor hybrids?

I think it is unquestionable that we would have seen more investment in electric operations without the widespread advent of EMC/EMD diesels. The rail picture would look completely different today if more catenary had been strung up, and probably electric would still be the dominate form of rail traction today.

QUOTE:

Concerning the Interstate vs railroads debate- a long time ago (back in 1977) I did a study of population growth along the Connecticut shoreline. People moved out of the cities into the suburbs, and the Interstates followed. The Connecticut turnpike opened up in 1955 (and provided the NHRR with much needed freight revenue, trains being used to carry construction materials.) While population numbers for the suburbs tripled over the next 50 years, rail transportation declined and became non existant around 1968 to the suburbs. Everyone used the highway to get to work.

The population is still growing on the shoreline, and using the Connecticut Turnpike (now just plain old Interstate 95) is really painful in terms of costs of gasoline vs. time expended getting anywhere. And the railroad (Metro North, I believe) now is running three round trips daily between New Haven and the suburbs. I believe the reason for increased growth in rail traffic is because it's easier and cheaper to use.

The Long Island Rail Road is another example. The LIRR is the only passenger railroad in the US to stay profitable. (I think the LIRR now belongs to the State of New York.) This is because Long Island reached capacity to handle vehicles on the Long Island Expressway a long time ago... plus, it costs a bundle to park in New York City. Population has boomed out on the Island- for the same reason it did in Connecticut- the vast majority of people wanted to move out of the city, and did.

Erik

The difference of course comes in comparing freight market share losses with passenger share losses. I think it is more apparent that the Interstate Highway System took passengers off the rails, while conversely it is less apparent that the railroads lost any meaningful freight market shares to the Interstate Highway System. If anything, what the railroads lost to the highways (short haul, small lot) was the stuff they were losing money on anyway.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by PBenham

QUOTE: Originally posted by Old Timer

Harley-Davidson would have stepped in . . .

It would have given an entire new meaning to the term "Hog".[:)]

Old Timer

Now, that would have been something! 16 V-Twins! WOW[:p][:p][:p][:D][:D][:D][bow][bow] Except everyone within 2 to 3 miles of a railroad owning a HOG would be complaining about the noise! And all the defened engineers, too!

Question: Would a Harley-Davidson locomotive have had a b***h seat?[}:)]

[Anonymous]

We would have seen steam last a bit longer as a freight hauler. If EMD had never demonstrated the FT series when they did, and in the way they did, the country would have run right into World War II. That would (and did) limit development of new types of diesels. ALCO had the DL's running in MU form, but I think they had some maintenance issues that were new to mainline railroading.

I believe GE in the late 30's was more interested in producing electric engines of the GG-1 type- a lot of their diesel stuff appears to be either small horsepower switchers or prototype passenger power.

Concerning the Interstate vs railroads debate- a long time ago (back in 1977) I did a study of population growth along the Connecticut shoreline. People moved out of the cities into the suburbs, and the Interstates followed. The Connecticut turnpike opened up in 1955 (and provided the NHRR with much needed freight revenue, trains being used to carry construction materials.) While population numbers for the suburbs tripled over the next 50 years, rail transportation declined and became non existant around 1968 to the suburbs. Everyone used the highway to get to work.

The population is still growing on the shoreline, and using the Connecticut Turnpike (now just plain old Interstate 95) is really painful in terms of costs of gasoline vs. time expended getting anywhere. And the railroad (Metro North, I believe) now is running three round trips daily between New Haven and the suburbs. I believe the reason for increased growth in rail traffic is because it's easier and cheaper to use.

The Long Island Rail Road is another example. The LIRR is the only passenger railroad in the US to stay profitable. (I think the LIRR now belongs to the State of New York.) This is because Long Island reached capacity to handle vehicles on the Long Island Expressway a long time ago... plus, it costs a bundle to park in New York City. Population has boomed out on the Island- for the same reason it did in Connecticut- the vast majority of people wanted to move out of the city, and did.

Erik

[PBenham]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Old Timer

Harley-Davidson would have stepped in . . .

It would have given an entire new meaning to the term "Hog".[:)]

Old Timer

Now, that would have been something! 16 V-Twins! WOW[:p][:p][:p][:D][:D][:D][bow][bow] Except everyone within 2 to 3 miles of a railroad owning a HOG would be complaining about the noise! And all the defened engineers, too!

[MichaelSol]

QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal

The Interstate Highway System allowed trucks to take away short haul and small lot shipments (the latter of which the railroads really wanted to get rid of). It did not take away railroads' ability to run short haul bulk moves, that is something the railroads themselves gave away. If anything, diesels would excell running shorthaul shuttles.

Well, interestingly, that was something like what H.F. Brown found in his landmark study: that diesel-electric switchers were a net economic benefit over steam; whereas the road units were the ones where the finance charges exceeded any operating savings.

Best -- Michael Sol

[AntonioFP45]

I think ALCO would have likely been on top of the food chain, followed by Fairbanks Morse, not Baldwin. A number of Baldwin road units were plaqued with mechanical designs that plagued the railroad shop crews. (such as the Centipedes infamouts traction motor blowers that "cooled the ballast" and oil leaks that coated ties in black).

Fairbanks Morese units, from what I've read and seen, were reputed to be tough, though a challenge to work on. Drawbacks with some models were MU connecting with other brands and road switchers with decks that were higher than ALCO or EMDs. This made it a bit hazardous for train crews in a multi unit lashup with other locomotive brands to walk from unit to unit while a train was in motion.

Still, had EMD not been around, IMHO, FM would have adapted well. Old Fairbanks diesels can still be found in older Tugboars and marine crafts.

[Anonymous]

The Interstate Highway System allowed trucks to take away short haul and small lot shipments (the latter of which the railroads really wanted to get rid of). It did not take away railroads' ability to run short haul bulk moves, that is something the railroads themselves gave away. If anything, diesels would excell running shorthaul shuttles.

[MichaelSol]

QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal
Regarding "alternate" explanations for the profitability drop from 4% to 2%, isn't the popular explanation the advent of the Interstate Highway System and a subsequent drop in small lot and time sensitive deliveries for the railroads? It is interesting that you have found a documentable reason based on over-financing of dieselization, while the whole "competition from truckers" argument has less of a grounding in documentation. That's one reason I suspected the whole highway competition theories were more of a chicken and egg comparison, e.g. which came first, railroad debt loads from wholesale dieselization, or actual market loss to trucking competition? Is it possible that the railroad debt problems that arose from dieselization (and subsequent maintenance deferments) were the cause of railroads giving up on some commodity moves?

The Interstate Highway argument is so plausible, it's hard not to believe that it was a prmary cause of declining system investments during the 1960s. For a study of the BN merger conditions, I happened to note that the Interstate Highway System was completed in Wisconsin, for instance, in 1969. The Milwaukee Road's first post-WWII loss was 1969. The correlation was, at the time, hugely symbolic of what I had been hearing for years from railroaders.

Some years later, I was preparing a comparison of operating ratios of the pre-BN companies vs Midwestern railroads. This is where the surprise came in. For the period 1950-1970, Milwaukee and CNW had continually improving operating ratios. A very solid trend line existed for both of those companies, but particularly Milwaukee.

Milwaukee had, on a mainline-mile basis, been spending more on maintenance than any of the Northern lines, including the Burlington, which was the worst of the bunch in terms of mainline mile expenditures.

Given that Milwaukee Road under Chairman Quinn had continually harped that its main competitors were Interstates 90 and 94, these results looked topsy-turvy. Indeed, Milwaukee's "trend line" for its operating ratio had bested the NP in 1957; NP continued to get worse, Milwaukee continued to get better, even though the Interstate System was more aggressively constructed during that time in Milwaukee Road's back yard. Milwaukee's Operating Ratio bested the Burlington's in 1965, and, had the BN merger not occured, would have bested GN in about 1973, simply extrapolating the existing trend lines without regard to actual merger condition benefits or handicaps. Indeed, this began to happen in 1967, when MILW both outearned GN in net revenues, and posted a better Operating Ratio.

Given the Interstate Highway construction progress during the 1960s, and what should have been its inordinate impact on Milwaukee Road compared to, say, the GN which route to this day is not paralleled by a four lane highway, these results were puzzling. Yet, GN was in a decline similar to that of the NP and Q. Very puzzling.

I discussed the matter in detail with a BN executive, who was on the BN "Review Team" that assessed the BN system after the March, 1970 merger. What I saw in the figures was true. The Q, he said, was in terrible shape when they went over the system. "Those of us from the NP and GN who were unfamiliar with the Burlington were shocked at what we saw, and how bad it was," For the GN, "it never made its money as a transcontinental. If you took away its Mesabi Range iron ore traffic, you wouldn't have had much left in terms of revenue. That traffic was as much as 50% of GN's revenue at one point, and it was playing out. That's probably what you are seeing for GN during the 1950s and 1960s."

Well, that still didn't explain Milwaukee Road's steadily improving Operating Ratio during that time. The Q's decline made sense, from an Interstate Highway theory, but Milwaukee's didn't. Interstate 90 and 94 should have been killing Milwaukee on its most productive route -- Chicago/Twin Cities -- more so, in fact than for other railroads. But, they weren't.

I took the study to an Economist, PhD, who happened to be a former GN guy, still interested and a member of the GN Historical Society. He looked the numbers over and concluded that what was happening was that the Interstate Highways, in Milwaukee Road's case at least, were taking the low-grade, short haul traffic from the Milwaukee. The Milwaukee could beat trucks on long haul with 261 and 262 -- the only railroad in the study that could -- but trucks could all too easily grab the short haul with the opening of the Interstates.

"Well, this short haul stuff," he looked at me, "isn't that the traffic that railroads always complained they lost money on anyway? This looks like a classic business turnaround strategy ... get rid of your customers that you lose money on and concentrate on the high revenue stuff. This looks like exactly what was happening to the Milwaukee as the Interstate Highways progressed."

Well, yes it did.

The Interstate System apparently impacted different railroads differently. NP's decline seems to clearly correlate with Interstate construction, either that, or Milwaukee's faster trains out West. MILW, as the only one that could outrun trucks on the long haul, apparently benefitted both ways: it kept long haul traffic and yielded the short haul traffic.

Now, this study was isolated to the years 1950-1970 and relates, obviously, to the events of those years. It is not meant to explain or discuss events of 1974, 1980, 2014, 1806, or 1492.

The point being that the impact of the Interstate Highway System may have been more complicated than assumed by the railroad industry.

Best regards, Michael Sol

[AlcoRS11Nut]

Personally......if EMD was never around, Id say it would be ALCo and GE in the market today.

[oltmannd]

I recall reading an old article somewhere that the view in the 1930s that the choice between steam, diesel and electric wasn't "which was going to win" as much as it was "which niche did each fit into". And, diesels were deemed to be a good fit for streamlined passenger trains in many places, even back then. The FT may have changed the equation by getting RRs to consider the wholesale conversion to diesels and the implications of getting rid of all that infrastructure and labor cost associated with it.

I think it may be wrong to think that the RRs lost interest in high speed passenger service during dieselization. There was plenty of investment in trains and ROW to support higher speeds after WWII. How about the ACL (or was is SAL?) attempt to raise speeds to 100 mph between Richmond and Miami for 24 hr svc between NY and Miami? How about the PRR and NYC still trying to shave additional minutes off the Broadway and 20th Cent times - for a short time carding sub 16 hour schedules? How about the hoads of E units delivered to various roads geared for 100 mph operation? How about all those streamlined passenger cars delivered with wheel slide systems to allow for braking within existing block lengths from higher speeds.

The RRs believed there was a future for higher speed long distance service and spent lots of bucks accordingly. Turns out, they were wrong.

They were trying to run with their hands tied behind their back while being hit over the head and having the rug pulled out from under them. They were stuck in a regulated environment while the airlines stole the business traveller and the highways stole the pleasure traveller -all with the gov't direct involvement.

[Anonymous]

It wasn't simply market forces that caused railroads to turn to EMD locomotives. There were many documented cases of trains showing up to the gate of a GM or GM affiliated factory with a steam locomotive or a diesel from Alco, Baldwin, etc. and the plant manager would lock the gate in front of the crew and inform them that until they showed up with an EMD locomotive all inbound and outbound freight would be shipped using trucks with GM tractors. Futhermore, where ever the freight was shipped it had to be pulled using GM locomotives, or it would revert to trucks or shipped on railroads who would use EMD locomotives. With the amount of freight that GM represented the railroads easily submitted. It took action from the federal government to stop GM from enforcing this policy.