QUOTE: Originally posted by kiwiguy yes indeed the seventes was the pinnacale of southern pacific's success as a railroad giant...unfortunatly due to poor management it was all down hill from there...literally......tell me what happens when a railroad goes bust or merges...who gets the rights to the name of the bankrupt/insolvent/received/merged company once it takes on a its new identity? does the previous c.e.o...or largest exsiting shareholder at the time of chapter 11 being filed? etc etc
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
QUOTE: Originally posted by railroad65 QUOTE: Originally posted by CShaveRR Random thoughts: 1970: Penn Central declares bankruptcy, finds itself short of box cars because a small Illinois short line has been stealing them. More information on this, please. Railroad65
QUOTE: Originally posted by CShaveRR Random thoughts: 1970: Penn Central declares bankruptcy, finds itself short of box cars because a small Illinois short line has been stealing them.
QUOTE: Originally posted by railroad65 QUOTE: Originally posted by CShaveRR Random thoughts: 1970: Penn Central declares bankruptcy, finds itself short of box cars because a small Illinois short line has been stealing them. Carl More information on this, please. Railroad65
QUOTE: Originally posted by CShaveRR Random thoughts: 1970: Penn Central declares bankruptcy, finds itself short of box cars because a small Illinois short line has been stealing them. Carl
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
QUOTE: Originally posted by CShaveRR Random thoughts: 1970: Penn Central declares bankruptcy, finds itself short of box cars because a small Illinois short line has been stealing them. 1970: Nobody believed that passenger service from Chicago to Grand Rapids would ever amount to anything again, as the crew on that train often outnumbered the passenger. They had to scrounge a few cars for the last run on April 30, 1971. 1971: Carl hires out on CNW, fortunes of the beleagured carrier are reversed (well, it happened, though the two aren't related, I'm sure). 1972: Chessie System paint scheme unveiled. Makes everybody else look dull by comparison. 1972: Two words: Da***wo. 1973: CNW hopes to get maybe a dozen coal trains a day when it announces plans to extend its Wyoming line into a coal field. It's going to take money, though. 1974: Hurricane Agnes does in the eastern railroads that hadn't gone into bankruptcy earlier, ensuring that Conrail will be made up of nothing but bankrupt lines two years hence. 1975: Lots of railroads paint a locomotive in red, white, and blue to honor the Nation's Bicentennial. Most railroads do one of their latest and greatest; CNW does a GP18 (which happened to carry the right number--1776) and a hopper car. 1976: In a related story, three steam locomotives haul a red, white, and blue passenger train all over the country (one at a time). 1976: The abandonment of a few hundred feet of ex-EL track in Griffith, Indiana, forces Chessie and Amtrak to reroute trains over a route incorporating an obscure ex-Pere Marquette branch line. Pine Junction and Wellsboro, Indiana, become the most interesting hot spots in the country as a result. Many trains seen not once, but three times at the same spot! 1977: Chessie System, not content with gaudy diesels, puts the cat on the tender of an ex-Reading 4-8-4 and parades it across the C&O and B&O. Carl and friends see the special at Pine Junction--three times! 1977: General Electric decides to start "dashing" its locomotive models, later goes overboard by putting the dash in front of everything else. 1979: Amtrak drops some long-distance passenger trains, leaving major cities and markets without passenger service for the first time ever. 1980: CNW almost changes its corporate colors to blue and white by acquiring thousands of the Rock Island's newest and best freight cars. A year or two later they make amends by adopting a painfully bright shade of yellow. Dull-by-comparison Chessie System paint scheme has only until 1987 to live. 1980s: Bright yellow didn't make it to commuter equipment, as the Regional Transportation Authority takes over things around Chicago. 1983: Stack train service from Chicago to the West Coast begins, and five-unit articulated well cars become the car of choice. APL bravely loads one container with a set-up dinner table, and unloads it, undamaged, at the other end. The word "fillet" gains a railroad definition as clearances prevent stacked containers to points east (a few unsuccessful attempts were made with spectacular results). 1984?: All of those bright yellow cabooses that C&NW rebuilt and adorned with American flag decals disappear from the ends of trains. 1986: Mysterious shock waves are felt in the railroad industry on June 14, centered in Philadelphia, with little Warn-er-prior notice. 1987: The oldest railroad in the nation is gobbled up by the colorful cat, which itself became entangled in a new identity consisting of just letters. 198?: Emma born (aftershock). 1989: CSX, the corporate successor to Chessie System, "dips" some of the old diesels in a coat of plain gray paint with blue lettering, as another word from the latest defense technology ("Stealth") makes it to the railroads. People began to long for the old C&O blue and yellow; it would take CSX over a decade to bring it back. 1989: EMD dips a bunch of SD60s into gray CSX paint; these were the last road freight locomotives produced at LaGrange. I'm sure I've missed quite a few things (and maybe got a few dates incorrect), but the events described herein actually happened in one form or another. But the two decades you "missed" are probably the most exciting ever, in terms of railroad history. Carl
QUOTE: Originally posted by rockisland4309 March 1975: Rock Island declares third bankruptcy. August: 1979: BRAC and UTU goes on strike against Rock Island. March 1980: Rock Island shuts down operations.
Pump
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.