Railroad evolutions...distasteful or otherwise

[WCfan]

I turely to my heart, HATE, CN. There Crashing Nationaly, and wanted WC only for it's Main line. They also made the SD45 more endangered, to almost extinct.

What else, pray tell, did WC have besides a mainline?  Railroads have value only because of where they go and WC went to Chicago - and that was where CN wanted to go and they swallowed up WC to get there.

Railroads have been doing this for over a hundred and fifty years; look at the Pennsy and how they got into Chicago.  The NMRA Bulletin once published a Railroad 'Corporate Genealogy', if you will, one of those 'who begat who' tables, on the St Louis-San Francisco Railroad. There were, I believe, over one hundred corporate entities melded into the formation of the Frisco.  Most of this was done before model railroading came into vogue but people have been loosing their 'favorite' railroads almost since railroads began.  The list of airplane manufacturers who have lost their corporate identity through mergers and/or acquistions is getting pretty long also.  Many automobile companies have just faded into the sunset; others, however, have been gobbled up by their bigger and more powerful neighbors and from that we get names like General Motors.

Merger/acquisitions do not involve the esthetic of visual style and beauty; one railroad does not merge with nor acquire another because that other 'has a more beautiful paint scheme on their locomotives' - I do, by the way, know someone who shifted his 'allegiance' to BNSF because he liked their paint scheme better than CSX's. Merger/acquisitions are always about money and power. In every merger/acquisition one party is operating from a position of superior strength; notice that in the sixties we had Penn Central, not Central Penn.  Have you heard of that new railroad, the Santa Fe Burlington Northern?  Few realize that in the sixties or seventies we came close to having a Missouri Pacific and Santa Fe.  Another thing we have never seen is a Chicago and Milwaukee Northwestern but that was another possibility that fizzled out over that issue of money. No party ever asks in their board meetings "How will model railroaders feel about this?" Today we have neither a Milwaukee nor a Northwestern to drool over and we seldom acknowledge the fact that a sort of economic Darwinism was at work here. I have a friend/acquaintance who hates BNSF - would you like to take a wildassguess as to which historical society he is a member of. 

You lost the WC; I always thought I would like to model the Wabash but it got gobbled up by N&W over thirty years ago. I don't hate N&W; in fact it is one of my favorite railroads.  Wabash went to Kansas City and Omaha and that's where N&W now goes.  The next round of mergers, if there is a next round of mergers, could put somebody into both New York and Los Angeles and somebody will probably completely loose their corporate identity in this one; there is a mighty big corporate identity to be lost and there is going to be a whole bunch of unhappy campers sitting around the model railroading campfire after this one.

Loosing our favorite prototype is indeed an emotional issue, but, you know, it opens up all kinds of possibilities.  Western Pacific is gone, but did you know, that in 1997 it adopted a new paint scheme and now container trains roll through the Feather River Canyon behind Orange and Light Blue third generation diesels; Nickel Plate recently took delivery of some new state-of-the-art GE MACs; and piggyback service to and from the gulf coast has increased so dynamically that L&N just acquired a couple of hundred new 89' flat cars. All of this is in HO Scale or N Scale, of course.  WCfan (and anyone else struggling with this issue), the good ole' Wisconsin Central is alive and well.  Admittedly you can't go out to trackside and watch it roll through wherever it rolls through but you can stand at layoutside and watch it roll through wherever it rolls through.  You can freeze your railroad at the day before it lost its identity to CN; freezing your railroad on that particular date also freezes your motive power on that particular date but it equally freezes your memories which is invaluable.  You also have the option of pretending that your railroad still exists as a 'now' railroad.

Few realize that the Milwaukee Road is alive and well and still runs through the canyons of Northern Idaho and Western Montana and still operates under the colors of the eighties; either N Scale magazine or N Scale Railroading magazine had a photo feature awhile back proving that point.  The Western Maryland still snakes coal drags out of Elkins West Virginia through the mountains headed to tidewater; and Santa Fe still runs trains into and out of Argentine.

Yeah I can except the fact that railroads get swallowed up. But CN doesn't have pride in what they got from WC. I'll give you a little history of the WC. When WC first got the Lake States transportation Division (A SOO subsidiary) WC First Priority was to improve track and service. Every day here in Wausau they would switch. They would switch when ever the factories needed it. WC double it's Profit every year from Theses Subdivisions, and Main Line. They took pride in what they did.

When CN took over they didn't care. You see CN is so Rich they don't need any more money. They wanted the Superior Connection. So they don't do any thing. See WC switched out in the yard at least 2 time o day to the local industries. CN switches 4 times a Week! Green Bay Packaging Used to get most of it's paper by rail. Now with CN, there switching to truck. CN doesn't care if they loose that customer.

Now it sound like the WC did this because they where low on money. No they weren't. WC had good service. CN has crappy service. I'm sure they would of abounded the Valley sub. They have no need for it. They would probably abounded the Plymouth sub and the Manitowoc sub. Because they don't need it. They do a horrible job a servicing it. But the government makes them switch.

Here's the story of the WC from the CN web site. The ending is ALL wrong. WC was getting into money troubles at the end.(I think. Not sure) Ed Burkhart wanted to buy back the WC but didn't have the investors. He knew what would happen to the lines if CN took them.

http://www.cn.ca/about/company_information/history/en_AboutWisconsinCentral.shtml

[MisterBeasley]

New York Central (or anything else remotely associated with the Yankees.)

Yeah, ever since the Trolley Dodgers left Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn.  I became a Mets fan, and rooted for them loyally through the whole Casey Stengal era.  Now, Chip, I root for the Red Sox, but all those years in New York I kept hoping for the true classic - a Subway Series.

Rheingold Beer used to run ads which touted New York City as the diversity capital of the world, long before the word "diversity" had its current oh-so-politically-correct meaning.  They pointed out that New York had more Poles than Warsaw, and more Jews than Tel Aviv.  So, I guess that the New York subway system was the railroad equivalent of the great melting pot.  And, with temperatures in the 90's this week in the Northeast, I'm sure you'd find a lot of people who would agree with that statement.

[SOU Fan]

I don't like NS.  I just can't get myslef to love the in any way.  They have such a lousy paint scheme.  They could have at leat used Southern's or something like it.

 

-Smoke

[snagletooth]

New York Central (or anything else remotely associated with the Yankees.)

Yeah, ever since the Trolley Dodgers left Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn.  I became a Mets fan, and rooted for them loyally through the whole Casey Stengal era.  Now, Chip, I root for the Red Sox, but all those years in New York I kept hoping for the true classic - a Subway Series.

Rheingold Beer used to run ads which touted New York City as the diversity capital of the world, long before the word "diversity" had its current oh-so-politically-correct meaning.  They pointed out that New York had more Poles than Warsaw, and more Jews than Tel Aviv.  So, I guess that the New York subway system was the railroad equivalent of the great melting pot.  And, with temperatures in the 90's this week in the Northeast, I'm sure you'd find a lot of people who would agree with that statement.

I understand what your saying, but come to Chicago!

[BRAKIE]

My favorite target is Chessie the Knife.  Aside from the fact that they raped and pillaged the Western Maryland,... well, that's really enough, isnt it?

I know personally some WM men who were relegated to obscurity by Chessie management, and watched in horror as their once proud railroad was ripped up and downgraded.  Equipment that had been lovingly maintained was allowed to deteriorate.  The shortest route to Pittsburgh with the easiest grade and best clearances across the Allegheny Front was unceremoniously turned into a bike trail.  The excuse was to eliminate duplicate facilities, but the real reason was they didn't want N&W to get their mits on it.

The coup de gras was the conversion of Port Covington, a high speed deepwater port, into a WalMart parking lot.

The picture pretty much says it all...

Lee 

Funny,It was the B&O that took control of the WM not the Chessie.Recall none of the Chessie roads was merged..The mergers would come under CSX.

A railroad does not keep lines that is not profitable or full of steep grades if there is a second and better route..WM was one of those roads.Not to mention it was a power play by the C&O/B&O to stop the N&W from grabbing the WM.

 

[MilwaukeeRoad]

Favorite building I hate- Miller Park (Milwaukee Brewers Stadium)

It lies on the ruins of the old Milwaukee shops and engine facility.

[fwright]

Why was it that eastern railroads seemed more incompetent than western roads?  It seems you could always single out a struggling, pathetic eastern line...but the western lines just seemed to roll?

Whoa.  It wasn't 100% incompetant managment (PC excluded), it was the economical reality of the era.  For example, take the New Haven.  It's longest freight run was 231 miles or so, Maybrook, NY to Boston, MA.  Compare that to any big Western road, and they each went 2000 miles or so, right?  When you are paid by the mile or by the day, which do you think is going to make more money?

Not let's throw in commuter operations.  How many western roads had heavy commuter service?  Sure, they had Chicago (broken up amongst how many RR's?), L.A., S.F., and maybe a few others, but the NH alone had to service New York City, Boston, Hartford, Providence, New Haven, etc., each with branches off into the hinterlands of Southern New England.  And since commuters don't make money (and they were forced to run 'em due to gov't interferance), the NH and all the Eastern roads lost a lot of money by way of the commuter.

Then you have high, high tax rates.  According to rumor, Conrail used to pay more real estate taxes to New York State then all other states combined (which should give you some idea of the high taxation rates in NY).  Western roads did not have such a high burden.

Next is expansion.  Most Western roads (historically) built their RR's for themselves with help from the gov't, while most Eastern roads bought out their competitors to form complete networks by raising private capital.  For example, the New York Central ran several other corporations like the Boston & Albany, P&LE, etc.  And also, the New Haven took over some 70 different RR's (if not more) on it's way to the it's final shape.  These other RR's were usually leased for 99 years or 999 years, and these leases had to be paid off or else.

Furthermore, you had factories moving South and West.  The 1920's was the high point of Eastern RR'ing, after that the factories started to close and move in search of lower taxes, cheaper labor, and lower energy costs (ie, warmer winters).  This took money out of the Eastern roads and put it into the Western RR pockets.

It was a bad deal, all the way around, for Eastern roads.

Paul A. Cutler III
************
Weather Or No Go New Haven
************

I grew up an Eastern boy (I was 18 when I first crossed the Mississippi), but now have come to prefer the West by quite a margin, after splitting the past 30 years more or less equally.  So this may color my opinions somewhat.

The transcontinentals did get federal susbsidies - generally in the form of land grants - which the eastern railroads did not.  But the growth of the western railroads really came from merger and acquisition, just like their eastern counterparts.

When the original railroads were being built in the west, nearly every town that was bypassed, or couldn't come up with enough bribe money to get the railroad built through their town, built their own short line to tie in with the major railroad.  The towns, who were trying to establish themselves at the same time as the railroads, desperately needed the railroads to survive and prosper.  At the time, there was no feasible transportation alternative.  The number of usable, protected ports on the West Coast is tiny compared to the east.  West Coast rivers in general are not navigable far upstream, unlike their East and Gulf Coast cousins.  This, I believe is part of the key to the differences.  Eastern towns were already established independently, and did not need the railroad just to survive.

Another key difference is the attitude difference towards permanence in the East and West.  Western culture certainly has some roots in the "gold rush" mentality - get what you can today because it will likely be gone tomorrow.  Fires, earthquakes, blizzards, landslides have generally resulted in very little man-built infrastructure lasting intact a full 100 years in the West.  Combined with the gambling nature required of the pioneer settlers - to chance everything on the possibility of a better life in a new place, and you realize that there is a lot more willingness in Western culture to lose it all and start over.  Finally, being 2500 miles from Washington DC means government oversight wasn't quite so heavy, especially before airline travel.  So all the short or regional lines either folded or became branches/affiliates of the majors without the government interference found in the East.  It wasn't until Harriman tried to merge the UP and SP (and succeeded for a while) that government started interfering with the mergers and acquisitions of the western railroads.

Then, when trucks took over short-haul transportation, distances favored the western railroads, as Paul pointed out.  At the same time, development, consolidation, and growth of much of the country's intermodal traffic through just 3-4 West Coast ports provided new traffic sources.  And the majority of the country's electricity now comes from the Wyoming coal fields - yet another new traffic source.

my thoughts, yours may vary

Fred W

[twhite]

Although I've gotten over disliking UP enthusiastically, I STILL dont understand why there are all of these parked trains on the main out here in Northern California awaiting dispatching orders from OMAHA? 

Roseville, here in Northern California,  is still one of the biggest and most important classification yards west of the Mississippi, it routes ALL of UP's north-south California traffic, and a great deal of the East-West traffic, which totals over 60 trains per day, and yet it's controlled from a city in Nebraska, about 2,000 miles away.  Now, if Omaha is UP's "All-Seeing-Eye", then from all the parked trains on the mainlines out here, all I can say is that the "All-Seeing-Eye" in Omaha is in DIRE need of an Optician. 

 

Tom

[Renegade1c]

I dislike the Utterly Pathetic...um I mean the Union Pacific. The have destroyed what was once the Rio Grande: Scenic Line of the world. They shut down Tennessee Pass which is one of the most scenic routes rail routes in US and has some of the coolest bridges in existance (hanging bridge, which you can actually that the Santa Fe for because they built it.) The Royal Gorge is amazing. All their yellow stuff has invaded the North Yard. Its not the same with the Orange and black gone.

SP is another one too. Buying them was the worst mistake the Rio Grande ever made. (Yes the Rio Grande bought the SP, not the other way round)