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)
Colorado Front Range Railroad: http://www.coloradofrontrangerr.com/
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
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
Paul3 wrote: shawnee wrote: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************
shawnee wrote: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
Favorite building I hate- Miller Park (Milwaukee Brewers Stadium)
It lies on the ruins of the old Milwaukee shops and engine facility.
wm3798 wrote: 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
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.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
MisterBeasley wrote: SpaceMouse wrote: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.
SpaceMouse wrote: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 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
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
R. T. POTEET wrote: WCfan wrote: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.
WCfan wrote: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.
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
My Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/JR7582 My Flickr Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wcfan/
R.T. you should get a blog. Seriously. I think it's your medium. And that's a complement.
Paul, thanks for the info - and a little astonished! I would've guessed that some compendium had already been assembled.
http://mprailway.blogspot.com
"The first transition era - wood to steel!"
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
Paul, a very informed discussion.
I intended the term "running thin" to imply volume of coal produced (economically, in relation to demand) rather than geologic reserves...there is plenty of that, otherwise Centralia wouldn't be burning for another 100 years. But you are certainly right about the collapse of home coal heating market, which was anthracite's sweet spot.
However, I don't think eastern RR management gets a total pass in the pre-Staggers era. What was the reason they couldn't muster public support for their plight in the highway age? In many cases, years and years of bad customer relations, poor service, bad community relations, insular, aloof thinking, with marginal attempts to pool resources or innovate..kind of a lack of vision and leadership too, eh? Weren't they viewed at the time as a bunch of robber-baron rail execs? Why was that? You don't think they were relatively slow to react to the changes wrought by the trucking industry...to make changes to operating philosophy and customer/public engagement? Why did the truckers have such an effective lobby, and the railroads did not?
I don't have the answers, you have more knowledge of much of the history, but these are just questions.
By the way, my readings have led me to the conclusion that the NH was one of the better managed eastern roads.
MidlandPacific,In short, no. The info is out there, but it has not be collected into one complete work. The historical RR atlas for the Northeast has some nice maps, and of course you can get RoW drawings from several online sources (these show grades, curves, sidings, interlockings, speed restrictions, bridges, etc.). There are, of couse, several nice books on the NH that cover either the general history or specific eras or routes, but nothing all inclusive. Sorry.
shawnee,The coal fields didn't "run thin". There's plenty of coal down there today. It just isn't as economical to mine it at the moment as other means of using energy. You also had the almost total collapse of the home heating market for coal. Almost every town in the Northeast had a coal tipple...and these are long gone today. The oil, I won't argue with. I don't think that there's all that much left. PA oil was pretty shallow and easy to get to, and it's pretty much been tapped, IIRC.
Eastern RR's didn't get "soft and reluctant to adapt". They couldn't adapt because various gov't agencies, labor unions, and economic realities wouldn't let them. They couldn't stop service, they couldn't abandon trackage, they couldn't raise rates, they couldn't drop employment, and they couldn't make factories stay put. All they could do was merge. Unfortunately, the PC was the one merger they shouldn't have made.
The NH's last president before the bankrupty, George Alpert, made several speeches before Congress, took out newspaper ads, appeared on TV and pleaded for deregulation. But no one would listen. Heck, even Patrick McGinnis (an optimist if there ever was one) talked about the need for gov't intervention or else. But for 25 years, no one did much about it. It was only when Congress was looking at the total shut down of just about all Eastern RR'ing that they did something by passing the Staggers Act that deregulated RR'ing...in 1980.
CR was only profitable after Staggers...and even that took until the mid-1980's.
About the only northeastern Class I that's till around unmerged is the Boston & Maine/Maine Central. Sure, it's Pan Am now (ex-Guilford), but it's still essentially the same RR from WWII. It's a lot thinner, they had a violent union strike in the 1980's, and they were bought by a wealthy banking family that answers to no one (and probably bought the RR with loose change found in the couch cushions), but they are still there. BTW, they are no longer a Class I (they've changed the rules). B&M/MEC is only around today because they were both unattractive to merge with at certain points in the past, but they still originated enough loads (paper goods, mostly) that they could survive.
R. T. POTEET,FYI, the reason why it's Penn Central instead of Central Penn had nothing to do with who bought whom. The actual PC merger was the New York Central bought the PRR. PC just sounded better than CP, I guess.
snagletooth wrote: If I shy away from a railroad, it isn;t beacause the railroad, as nmuch as the modelers. I WILL never model Pennsy, UP, ATSF, or DRGW narrow gauge! I love DRGW in the seventies/ eighties. But back when I started, anyone I met who modeled them had serious attitude against anyone NOT doing skiiny rails or transition. It kinda drove me away. I'm coming back, thought! Long live the Tunnel Motors!!!!. I've never shied because of the REAl railroad, it's always been the modelers taking things WAY to serious. I strive for realism as much as I can, but the above just won't give ANYONE credit for an ettempt. period. NEVER.
Wow, that's a sad post. Really is. So, no matter how much you like a prototype, you wouldn't model it if it has followers you perceive as condescending?
Sounds to me like you care a bit too much about what other people think. I'm not singling out this post because you name PRR as one of those groups with fans who are, in your words, WAY too serious. I would agree that Pennsy fans are definetly rabid about their (our) prototype. But who cares? Really, why would you care?
Granted we all do seek some level of acceptance from our peers (the very public nature of these forums suggests so). But I find the most condescending modelers are often the ones with only a handful of superdetailed models with no layout to run them on. Why would I care about what those guys say? Why should you?
Overall there is a sense of hyper-sensitivity displayed throughout these forums lately. From people angry that, upon showing up at a club open house, that they are not greeted as royalty, to the idea that one would avoid a prototype or scale (see other threads for that one, too) because of some broad, sweeping, stereotypical generalization about those modelers, it all starts to sound a little like "waaaaaaaaaah!!!!" to me.
My two cents.
Modeling the Rio Grande Southern First District circa 1938-1946 in HOn3.
Lee, how much of Western Maryland track line did Chessie, and ultimately CSX, ultimately retain? This has always interested me, to what extent WM rail still sees service today. I've always thought that the WM was a classy line, with really interesting country they went through, Maryland, WV. Was the WM mainline essentially duplicative of the B&O, along the Potomac?
I have not studied the history of the different railroads to form an opinion one way or the other. However after reading these post several things occured to me. 1) All rail roads are a buisness that there share holders expect to turn a proffit. Good or bad this ultimely drives decisions 2) regular everyday people work the system. Do you hate them also or just "the man" ever who that is ? 3) I understand not liking a particular system because of poor stewardship of it system ,people,equipment etc....4)What ultimately classifies a rail road as bad. there seems to be many opinions on this. Some of the items I have gleened so far from the thread is the following. a)poor paint scheme b) poor finacial decisions c) poor stewardship of tracks,equipment people... d) bought their favorite rail system e) poor upper management f) corporate raid on system and sale off of rail system for profit f)abondoned favorite loco's g) did away with steam h) never had steam ... i) west vs east j) US vs non US .What other items could be added to this list to qaulify a rail road for being strongly disliked ?
Yes, I understand this. Cars and trucks and regulation eventually strangled the eastern roads. And western distances upheld the viability of rail freight.
Plus, the coal fields in PA starting running thin, the steel industry buckled under subsidized foreign competition (don'tcha love "free trade"), and these didn't support the RR volume as much anymore. Of these - Reading, D&H, Erie Lackawampum, Pennsy (any others?) - weren't they all financially footed on coal/steel railroading? I'm not sure about the Pennsy, but that's a good guess. Those anthracite and oil fields in PA were gold early in the century.
But didn't a lot of management in eastern railroads, with basic uniformity, get soft and reluctant to adapt? Penn Central was the epitomy and last gasp of this, but were the others far behind in lack of managerial vision, energy and leadership? When you take a look at CSX today, and the amount of freight they process via New York harbor...it's the mainstay of their non-coal business...couldn't effective, aggresive, pro-active management at any of the fallen flags made a huge difference, so one of 'em would still be around today? Or was the coming of Penn Central so hopeless and poorly led that no one else stood a chance.
Conrail was profitable unto itself when it was unceremoniously eviscerated.
Sorry..hit a button twice. See next post...
Paul, since you're here - I have an OT NYNH&H question for you - is there are good book (or books) that cover the main line of the New Haven between Boston and Hell Gate Bridge in the sort of detail that you see in the "Triumph" series about the pennsy (i.e., good maps, plans of key yards and facilities, descriptions of improvements over the years)?
Dave Vollmer wrote: shawnee wrote: I have indeed heard on precision advice that Pennsy fans are foamers. Dave V. beware!Personally, I like the Pennsy. Now, I'm honestly looking for guidance here...what did the New York Central have to recommend itself? I am a proud foamer!!! In fact, we have a special acronym for ourselves:SPF - Serious Pennsy Fan...often mistaken by non-PRR fans to stand for:Slobbering Pennsy FanAs for my least favorite railroad, I know it should be New York Central... but I don't mind it. I don't know. I will say non-US railroads hold less interest for me.I should hate Conrail for ripping up so much former PRR... or should I hate Penn Central for running the PRR into the ground? After all, PC also abandoned a lot of marginal PRR track that Hurricane Agnes destroyed in 1972. In the end, though, PRR was itself largely responsible for its own demise because of a combination of poor priorities and failure to adjust in a timely manner to a changing world. So, should I hate the railroad I love? Oooh, how deep is that?
shawnee wrote: I have indeed heard on precision advice that Pennsy fans are foamers. Dave V. beware!Personally, I like the Pennsy. Now, I'm honestly looking for guidance here...what did the New York Central have to recommend itself?
I have indeed heard on precision advice that Pennsy fans are foamers. Dave V. beware!
Personally, I like the Pennsy.
Now, I'm honestly looking for guidance here...what did the New York Central have to recommend itself?
I am a proud foamer!!! In fact, we have a special acronym for ourselves:
SPF - Serious Pennsy Fan
...often mistaken by non-PRR fans to stand for:
Slobbering Pennsy Fan
As for my least favorite railroad, I know it should be New York Central... but I don't mind it. I don't know. I will say non-US railroads hold less interest for me.
I should hate Conrail for ripping up so much former PRR... or should I hate Penn Central for running the PRR into the ground? After all, PC also abandoned a lot of marginal PRR track that Hurricane Agnes destroyed in 1972. In the end, though, PRR was itself largely responsible for its own demise because of a combination of poor priorities and failure to adjust in a timely manner to a changing world. So, should I hate the railroad I love? Oooh, how deep is that?
That's pretty heavy stuff there Dave, quite a connundrum.
4884bigboy wrote:I like it, but if I had to choose my least favorite, it would be the Pennsylvania Railroad. It's just so popular that sometimes I can't stand it.
I feel the same way about the UP, but that makes me a hipocrit because I do like to UP Stuff.
stokesda wrote: shawnee wrote: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?I think some of it has to do with the nature of railroading in the west vs. in the east. I was just doing some light reading on PRR, NYC, PC, etc. the other day. (Light reading = Wikipedia, just good enough to get the basic historical facts, which was what I was looking for)."In response to shawnee , stokesda expressed what I was thinking abou East vs West. Also I might add that when the RR became a reliable means of transportation the major cities in th East were already eastablished. The RR had fo fit into an existing situation meanwhile out West Jessie James and the Daltons were robbing stage coaches. (lol). Seriously though the West was developed because of and with the RR in mind.instead of the RR adapting to what already existed.. Just my thoughts.Bob
I think some of it has to do with the nature of railroading in the west vs. in the east. I was just doing some light reading on PRR, NYC, PC, etc. the other day. (Light reading = Wikipedia, just good enough to get the basic historical facts, which was what I was looking for)."
In response to shawnee , stokesda expressed what I was thinking abou East vs West. Also I might add that when the RR became a reliable means of transportation the major cities in th East were already eastablished. The RR had fo fit into an existing situation meanwhile out West Jessie James and the Daltons were robbing stage coaches. (lol). Seriously though the West was developed because of and with the RR in mind.instead of the RR adapting to what already existed..
Just my thoughts.
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
I think some of it has to do with the nature of railroading in the west vs. in the east. I was just doing some light reading on PRR, NYC, PC, etc. the other day. (Light reading = Wikipedia, just good enough to get the basic historical facts, which was what I was looking for).
I forget where (I think in the PRR article), but there was a comment about mid-late 20th century railroading, and the economy in general, wasn't doing too well. It was especially bad for eastern RR's, whose business was built on short hauls of mixed freight and inter-city passenger service. In the east, the population density is much greater, and the distances between major cities is much smaller. After the interstate highway system was built, many of the eastern RR's were hit hard by stiff competition from the trucking industry and automobiles, and the demand for short freight hauling and passenger service by rail dropped off. Compared with the west, which is much more wide open and spread out, long-haul freight continued to be profitable, and inter-city passenger service more relevant. As with every other business in the US at the time, western RR's were also struggling, but were doing better in general than their eastern counterparts. In the face of these changing times, many RR's, especially in the east, saw the only way to stay alive was through merging with other RR's - hence PC, etc.
Dan Stokes
My other car is a tunnel motor