' Coulda been a contender

[MP173]

I really miss Mark.

Nothing against the current editor, in fact, I believe he is moving in the right direction...but, I liked the direction Mark went with Trains. It may have been a bit too business orientated for the fan, but for me, as an "economic railfan", he was right on target.

I reread the Chicago thread...at least the first page. What a classic. I think I will go back and read it all today.

I still maintain one of the most valuable pieces of railroad property today is the Kansas City - Fort Wayne stretch of the NS. That one line solves the entire problem of Chicago and St. Louis. Unfortunately with single track CTC, there are capacity issues.

ed

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by georgel

A little off the subject,but are their any SFSP or SPSF painted engies left?

There should still be some around that are patched.
SP 7556 was painted into MRL blue 327 December 2004
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/mrl/mrl7556.jpg

At least the O.S. posts are still up.
Anyone who has joined the forum in the last 14 months should see the Chicago thread before it is gone-
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=30704
Or the Big Boy thread-
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=31139

[georgel]

A little off the subject,but are their any SFSP or SPSF painted engies left?

[MP173]

It was really a shame that Mark's posts were deleted, but i can understand why he did it.

It sure seems that John Reed at ATSF kinda dropped the ball on several occasions. He just was perfectly content with his railroad or was not the man for the job at that time. The reason I say that is perhaps he was a fine railroader, but was he a visionary? Sure doesnt seem like it.

On the other hand...did BN drop the ball with their purchase of Frisco Lines instead of the MoPac? Sort of like the Portland Trail Blazers passing on Mike Jordan back in 1984. Not to say Frisco didnt provide routes that were good for the PRCoal, but it was MOPAC for darn sake!

I recently read a book on the modern history of the MoPac and they seemed light years ahead of the other railroads. UP must have woke up smiling when Frisco went to BN.

ed

[MP173]

CC:


Good points. I have studied EL from afar as I never really got to take a look at it closely. I have heard that it had a lessor route, basically because it missed the big markets. True, that would have been a HUGE advantage for intermodal.

Also, the point about intermodal being an enormous market now is very valid, but it wasnt so even 20 years ago. A little while ago there the Map of the Month had intermodal trains back in the 80's. There just were not that many at that time. Our economic structure has changed and we are now an importer of manufactured goods and the fuel situation dictates intermodal.

There is a fascinating book coming out soon, which was pre-reviewed by Don Phillips. I believe it is called the Men who Loved Trains and it is about the Conrail situation. I cannot wait to read it. I will buy it as soon as I know it is available.

The Conrail story is quite a story and personally, I hope the book is about 2000 pages long with tons of charts, financial stuff, maps, and antedotes. It would make a great summer read for me!

ed

[Chris30]

Quote by MP173:

QUOTE: The SFEL would have been heavily dependent on TOFC/COFC (now intermodal) business. Low margin stuff. Could they have charge premium service for enough business to have a good ROE? Dont know, but without coal or a good base of boxcar business, it would have been tough.

A strong argument could be made that a good base of boxcar business in the mid 1970's would become a good base of container business by the mid 1990's. ELSF would be more or less an intermodal road and intermodal is booming. The point is wll taken has to how much of a profit a railroad can make on intermodal alone.

Another quote by MP173:

QUOTE: No doubt the ATSF was the superior route from SoCal to the Chicago market, but was EL superior between Chicago and the East Coast? Dont think so. But, the head start ATSF would have had might have been enough to get 'er done.

EL was considered to have the non-superior route of the eastern railroads because it seemed to miss every major city. For a railroad that would trying to move TOFC/COFC from coast to coast as quickly as possible, I would see this as a huge advantage. Perhaps that is one of the reasons that UPS made EL their prefered eastern railroad in the 70's. Big cities equal congestion.

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong... Wouldn't a SF/EL merger have taken place before the creation of Conrail?? I think it would have. Perhaps a SF/EL merger would have established a route through the Chicago area before Conrail ever existed?

CC

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

The EL/ATSF and CR/ATSF proposals are intriguing, but Kevin Smith is right, the ICC would have never allowed it, or it would have taken so long for approval that EL would probably have collapsed outright before approval ever came (see RI/UP).

The only asset that EL could have brought to the party was its generous clearances, which made it virtually the only Eastern road that could have operated stack trains.

[Kevin C. Smith]

"Simpler" times-yes, but not a simpler matter or, to spell it out: I C C. The big freedom under the Staggers Act was freedom from the Interstate Commerce Commission. Every rate, abandonment/extension, discontinuence, sale or merger-darn near everything shy of breaking wind had to go by the ICC for review and approval. Anyone could throw a monkey wrench in to the works. Any shipper, competitor, community or interest group could file an objection and then...the hearings. Testimony from scores of people that something would be worse off for them or better off for someone else. The counter testimony, proposals, objections, changes, conditions, more objections and more changes. Anything and everything that could be brought up (and would) would have to be heard and taken into consideration. Then, eventually (the Merger of the CRI&P and SP took FOURTEEN YEARS to gain approval. By then things had changed so much everybody went home instead) a decision, possibly (and probably) with conditions to minimize any adverse impact on anybody else, which would tend to negate the advatages of the merger in the first place.

The Chicago/Mississippi River break between east & west would've been such an upset to the ossified way of doing things that no sane railroad manager would've stuck his head into that hornet's nest. Advantages to EL & SF wouldn't have made a difference, the criteria was "public interest" in whatever form emerged from the ensuing sausage grinder. Maybe the northeastern carriers were desperate enough to try something like that (and maybe a midwestern road could've been found in similar straits) but none of the westerns trancons were in such shape to bring on that apocolypse.

[nanaimo73]

Murph-
MWH had posted (all MWH posts have been deleted) on this thread http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=1&TOPIC_ID=42897

that he had talked to John S Reed, head of the ATSF back then, about why the ATSF did not pick up the Rock Island Choctaw route from Amarillo to Memphis. MWH said he got the impression that Mr Reed was happy operating the ATSF at the size it was at, and did not want to expand.

BN really stirred things up when they went after the SLSF in 1977. That pushed UP to go after SP or MP, and they chose MP. That got the ATSF and SP together, but talks broke off in 1980. NS made a bid for ATSF in 1982, but Santa Fe said no. ATSF was the first bid put in for Conrail (after the labor bid) during July 1983. By the end of 1983 ATSF and SP had got together.
After SPSF was regected the first time, Conrail tried to buy the SSW and enough SP lines in Texas to serve Houston.

[Murphy Siding]

Ed: I'm 45. In 1972 we moved to just east of Rapid City, S.D., about 1/2 mile south of the Milwaukee Road line into Rapid City. (1/2 mile south of Murphy Siding, actually). As I recall, mostly all we heard about railroads in S.D. in the 70's was about derailments and abandonments.
The time frame I'm thinking of, was before Conrail went public, in what, late 1980's? The article I read said CR was in merger talks with ATSF. When ATSF decided to go for SP instead, CR went public, as a matter of survival.
What intrigues me, is that now railroads (and railfans) get googly-eyed when they think of a merger that would put one railroad coast-to-coast. Of course, there are some pretty big reasons why this is unlikely. But it seems like there might have been a time when it was a definate possibility,be it ATSF/EL, ATSF/CR, or some of the other proposals that were out there. So, in *simpler* times, when there was the opportunity, why was the opportunity passed up?

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by FJ and G

wasn't Sp 1st to go from sea to shining sea?

Technically, I think it was "sea to shining gulf." [:D]

[MP173]

Murph:

I guess we need to establish a time frame for the discussion. I am assuming it is in the mid to late 70's.

At that time the answer had to be no. The ATSF and Conrail or Penn Central would not have worked. Murph, I dont know how old you are...if you were around in the 70's, but things were a mess, particularly in the east, although the midwest was not so hot either.

If you get a chance, take a look at a map of Penn Central, then Conrail in the late 70's and then Conrail in the mid to late 80's. They shed branch lines and even mainlines. The branch lines went away, with their 5 man crews and 3 or 4 car locals and the secondary mains went too. Case in point...

In 1977 I moved to Valparaiso, In. Couldnt believe my luck. Right here in town were 3 mainlines - Conrails ex Pennsylvania, GTW, and NW (ex Nickel Plate). The Conrail (Pennsy to us locals) was the busiest with about 30 trains daily. Lots of coal, lots of boxcars and some pigs.

One day in 1981 or so the trains stopped running. Literally. The double main became four streaks of rust, except for a couple of daily Amtraks and commuter trains. 30 trains gone...just like that. Transferred up to the ex NYC main 15 miles north.

Conrail eliminated duplicate mains, reduced costs, and became profitable. Conrail had a bigger mix of traffic than the EL. They had quite a bit of coal and coke. Lots of boxcar trains and the they developed quite the intermodal system.
The old NYC mainline from Buffalo to Chicago became a major line with up to 60 trains daily. It carried all the traffic from the old Pennsy, the EL and the Pennsy Panhandle line. All condensed to one route.

So by the mid 80's Conrail was looking mighty attractive. At that time the SF and Conrail would have been great for the intermodal and boxcar freight. Double stacks were coming, crew sizes were smaller and the economy was good. It was "Morning in America".

Would SF and Conrail been a juggernaut? I dont know. They would have gotten some Powder River coal east of Chicago, which would have helped, but mainly it would have been a low margin (intermodal) based growth.

What other competitors would have popped up? No doubt UP and someone, either NS or CSX, with BN taking the other and Southern Pacific being odd man out.

As it turned out, things pretty much fell into place with a balance on both sides of the Mississippi. Sure things could be better, but it is better for most than in the 70's.

Indiana is criss crossed with abandoned ROW's. You see them as you drive and cross on interstates or on highways. So many tracks that headed to Chicago are now gone...and rightfully so.

ed

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl

Since the routes weren't duplicated, there'd be no reason that such a merger would have eliminated interchange with any other railroad. Prior to breaking up Conrail, CSX and NS were primarily south east US railroads, with little trackage (by percentage) above the Mason-Dixon Line. Conrail never went much below Washington DC.

Why your logic would make this assumption is especailly baffling, especially viewing your own third sentence. From 25 May at 20:41:

"Right now, BNSF and UP can interchange with both NS and CSX. NS goes places CSX doesn't, UP where BNSF doesn't, etc etc and vis versa. If for instance BNSF merged with NS, those current BNSF shippers would lose some of their "impartial" connections to CSX destinations."

After any merger, they'd still be able to interchange.

Tom,

How is it that Murphy understood, but you cannot?

Yes, the interchange tracks are still there.

But once you have a merger, the merger partner obviously becomes the prefered interchange partner. The other railroad then plays second fiddle, where before they were an equal interchange partner.

In other words, if BNSF and NS merge, then NS is the conduit for BNSF traffic. CSX is the odd man out, thus BNSF customers that do business with a CSX customer will be forced to us NS, since NS is ...............

You know what, for Tom I better use a different analogy:

If Tom dates both Cindy and Nancy, he's getting it from both. But if he marries Nancy, he's no longer "legally" getting it from Cindy. Thus Tom had reduced his notch collection by half when he merged with Nancy.

Now here's an excellent example of Futuremodal logic, and why it bears no resemblance to actual logic. Only if the two lines served the same industries would there be a difference in which line served the final destination after such a merger. This is the only place that "preference" would matter. If the line they merged with doesn't serve the final destination, your scenerio would be as far out in left field as the rest of your statements. And what percentage of industries are served by two (or more) railroads?

FYI #1 "Marriage" and "merger" are two different things. You can interchange with another railroad after a merger without it being grounds for disolving the merger. The same can't be said for marriage.

FYI #2 Murphy's law states that "whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, (sometimes added) and at the worst possible time." No relation to what's being discussed.

[trainboyH16-44]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

What would it have been like to see blue Warbonnets?

Probably something like this - http://www.railroadmichigan.com/shark1205dh.jpg

[Murphy Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal

Tom,

How is it that Murphy understood, but you cannot?

[(-D][(-D]Why do you seem surprised that I got it?[;)]

[cr6479]

FJ and G I think it was that SP was the 1st to go from sea to shining sea.

[FJ and G]

wasn't Sp 1st to go from sea to shining sea?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by TomDiehl

Since the routes weren't duplicated, there'd be no reason that such a merger would have eliminated interchange with any other railroad. Prior to breaking up Conrail, CSX and NS were primarily south east US railroads, with little trackage (by percentage) above the Mason-Dixon Line. Conrail never went much below Washington DC.

Why your logic would make this assumption is especailly baffling, especially viewing your own third sentence. From 25 May at 20:41:

"Right now, BNSF and UP can interchange with both NS and CSX. NS goes places CSX doesn't, UP where BNSF doesn't, etc etc and vis versa. If for instance BNSF merged with NS, those current BNSF shippers would lose some of their "impartial" connections to CSX destinations."

After any merger, they'd still be able to interchange.

Tom,

How is it that Murphy understood, but you cannot?

Yes, the interchange tracks are still there.

But once you have a merger, the merger partner obviously becomes the prefered interchange partner. The other railroad then plays second fiddle, where before they were an equal interchange partner.

In other words, if BNSF and NS merge, then NS is the conduit for BNSF traffic. CSX is the odd man out, thus BNSF customers that do business with a CSX customer will be forced to us NS, since NS is ...............

You know what, for Tom I better use a different analogy:

If Tom dates both Cindy and Nancy, he's getting it from both. But if he marries Nancy, he's no longer "legally" getting it from Cindy. Thus Tom had reduced his notch collection by half when he merged with Nancy.

[Murphy Siding]

Ed: Would Conrail have had the same disadvantages that you mention above about SF/EL?

[MP173]

On the map the SFEL or ELSF looks pretty good. BTW, there was a set of Conrail trains that had those symbols (Elkhart - Santa Fe) which ran the old Kankakee Belt route to Streator.

I am not sure that the SFEL would have been good. EL had some serious problems the further east it traversed. Agnes wiped out miles of the route. Also, it seems that any railroad that approached New York got closer and closer to the point of infection. There simply were no healthy railroads east of Harrisburg...at least that I can recall.

The SFEL would not have had any coal to give it a base of operations.

The SFEL would have been heavily dependent on TOFC/COFC (now intermodal) business. Low margin stuff. Could they have charge premium service for enough business to have a good ROE? Dont know, but without coal or a good base of boxcar business, it would have been tough.

Perhaps they could have put some expedited fruit/vegetable business on the rails between the Valley and the east. Could they have stemmed the tide of max exodus from rail? Doubt it.

No doubt the ATSF was the superior route from SoCal to the Chicago market, but was EL superior between Chicago and the East Coast? Dont think so. But, the head start ATSF would have had might have been enough to get 'er done.

It would have been intriguing to have seen the SFEL in operation. However, remember getting thru Chicago would have been a royal pain. Conrail would not have allowed the Kankakee Belt operation to North Judson and the TPW would not have gotten close to the EL, unless traffic rights were between Logansport and Huntington and in that case, why not hand off the business to NW at Kansas City to run to Huntington?

Two of my favorite roads tho and worth a discussion.

ed

[TomDiehl]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

Chris30: Didn't E-L eventually become part of Conrail? If so,ATSF/CR would have been the same thing,except on steroids. I would think that some at ATSF kicked themselves after the SPSF merger fell through.

Erie-Lackawanna was one of the major components of the Conrail merger in 1976. The others were Penn Central, Central Railroad of New Jersey, Lehigh Valley, and Reading Railroads.

[bnsfkline]

We would have BNNS if that had happened, And who knows, CSX would have bought SP, and UP would have been bought by CN!

[nanaimo73]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Murphy Siding

Chris30: Didn't E-L eventually become part of Conrail? If so,ATSF/CR would have been the same thing,except on steroids. I would think that some at ATSF kicked themselves after the SPSF merger fell through.

I think the failure of the SPSF merger turned out pretty good for ATSF. They got all of the valuable parts of the SP company and sold the Railroad to the D&RGW.

[Murphy Siding]

Chris30: Didn't E-L eventually become part of Conrail? If so,ATSF/CR would have been the same thing,except on steroids. I would think that some at ATSF kicked themselves after the SPSF merger fell through.

[Chris30]

Was the attempted/suggested/rumored/whatever merger between SF & CR a second attempt of the SF & Erie-Lackawana?? If there was ever going to be a true end-to-end, coast-to-coast railroad in the lower 48, then the combination of EL (the prefered route of UPS at the time) and SF (Super C) might have been the best opportunity if not just a little ahead of it's time in the mid 1970's. Imagine if somebody had the foresight in the mid 70's to see the comming of the intermodal (container) boom that dawned in the mid 80's and combined the two roads. Of course, with the poor financial situation of just about every eastern railroad, looking ahead ten years is a stretch. Then again, if somebody could have pulled it off the results might have been huge. Can you say Erie Lackawana Santa Fe (ELSF)?

CC

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I would hardly say that CNR went from sea to sea from its inception, since it seems to have been a way for the Canadian government to salvage numerous insolvent lines of various sizes, the two largest (Canadian Northern & Grand Trunk Pacific) of which happened to be transcons. GTP actually built west from Winnipeg, depending on the government-built National Transcontinental for its eastern connection.

[TomDiehl]

Since the routes weren't duplicated, there'd be no reason that such a merger would have eliminated interchange with any other railroad. Prior to breaking up Conrail, CSX and NS were primarily south east US railroads, with little trackage (by percentage) above the Mason-Dixon Line. Conrail never went much below Washington DC.

Why your logic would make this assumption is especailly baffling, especially viewing your own third sentence. From 25 May at 20:41:

"Right now, BNSF and UP can interchange with both NS and CSX. NS goes places CSX doesn't, UP where BNSF doesn't, etc etc and vis versa. If for instance BNSF merged with NS, those current BNSF shippers would lose some of their "impartial" connections to CSX destinations."

After any merger, they'd still be able to interchange.

[Anonymous]

Well, if such could happen, it would be more likely now than then. Back then, you had 3 roads in the East and 4 roads in the West, so if an end to end merger took place, the rest of the roads could keep their regionality and not lose their multiple connectivity. Now if an end to end merger occurs, it almost certainly forces the remaining two big boys to merge as well, if for no other reason than to keep up with the Jones.

You will note that current merger talk is more directed toward a Canadian road shacking up with a US counterpart, not a US East + West merger. Then you have KCS, DM&E et al - what happens to them?

[Murphy Siding]

Dave- I certainly agree that an end-to-end merger is impossible now. Could it have ben a possibility back then? Would ATSF have gained more from a union with CR than it would have lost with other friendly eastern connections?