The real thing that shot the postwar passenger train in the foot was really the ICC order of 1947 that took away the prewar 'ability' to run as fast as modern power could be made to go with shiny lightweight consists. Associated with this was the Chessie experiment: trains designed almost without regard to cost or operating expense, featuring a wide range of sometimes-quirky luxuries to make the trip attractive. And then the bottom fell out of the market ... not so much for the idea of the trains, but for the colossal level of support and service that was required just to run them as commodities.
An airplane flies where it's going, and turns around with pax for the return. It can easily divert to serve other areas ... or not ... and can easily be sent on a different route altogether if needed; in fact, it can cover several routes easily depending only on demand for the cost of little more than a set of Jeppson plates.
Meanwhile, the train is tugging around somewhere north of six tons per passenger, not including things like fabulously unprofitable diners and multiple attendants per car. And you need more than one train to hold down even daily service to most significant markets ... even though your revenue per day is that of only one. All this surplus capacity had to be paid for up front, and kept maintained ... and stocked ... and cleaned.
And then banged over increasingly dubious track quality. When there was no option but sleeping as the train rushed through the night, the acceptability of the resulting 'sensations' was one thing; once there was the option of a non-moving bed, it's not surprising that only the high-end solutions kept being patronized ... and even those, not so much.
Right into this comes the Government enforcement effort after the antitrust decision, which takes Pullman as a quality-control company right out of overnight sleeper operation at a stroke and replaces it with some railroad-led expediency. A sad thing here is that the Government knew, very thoroughly, in advance how it expected the Pullman Company to behave, even so much as to hint more than once that the deleterious enforcement oversight would apply to Pullman if they, ahem, ahem, chose the passenger business over the carbuilding one...
Again, the place and thing to watch was the Broadway after 1958, when the Century put on coaches and dropped the overall standard and Beebe went to the PRR. If anything could have saved the real streamlined luxury passenger train, that would have been it. You can read for yourself how that panned out.
There are other things, one of which was the industrial style from the late '30s onward. Even when this incorporated very expensive materials and handmade art, as in the original Super Chief trains ... it looked cheap and relatively spartan. We won't go into what happened when the trim actually became cheap and spartan in the mid-Fifties.
And then no operating subsidies for the Government-funded competition, and taking away the mail contracts ... and not at all least, long failure to repeal the 10% expedient 'war tax' that nobody else was paying...
Flintlock76Maybe that old world will come back if enough people are interested enough, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Times change, not necessarily for the better.
Not until we get rid of these:
and start using these:
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Overmod-- Except for the Chessie part the rest of the story as you relate sounds conspiratorial. I have no doubts that politicians and friends in high places were well placed and served by highway contractors, the aviation industry, GM and big auto, oil and gas, and so forth.
Also swept up by starry eyed visions of some brave new modern metropolis, atomic age goofiness, and a vast coast to coast public being steadily fed all that Mad Men tidal wave of ' how good its going to be '.
Society was turned against passenger trains and some of the railroads actually welcomed this. Eventually they all did.
But!... just look at that pic of the NY Central trains lined up at LaSalle... thats when we all had something to build on and not tear down and we knew what we were doing. Society accepted that loss but it could have been encouraged and advanced instead.
A while back on the passenger thread a posting featured a new train and service in Japan that is exactly what the New York Central 20th Century could be today. It exists today, just not here. I suppose VIA's high end service is around but that's a crazy high cost.
We had it in our grasp but lost it. It did not need to be that way.
Klingon bartenders? Well if you're running a biker bar I guess that's one way to keep the patrons in line!
No, wait a minute, a cashless society? Maybe, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Remember what the late, great Mike Royko once said...
"A cashless society? It'll never happen. Why? Three little words...
Off the books."
Miningman, count me in with you about how we (western society?) had it all (especially transportation-wise) and then either lost it or threw it away.
But as I looked at those small pics you posted showing comfy train interiors (e.g. facing seats in compartments) including the couple dining in a dome car and the seats in the Hiawatha lounge car, all I could think was this: Even if we had it all back, wouldn't every seat today be filled by people looking at their phones? Or wearing headphones or ear buds? And recall, when I brought up the pleasantries of having a meal in a dining car with a perfect stranger or two, that replies were aggressive as to how millenials despise such intercourse.
And notice how the couple is dressed. Imagine those cars filled with people dressed as we do today. But truthfully, I don't want to have to wear a suit for 13 hours aboard the Lake Shore Limited, either.
Why did we lose it? I agree with much of your analysis. Yet in the end we're all to blame, usually in small ways.
About 12 years ago I had a discussion with a young teacher regarding school disipline and classroom management, and how "things got this way." I replied, It didn't get this way overnight. Like the frog in the boiling pot, we got used to what we were losing one day at a time.
A hymn we used to sing (lost it, too?) entitled "Once to every man and nation," contains this sublimity: "New ocassions teach new duties, Time makes ancient good uncouth." Or as Judy Blume put it so well: "That was then; this is now."
But if 1965 ever returns, I'm ready.
Overmod The real thing that shot the postwar passenger train in the foot was really the ICC order of 1947 that took away the prewar 'ability' to run as fast as modern power could be made to go with shiny lightweight consists.
The real thing that shot the postwar passenger train in the foot was really the ICC order of 1947 that took away the prewar 'ability' to run as fast as modern power could be made to go with shiny lightweight consists.
Is this also the reason why diesel engine manufacturers and RRs seldom emphasize the top speed of the postwar diesel-powered trains? I read EMD E7 could hit 110mph+, 106mph for FM Erie-Built. Not sure about EMD E8 and E9, probably rated at 79mph...
Overmod There are other things, one of which was the industrial style from the late '30s onward. Even when this incorporated very expensive materials and handmade art, as in the original Super Chief trains ... it looked cheap and relatively spartan. We won't go into what happened when the trim actually became cheap and spartan in the mid-Fifties.
I couldn't agree more. The styling of classy and beautiful things from the 1920s, progressionally (and professionally) transformed into a brutal and ugly form for the sake of innovation and competition. It was hard to believe that PRR's P85b was designed by Raymond Loewy, and these school-bus looking luxury "streamlined" coaches replaced the original P70 betterments cars... This is the first example that came to my mind. Who would have thought that in the 2nd or 3rd generation of the Futurama, I can hardly find a good looking computer keyboard, a device that I have to use every single day... just like fountain pens.
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
NKP guy-- Thanks for your well thought out reply.
I very recently read a report submitted as an assignment by an 11 year old. He travelled with his Dad from New York to Chicago and back and a side trip up to Milwaukee via different routes and railroads. This was in 1962.
I'm thinking 1962, into the first half of '63 the railroads were still operating in the traditional manner of passenger service and had not quite yet given up on things, especially in the East. Things had changed but they were holding on and service was kept to a high standard.
Seems to me that after '63 it was all a downhill unstoppable spiral as far as pride in passenger service went, again predominantly in the East but out West as well on a number of roads.
It was, as you say, not overnight exactly but a day to day erosion.
Miningman ...Seems to me that after '63 it was all a downhill unstoppable spiral as far as pride in passenger service went, again predominantly in the East but out West as well on a number of roads. It was, as you say, not overnight exactly but a day to day erosion.
...Seems to me that after '63 it was all a downhill unstoppable spiral as far as pride in passenger service went, again predominantly in the East but out West as well on a number of roads.
Meanwhile, in Japan, the _____ were building something like this:
1) Now this is the poster boy for what a traffic jam is. I can't even count all the Streetcars. No wonder they invented traffic lights.
2) Big honkin express/passenger train. One Hudson, no problem, stretches back as far as you can see. Diesels would require multiples of expensive locomotives for this consist. No doubt someone will tell me that's better but you can't fool an old horse fly.
3) Buffalo Central Terminal .. honoured in a stamp at the time.. very nice!
4) I think this is in Troy NY from what I remember but I could be wrong.
Sorry for the small image.
4) Another small image. Anyone know where this is, it seems quite distinctive.
5) Cab Forwards lined up waiting the call to action. Taylor Roundhouse.
6) One last look at the NYC Elevated line. What a mess, unused, forlorn and neglected.
Jones1945Is this also the reason why diesel engine manufacturers and RRs seldom emphasize the top speed of the postwar diesel-powered trains? I read EMD E7 could hit 110mph+, 106mph for FM Erie-Built. Not sure about EMD E8 and E9, probably rated at 79mph...
Any diesel-electric will go as fast as its motors are geared for, and it has the horsepower to overcome the resistance of. As I recall the New Haven DL-109s were geared for "120mph" but they didn't have much real chance of operating that fast with a train. You could get E units with different ratios, each with a corresponding 'speed' (you will find these in the literature; a common E-unit speed worked out to 92mph) and of course there was the typical tradeoff with taller gears reducing effective tractive effort but allowing the motors to spin slower (and induce less back EMF) for a given speed.
Not all locomotives were given the final stages of field weakening in transition, either. You may recall the brief (and it was very brief) experiment with field-weakening coils applied to the Electroliner, resulting in 108mph on what I recall to be 28" wheels. In the story I heard, someone was ordered under the cars to torch off the coils then and there, no shop delays or temptations to be tolerated...
Meanwhile, what was permissible with the gearing was not always particularly achieved. The N&W TE-1 was a case in point: Baldwin apparently led the N&W to believe that the thing would run 65mph with a full trainload, which of course it never would. Louis Newton had some choice comments on this.
It is sometimes fun, if a bit regrettable, to watch railfans speculate on 'how fast' things could go -- perhaps the most outre being a docent at a certain railroad museum claiming the top speed of a GG1 was 156mph, but not far behind being the Stan Repp claims (in his early Super Chief book) that regular speeds of 150mph were regularly broken by the early ATSF locomotives. (He even provides the method by which engine crews supposedly avoided having the speed recorder 'tape' the overspeed, in case you were predisposed to scoff...)
Miningman 4) I think this is in Troy NY from what I remember but I could be wrong. Sorry for the small image. 4) Another small image. Anyone know where this is, it seems quite distinctive.
Yes that is Troy, NY from the North along the single track D&H. I think the second small photo might also be Troy from the south along the double track NYC. In both photos if you look in the distance, you can just see the tower that was located over the track at the south throat of the Union Station trackage.
Well thank you Midland Mike! Nice to know my memory isn't all that shot after all. Makes me feel good!
Jones1945Meanwhile, in Japan, the _____ were building something like this:
Perhaps the Poms can be forgiven; Singapore was still less than a quarter century ago for them then.
Old Man Thunder certainly figured out how to finance the supertrains, which was really the most important detail here.
Overmod ...It is sometimes fun, if a bit regrettable, to watch railfans speculate on 'how fast' things could go -- perhaps the most outre being a docent at a certain railroad museum claiming the top speed of a GG1 was 156mph, but not far behind being the Stan Repp claims (in his early Super Chief book) that regular speeds of 150mph were regularly broken by the early ATSF locomotives. (He even provides the method by which engine crews supposedly avoided having the speed recorder 'tape' the overspeed, in case you were predisposed to scoff...)
...It is sometimes fun, if a bit regrettable, to watch railfans speculate on 'how fast' things could go -- perhaps the most outre being a docent at a certain railroad museum claiming the top speed of a GG1 was 156mph, but not far behind being the Stan Repp claims (in his early Super Chief book) that regular speeds of 150mph were regularly broken by the early ATSF locomotives. (He even provides the method by which engine crews supposedly avoided having the speed recorder 'tape' the overspeed, in case you were predisposed to scoff...)
Regular speeds of 150mph (241.4kph) were regularly broken... The engine crews regularly played a trick that would have cost their career and life regularly... Too "good" to be true! If the figure was 105mph instead of 150mph, it would sound more convincing...
Railfans speculating on "How fast?" is certainly fun. Regrettable? I don't think so, just harmless giggles.
It's kind of like naval history buffs speculating on match-ups that never happened like HMS Victory vs. USS Constitution, USS Iowa vs. KM Bismarck, or USS New Jersey vs. IJN Yamato. Or even HMS Hood vs. KM Graf Spee.
Have to leave that stuff to "World of Warships," which I don't play or have any interest in.
Miningman1) Now this is the poster boy for what a traffic jam is. I can't even count all the Streetcars. No wonder they invented traffic lights.
Chicago on a good day not long after the cables were converted to electricity. Note the "Big Pullman" on the left turning onto what is either Dearborn or State. The dark Chicago Rys scheme on the Pullman and the primitive Elston Ave. car put this in late Chicago Rys, or early Chicago Union Traction days.
Chicago Surface Lines contributed a great deal to the developent of traffic lights in the 1920s, precisely to untangle scenes like this.
Flintlock76 Railfans speculating on "How fast?" is certainly fun. Regrettable? I don't think so, just harmless giggles. It's kind of like naval history buffs speculating on match-ups that never happened like HMS Victory vs. USS Constitution, USS Iowa vs. KM Bismarck, or USS New Jersey vs. IJN Yamato. Or even HMS Hood vs. KM Graf Spee. Have to leave that stuff to "World of Warships," which I don't play or have any interest in.
I want to see the proposed British RN N3 vs. KM Bismarck, too bad that "World of Warships" is just a "free" computer game for entertainment, not a simulator that could render how ships would get damaged in real-life battle through computer graphics. There is no N3 or G3 in the game at the moment but the game has the canceled Lion-class with 4X3 18" guns as a tier 10 ships, named Conqueror...
I want to see the proposed British RN N3 vs. KM Bismarck
I'd be happy with King George V replacing Hood with all else the same.
The illustration above seems to imply a ship with three twin turrets, not triple turrets...
Peter
rcdrye Miningman 1) Now this is the poster boy for what a traffic jam is. I can't even count all the Streetcars. No wonder they invented traffic lights. Chicago on a good day not long after the cables were converted to electricity. Note the "Big Pullman" on the left turning onto what is either Dearborn or State. The dark Chicago Rys scheme on the Pullman and the primitive Elston Ave. car put this in late Chicago Rys, or early Chicago Union Traction days. Chicago Surface Lines contributed a great deal to the developent of traffic lights in the 1920s, precisely to untangle scenes like this.
Miningman 1) Now this is the poster boy for what a traffic jam is. I can't even count all the Streetcars. No wonder they invented traffic lights.
M636C I want to see the proposed British RN N3 vs. KM Bismarck I'd be happy with King George V replacing Hood with all else the same. The illustration above seems to imply a ship with three twin turrets, not triple turrets... Peter
Thanks for pointing this out! Yes, the Conqueror in the game has 4X3 18" guns instead of 3X3. Another similar ship Thunderer has 4X2 18" guns.
Flintlock76 Or even HMS Hood vs. KM Graf Spee.
Or even HMS Hood vs. KM Graf Spee.
It would probably turn out like the Battle of the Falkland Islands in WW1.
CSSHEGEWISCH Flintlock76 Or even HMS Hood vs. KM Graf Spee. It would probably turn out like the Battle of the Falkland Islands in WW1.
More than likely, unless Graf Spee could get in a lucky hit, otherwise it would have been no contest.
18" guns on the proposed HMS Conqueror? I don't know, both the RN and the US Navy experimented with 18" guns prior to WW2 and didn't find any substantial improvement in performance over 16" guns so they didn't pursue the matter any further, but what the hell, "WOW" is all fantasy anyway.
I luv this picture of the Pennsy Q2. Its one of those pictures that you could swear you were there to see this.
It's remarkablely and notably disturbing just how short their working lives were. Such an outstanding and impressive piece of machinery, a pinnacle of steam engineering, something new and exciting, the future, only to be scrapped unceremoniously in a few brief years of service.
Not because they were flawed, or failures, poor design, a joke piece of junk, but because they weren't wanted any more. You see, they, the Pennsylvania Railroad 'changed their minds'.
Seems they changed their minds about a lot things until all that sheer feckless behaviour caught up to them and they were annihilated off the planet. Their bones and remains scattered and shattered, from the Standard Railroad of the World to ridicule and then faint remembrance.
Miningman I luv this picture of the Pennsy Q2. Its one of those pictures that you could swear you were there to see this. It's remarkablely and notably disturbing just how short their working lives were. Such an outstanding and impressive piece of machinery, a pinnacle of steam engineering, something new and exciting, the future, only to be scrapped unceremoniously in a few brief years of service. Not because they were flawed, or failures, poor design, a joke piece of junk, but because they weren't wanted any more. You see, they, the Pennsylvania Railroad 'changed their minds'. Seems they changed their minds about a lot things until all that sheer feckless behaviour caught up to them and they were annihilated off the planet. Their bones and remains scattered and shattered, from the Standard Railroad of the World to ridicule and then faint remembrance.
Retouched a little bit. Q2 is my favorite freight steam engine. They were powerful, good looking, semi streamlined, designed and constructed by Pennsy. I won't complain if they and the fleet of T1 were allowed to serve until 1960s... Steam engines in America were so heavy that they couldn't find a 2nd home outside the States. Imagine if India's railway system could handle these heavy steam engines, and Pennsy willing to sell them at a very good price, they would have had an even more colorful new life in their new home...
That machine was formidable-looking, no doubt about it! No-nonsense, all "Accomplish the mission at all costs!" PRR.
Yeah, no doubt about that at all. Overmod has termed it the "win the war now locomotive" which is likely true BUT the whole duplex drive thing was very much Pennsys direction and future. Yes, as Jones states " designed and built by Pennsy themselves". Also why is the need for a high speed freight or express locomotive no longer required? I suppose Nickel Plate and NYC didn't get the message, not to mention Union Pacific and Sante Fe, mind you different cookie there, but speed was # 1 with them.
I've said my piece about Pennsy several times. Something was very rotten, a successful attempt at undermining spurred on by outside forces and a compliant wink wink management, gotta jump on the bandwagon. Perfectly good, successful and new locomotives scrapped and all that expertise and money just burned and destroyed.
Pennsy could have flexed their political muscle far more than they did and stuck to their guns, do what they do, expose stuff, wage court battles, round up allies, go against the grain, pressure this and that, fight the corruption and the weasels. Get the employees and grandma on side with it all. Wage economic warfare to the highest levels. Send a big $bill, demanding payment, withholding against taxes, to the State and Feds over commuter services. Appeal to patriotism, their effort was crucial to winning the war.
Instead they blew their war profits on poorly designed Diesels and got into debt on the easy peasey payment plan with the company that wanted them as weak as possible, a true enemy. They just played along and slowly bled to death. (No it wasn't China), it was GM.
The Standard Railroad of the World did not even try to live up to its name. They became a little squeaky mouse. What little soul they had left disppeared permanently when they tore down Pennsylvania Station. Unimaginable. They lost the war by that point anyway.
If only the Duplexes had been developed 20 years earlier, then they would have found a great home on fast transcontinental mail & express trains or priority freights, in an era when they would have been the fastest thing on wheels.
PRR management let that whole 'Standard Railroad of the World' thing go to their heads. They got complacent and thought they were too big to fail, well before that phrase came into the popular lexicon. When the world changed they had no idea what to do, and fell into denial instead of really trying to survive, modernize and thrive.
What Perlman did at New York Central was harsh, but he kept that railroad on its feet. NYC probably could have survived on its own had the disastrous Penn Central merger not happened, but I guess we'll never really know.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
It also looks like a pic that was taken by a roundhouse foreman to settle an argument.
"SEE!?! I TOLD you it would fit in the roundhouse!"
Could be Penny, could be. Thinking this is at Crestline, but not 100% sure.
Try this conversation or How the Pennsy went bust.
Pres. of the PRR-- " Ahhh, one of those Q2's, won the war for us, and they are still nearly new! What a great locomotive! The future looks bright for us!"
Head of Motive Power-- " Well sir we are scrapping them"
Pres.--" Whaaat? Explain yourself"
Head of Motive Power-- " Diesels sir, Diesels... they're better. Cost a bit more but well worth it"
Pres.-- " How much more ?"
Head of Motive Power--"Well about three times the cost, each, and .. ummm, we need four of them to replace one Q2"
Pres.-- " Hmmm... twelve times the cost to replace each nearly new Q2..... good job! Well done! "
A likely scenario!
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