1960s Northern Pacific

[Bagehot]

wjstix

What he says is the North Coast Limited made money up until about 1968, at which point it was still breaking even. He also says the NP's passenger revenue's increased each year 1959-62 at a time when many railroads were losing money on all their trains, with the NCL contributing the bulk of that revenue.

The NP refers to heavy losses in 1967, and uses the word "continuing". It reports heavy losses all during that period. What is hard to understand about that? Do you think they were just making it up? There is quite a difference between "bulk of revenue" and "losing money on". One is "revenue," the other is "profit." They are not the same thing. Many Class I railroads increased "revenue." That wasn't what they were complaining about. It was the increasing losses on that increasing revenue that was the problem.

If the NCL contributed the "bulk" of "revenue" and you are still arguing that was "profit" then that meant that the remainder of NP trains, mostly the Mainstreeter, were in the range of 400-500% Operating Ratios since that is the only way to explain the NP's overall Passenger Operating Ratio. Now, why would NP have such horrendous operating ratios for most of its passenger services -- far, far worse than any other Class I -- if it was able to achieve such an outstanding operating ratio on just one of its trains? Geniuses in one instance, completely incompetent in the other? And it was the same staff?

None of that makes any sense at all, if you ever rode the Maintstreeter. I did. It was a well-attended train, often better than the NCL.

Please, there is a well established accounting record for these trains, published by the Northern Pacific Railroad itself. By law, it had a responsibility to report correctly. It contradicts the statements you have proposed on this thread. You are proposing that the Northern Pacific falsified its reported data. That's just not plausible.

It is the complete lack of plausibility that ought to have raised a question in your mind as to the validity of the assertion in the book. And I certainly can offer no explanation other than the use of incomplete or misunderstood data to justify whatever it is that you say the book asserts. And I don't know the author's accounting background. I did know some of the auditors at the NP. They were experienced accountants. They understood how to do it. And their data reflects similar experiences on other Class I railroads with long distance passenger service.

I don't understand what Winston Churchill has to do with a railfan book. Winston Churchill, at a minimum, lived in the environment he wrote about, and was an official of the government of that culture. His qualifications were not an issue. No one challenged his conclusions. And he hardly came to conclusions at complete odds with the established historical record, but rather enhanced, explained, and extended the understanding of that record.

That is not the case here. The book is completely at odds with what the Northern Pacific Railroad published on the matter and apparently does not offer an explaination for the huge and obvious discrepancy, and that is odd all by itself.

If you get back to the book and re-read it, and he does offer to explain the discrepancy, I would be interested to hear how the author does it.

-- Bagehot