WILMERDING, Pa — Wabtec Corp. and GE announced today they have modified the terms of their merger agreement and today will publicly file S4 and S1 registration statements, respectively, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The pla...
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2019/01/25-wabtec-ge-expect-to-close-locomotive-maker-deal-by-february
Brian Schmidt, Editor, Classic Trains magazine
I think GE's going to be very sorry one day they let the locomotive division go, but what do I know?
GE's loss is certainly going to Wabtec's gain.
At least Wabtec understands the railroad business, or at least I think they do. The people running GE? Probably not.
I am begining to think that people running manufacturing businesses in general no longer possess knowledge about running a manufacturing business. They know about financial ledgerdomain but very little about the products they make and what is required to make them.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
That's what happened to EMD when people from GM with Harvard MBA"S came to LaGrange to tell everybody how to run the business.
I think Balt hit the nail squarely on the head. While keeping control of costs is improtant to any business that wants to stay in business, a good understanding of the manufacturing process is needed to avoid making penny wise, pound foolish mistakes.
GE seems to reaping the fallout from Jack Welch's regime. He seemed more interested in turning GE from a manufacturing to a financial services company. It can be argued that Welch was not particularly successful.
Balt and creepycrank took the words out of my mouth.
That MBA in someone's back pocket means he (or she) is good at math and good at business theory. It doesn't mean they understand the business they've gotten themselved hired by.
If you don't undertand the business it doesn't matter how many degrees you've got hanging on the wall, you're headed for a fall, sooner or later.
Flintlock76Balt and creepycrank took the words out of my mouth. That MBA in someone's back pocket means he (or she) is good at math and good at business theory. It doesn't mean they understand the business they've gotten themselved hired by. If you don't undertand the business it doesn't matter how many degrees you've got hanging on the wall, you're headed for a fall, sooner or later.
I ended my education that the Bachelors level rather than proceed on to the MBA level. That being said, it was being emphasised at the Bachelors level that you only needed to know the numbers to be able to succeed in any business - you did not have know what the business was doing or how it was being done. Every MBA I subsequently came across in one way or another conveyed that they had no desired to understand the actual operations of a business and why the operational decisions were made as they were - they just wanted to manipulate financial numbers - people be damned. I got my Bachelors in 1970 and I know the MBA - you don't need to know the business to run it is a rampant teaching in business today.
Back in 1990 when GM tried to sell EMD they had already sold the money losing Detroit Diesel to Roger Penske where in one year it went from losing $50M to making $50M and everybody except top managment were hoping that he buy EMD too since his diesel shop's were building generator sets with EMD equipment. Managers should study Penske and forget about getting a MBA. The Harvard business has a lot to answer for.
Penske, to my knowledge, never graduated from college but is a ken observer from his early racing career on what works and what and his employees know and what is bukk ah...fecal matter. Their such a thing as getting educated and attending school. A senior mechanical engineer at a company that I worked for lied about his age and enlisted in the Navy in WW 2. His formal education ended when he was 16 but I know those Navy training sessions were good. He and another guy were talking about their war experiences and they found out that at Okanawa they were both operating boats to rescue sailors from a burning LST that had been hit by a kamakaze but they wereon oposite sides. {railroad tie in. the LST had EMD 12-567-ATL engines.
There is a difference in the skills needed to be a first-rate line worker and those for a top supervisor or manager. A lot of good mechanics have found out the hard way that their job skills weren't that helpful in running their own garage. That being said, a good manager should know the basics of the business but nuts-and-bolts knowledge is not an absolute requisite.
This talk about understanding the business reminded me of something. Yeah, I know, some of you are saying "Flintlock, something always reminds you of something!" Fair enough, but bear with me.
Ever hear of a gent named Thomas Andrews? Mr. Andrews was Managing Director and Chief Designer at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland around the turn of the 20th Century. H&W was the firm that built the Titanic.
No nasty wisecracks please, as the folks in Northern Ireland say "There was nothin' wrong with Titanic when she left Belfast, boy-o!"
Getting back to Mr. Andrews, at 16 years old young Thomas was the heir-apparant to the top position at Harland and Wolf, the firms owner Lord Pirrie was his grandfather, and Pirrie had no son of his own to take over the business.
Thomas was looking forward to it, he loved ships and the idea that one day he'd be building them.
But this didn't mean Thomas was dropped into the executive suite from day one. Not at all. At 16 Thomas began an apprenticeship program that ran for five years.
And it ran like this...
Three months in the joiners shop, one month in the cabinetmakers shop, two months working on ships, two months of warehouse work, five months with the conventional shipwrights, two months in the moulding loft, two months with the painters, eight months with the iron shipwrights, six months with the shipfitters, three months with the pattern makers, eight months with the metalsmiths, and eighteen months in the drawing office.
So it goes without saying that by the time a 21-year-old Thomas got into the management track there was nothing about the shipbuilding business he didn't know. And what's just as important, he knew the men involved, and they all knew him.
Anyway, that's how it was done in the old days, in Mr. Andrews business and everyone elses business too, for that matter.
Was the system perfect? Of course not, nothing's perfect. But the thing is, most of the time it worked.
Whether the system that's in place now is better I'll leave to you all to judge. My mind's already made up.
PS: Thomas Andrews was in charge of the Harland and Wolf "guarantee group" to evaluate and troubleshoot any issues with a new ship on the Titanic's maiden voyage. All were lost.
Flintlock76PS: Thomas Andrews was in charge of the Harland and Wolf "guarantee group" to evaluate and troubleshoot any issues with a new ship on the Titanic's maiden voyage. All were lost.
And the engineering 'defects' of the Titanic are still be argued 107 years after it impacted the bottom of the Atlantic.
Whoops! Computer burp, see below.
It was poor seamanship that killed the Titanic, a whole chain of events that lead to disaster, not any engineering defects.
Titanic's sister ship, Olympic, sailed for 25 years, even rammed and sank a U-Boat during World War One, and never had any performance or structural issues.
Titanic was a passenger ship, not a warship. The designers of that ship, or any passenger ship of the time couldn't forsee any situation that would damage 300 feet of the ship's side. The main concern of the time, and it was a major one in those pre-radar days, was collisions with other ships, which at most wouldn't damage more than two watertight compartments.
Ironically, the Titanic had better watertight compartmentalization than the Andrea Doria had. The damage that sank the Andrea Doria is exactly what the Titanic was designed to survive.
What ended sinking the Andrea Dora wasn't the hole in the hull from the collision with the Stockholm but a holes in both her freshwater and fuel tanks. Those didn't have check valves that prevented flowing side to side. So she started to list they countered flooded as best as possible however that put the damaged tanks below the waterline and they began to fill. How do I know this my uncle was coming back on the Dora as a child with his parents from an overseas vacation on the voyage she sank on. They had gone to Rome to see the Sistine Chapel and other sites and were coming back on that voyage.
Flintlock76It was poor seamanship that killed the Titanic, a whole chain of events that lead to disaster, not any engineering defects. Titanic's sister ship, Olympic, sailed for 25 years, even rammed and sank a U-Boat during World War One, and never had any performance or structural issues. Titanic was a passenger ship, not a warship. The designers of that ship, or any passenger ship of the time couldn't forsee any situation that would damage 300 feet of the ship's side. The main concern of the time, and it was a major one in those pre-radar days, was collisions with other ships, which at most wouldn't damage more than two watertight compartments. Ironically, the Titanic had better watertight compartmentalization than the Andrea Doria had. The damage that sank the Andrea Doria is exactly what the Titanic was designed to survive.
Titanic's youngest sister ship Britannic sunk in 55 minutes after striking a mine while in hospital ship service in 2016. In sinking in 'shallow' 400 feet of water, the bow came to rest on the sea floor while much of the midship and stern were still above water.
The fact remains, swap the Titanic for the Andrea Doria and Titanic would have survived being rammed by the Stockholm, that's exactly the type of situation Titanic was designed to survive, that's all I'm saying.
The Britannic? Again, she was a passenger ship, not a warship, and mines of the time were designed to break the keel of and sink a battleship, so what chance did Britannic have? I'm surprised it lasted 55 minutes to begin with, that was one tough ship!
O course, it didn't help that Britannic's portholes were left open by the staff to improve ventilation of the ship, it was operating in the Mediterranian Sea after all, a much warmer climate than the North Atlantic run it was intended for. The lower she settled in the water the greater the flooding became, essentially negating the improved watertight protection installed after the Titanic disaster.
At least this time there were plenty of lifeboats and the ship wasn't full, so the loss of life wasn't so horrific.
And STCO, I'm thrilled to hear your uncle and his family survived the Andrea Doria sinking! Another example of poor seamanship, on both the Italian's and Swede's parts. Both ships were equipped with radar that no-one on their respective bridges knew how to use properly. Both shipping companys sued each other, and long-story-short later decided to drop it.
Flintlock76 It was poor seamanship that killed the Titanic, a whole chain of events that lead to disaster, not any engineering defects. Titanic's sister ship, Olympic, sailed for 25 years, even rammed and sank a U-Boat during World War One, and never had any performance or structural issues. Titanic was a passenger ship, not a warship. The designers of that ship, or any passenger ship of the time couldn't forsee any situation that would damage 300 feet of the ship's side. The main concern of the time, and it was a major one in those pre-radar days, was collisions with other ships, which at most wouldn't damage more than two watertight compartments. Ironically, the Titanic had better watertight compartmentalization than the Andrea Doria had. The damage that sank the Andrea Doria is exactly what the Titanic was designed to survive.
It's been argued that had they sighted the iceberg either a bit earlier or a bit later, the ship probably wouldn't have sank. Either early enough to miss the berg entirely or late enough that they would have struck it head on. It's thought damage from a head strike would not have caused them to founder.
The quality of EMD's, has felt by those who use them day to day, seems to have gone down since GM sold them. Possibly beginning even in the later days of GM ownership. I hope GE doesn't follow the same trajectory.
Jeff
Jeff, Walter Lord once said one of the tragedies of the Titanic were all the "...if onlys..." If only any one of a series of events hadn't happened the disaster never would have never taken place.
EMD quality on the downhill slide? Now that's something I'm not qualified to talk about not being a professional railroader. One of our other posters will have to fill us in on that subject.
So what does this mean to GE shareholders? It means a portion of their GE shares get turned into Wabtec shares. In other words, they go from owning a company attempting to specialize in everything to one specializing in transportation products. Pros - You own company focused on one thing. Con - You're subjected to the cycles of one sector.
If I remember correctly, EMD starting losing market share when their parent company went outside of its core competancy (land based vehicles) and started buying computer (EDS) and defense contractors (Hughes).
You also have to remember that EMD was owned by a private equity company for quite a few years.
Now they're owned by the largest machinery manufacturer in the world in Caterpillar. If anyone can solve EMDs problems it will be them.
JoeBlow You also have to remember that EMD was owned by a private equity company for quite a few years.
Those appear to have been totally lost years of R&D for EMD.
Shadow the Cats ownerNow they're owned by the largest machinery manufacturer in the world in Caterpillar. If anyone can solve EMDs problems it will be them.
Hopefully they have better luck than the last couple of times they tried their hand in the locomotive game.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.