DeggestyStation agents were not only railroad agents but also Railway Express agents. I remember watching the agent in my home town pepare a remission to the REA; after placing it into an envelope, he took sealing wax, melted it over two or three spots on the back, and pressing a seal on each blob of wax. I do not remember just what he sent, whether ther was cash or just paperwork.
Agents - in the day was the railroad contact person in a community. Virtually any function that a resident or business in a community wanted to contact the railroad about would go to and through the Agent.
Remember 'in the day' telephone service was not universal and long distance telephone service was not a simple or cheap undertaking. Agents were 'The Railroad' as far as the local community was concerned.
Depending upon the station, the agent was part logistics manager and part travel agent. The agent would relay the car and other needs of his freight customers to the appropriate operating and/or accounting department and follow the issues through to resolution.
On the passenger side the agent was expected to be able to properly rate and ticket the needs of the customers that walked through the door. That could be Aunt Maude going to the next station to visit her sister or the local factory Chief Executive that needed to go to Washington DC to iron out issues between his company and the government in his efforts to support the war effort. Or it could be the factory's #2 official that needed to go to the other coast to check out production of the company's other factory and needing to go to Chicago on coach to connect to a Western Carrier's streamliner to the other coast in Pullman; with a return scheduled for two weeks after arrival on the other coast but returning via Pullman on another route than the outbound trip.
Not all stations were served by Railway Express Agency and for most Agent's REA was was a very small slice of their day, for which they would get a few dollars commission on the REA shipments they handled. However, at some locations, the REA business far outstripped the railroad business. At one agency I trained at, the Agent had given up his regular Train Dispatcher's job to bid in the Agent's job after his father retired. The particular agency handled the REA business for the Naval Ammunitation Depot at Crane, IN (during the build up for Viet Nam) - and they did a lot of REA business, both inbound and outbound - the REA commissions amounted to a little over three times the jobs railroad rate of pay.
As communications improved across the country - the Agent became just another employee to be told his job function at his location was no longer needed and he was also no longer needed.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Station agents were not only railroad agents but also Railway Express agents. I remember watching the agent in my home town pepare a remission to the REA; after placing it into an envelope, he took sealing wax, melted it over two or three spots on the back, and pressing a seal on each blob of wax. I do not remember just what he sent, whether ther was cash or just paperwork.
Johnny
rr1969:What services did an agent perform?
I have a wonderful old book - The Station Agent's Blue Book which is a textbook for agents. Lots of back office type stuff such as bills of lading, tariffs, accepting freight, OSD, freight claims, etc.
The book ($10) was distributed by "The Order of Railroad Telegraphers Education Bureau".
What services did you perform in your era.
BTW...I had a similar position in the LTL trucking industry from 1980 - 1990 before leaving the industry. I handled rates, claims, etc.
Ed
fuzzybroken greyhounds wrote: Then we also had to pay the Katy a similar amout as a "Deprived Revenue" claim because we misrouted the load. Hollem thought we were trying to do something bad to the Katy. He got downright upset with me. But, he did understand when I explained that operating people are basically idiots that can't be relied on to actually read instructions. Hey, revenue is revenue, regardless of where it comes from... Somebody else did the work, Katy got paid for it!
greyhounds wrote: Then we also had to pay the Katy a similar amout as a "Deprived Revenue" claim because we misrouted the load. Hollem thought we were trying to do something bad to the Katy. He got downright upset with me. But, he did understand when I explained that operating people are basically idiots that can't be relied on to actually read instructions.
Then we also had to pay the Katy a similar amout as a "Deprived Revenue" claim because we misrouted the load. Hollem thought we were trying to do something bad to the Katy. He got downright upset with me. But, he did understand when I explained that operating people are basically idiots that can't be relied on to actually read instructions.
Hey, revenue is revenue, regardless of where it comes from... Somebody else did the work, Katy got paid for it!
Fuzzybroken.. Katy got paid, but ICG incurred additonal cost it didn't need to if instructions were read correctly...If you were running said service would you have said your same statement?
Your about right,The first shift was the Agent.second shift was second shift operator,third was third shift operator which was employed by the mop then you had a swing operator that worked the days off,He worked 1 for the Agent because the agent was a 6 day position then 2 days for the 2nd shift and 2 for the 3rd shift,I went to work for the Katy in April 1969 and came to Durant in 1971 or 2 I worked at Durant almost up to the Merger.I worked the 2nd and swing job but also was the Agent for 10 plus years,Right before the merger i went to Ray yards as a clerk then shortly after the merger people were being moved to Omaha and St Louis,I bided on the agents job in Chickasha and stayed there for about 7 years it was the last agent job to go that i know of,I was furloughed for about 6 months with pay then recalled with choice of Omaha or North Platte NE,I took North platte and on arrival at North Platte i started putting in for Management Positions and one month later was awarded a Syo position at Mockingbird (Dallas) for a year then the MYO position at Chico texas for about 10 years then the MYO at Ney Yard then over to Supt Office until retirment in 2009 with 40 years and 3 months,Before coming to Durant I worked all up and down the Cherokee Sub Muskogee North and the Choctaw Muskogee south on the Operators Extra Board
A 77 operating ratio on $166 million in revenue would yield an operating income of about $38 million.
Then subtract off interest expense - back in 1978 interest rates on debt were in the double digits - and depreciation expense and local property taxes to get income before taxes.
Federal Corporate Income Tax Rates in 1978 were 48% on net income over $50,000.
https://taxfoundation.org/federal-corporate-income-tax-rates-income-years-1909-2012/
Then subtract off State Corporate Income Taxes.
High interest rates and high income tax rates - that is how you end up with only 1.6% of revenue falling through to the bottom line on what would have been a decent operating ratio at the time.
Jeff:You are spot on. But....looking at net income vs revenue ($2.8 / $166) yielded only 1.6% it was still ugly.
I love these old Moodys as you can dig thru the data. Ihave 1955, 1970, 1971, 1980, 1990 and 1998.
MP173 I pulled my 1980 Moody's Transportation Manual and did a quick review of MKT in 1978 and 1979. During 1978 MTK generated $136million in revenue, with an OR of 77.3% and net income of $1.9m. In 1979 revenue spiked to $166m, the OR fell to 75.9 with $2.8m in net income. The difference? My guess in PRB coal began to move. In 1978 coal tonnage was 1,048,000 tons with 898,150 originating on the MKT and 150,000 tons coming from another carrier. A year later MKT hauled 2,482,000 tons of coal with 1,047,000 tons originating and 1,435,000 coming from interlines. The PRB coal party was beginning and suddenly MTK was a valuable property. Ed
I pulled my 1980 Moody's Transportation Manual and did a quick review of MKT in 1978 and 1979.
During 1978 MTK generated $136million in revenue, with an OR of 77.3% and net income of $1.9m.
In 1979 revenue spiked to $166m, the OR fell to 75.9 with $2.8m in net income.
The difference? My guess in PRB coal began to move.
In 1978 coal tonnage was 1,048,000 tons with 898,150 originating on the MKT and 150,000 tons coming from another carrier.
A year later MKT hauled 2,482,000 tons of coal with 1,047,000 tons originating and 1,435,000 coming from interlines.
The PRB coal party was beginning and suddenly MTK was a valuable property.
A company with a OR of 77.3% was considered doing good back then. Now it would be viewed as being at death's door.
Jeff
ATSFGuy Was the Katy struggling a bit shorty before UP absorbed them?
Was the Katy struggling a bit shorty before UP absorbed them?
That is an understatement of the first degree. MKT seemed to be on the edge of bankruptcy almost since the end of WW2 and wasn't doing much better before Pearl Harbor. The board of directors brought in two outside executives (Deramus and Barriger) to try to turn the road around and even the legendary John W. Barriger wasn't completely successful.
Seems like the Katy-UP merger got reactions from both sides. Some wanted it, others didn’t. I know Katy/Mopac were a lot stronger than RI and didn’t have any labor problems that plauged RI.
SFbrkmn When was the date of the first UP-Katy merger called off? I want to say this was around New yrs of '86. What conditions lead to the merger being abolished the first time around?
When was the date of the first UP-Katy merger called off? I want to say this was around New yrs of '86. What conditions lead to the merger being abolished the first time around?
For some reason I'm thinking there were some outstanding bonds of some kind still floating around. I think there was an item in Trains at the time titled something like "Katy's funny pieces of paper" or similiar. Or maybe I'm thinking of something else.
I recall that a large coal-fired power plant that used PRB coal was developed on the Katy, and UP also wanted a direct route to Dallas from Kansas City.
What motivated UP to consumate the merger, what were its main benefits?
Bob-Fryml wrote: Bob-Fryml wrote, in part: "During 1988 MoPac acquired the Missouri-Kansas-Texas and Oklahoma-Kansas-Texas for something like $110-million. But, here's the clincher: Ross Perot (?) wanted the land - a full square block, mind you - on which the Katy headquarters building stood along with its adjacent parking lot. He paid MoPac something like $100-million for that little piece of prime downtown Dallas real estate; so, really, the MoPac gained control of the Katy for not much more "than the price of a song."A diverging opinion: Given that the Katy was a junkheap, that it owed far more than was owed it, maybe these factors implied what it was truly worth as a going railway concern. Certainly nobody (from the financial community, anyway) would claim Katyto be worth much more than that.People tend to look at traffic over the line today and claim, "Looky there at all the traffic running over the line!" They conveniently forget, or more likely never realized, that without the traffic "feed" from ex-MoP and UP origins, Katy by itself could command little enough traffic, so little, in fact, that it barely got by without entering Chapter 11. Katy's primary assets lay in the points it connected (access to some Dallas shippers, plus a couple of come lately on-line power plants), not in traffic it originated.I recall as a kid going to family reunions in Grandview, Texas, 40-odd mioes south of Ft. Worth, and seeing the two streaks of (mostly) rust, and virtually NEVER seeing a passing train. One could have likened it to an empty suit -- a little something to see on the outside, nothing within.
Bob-Fryml wrote, in part: "During 1988 MoPac acquired the Missouri-Kansas-Texas and Oklahoma-Kansas-Texas for something like $110-million.
But, here's the clincher: Ross Perot (?) wanted the land - a full square block, mind you - on which the Katy headquarters building stood along with its adjacent parking lot. He paid MoPac something like $100-million for that little piece of prime downtown Dallas real estate; so, really, the MoPac gained control of the Katy for not much more "than the price of a song."
A diverging opinion: Given that the Katy was a junkheap, that it owed far more than was owed it, maybe these factors implied what it was truly worth as a going railway concern. Certainly nobody (from the financial community, anyway) would claim Katyto be worth much more than that.
People tend to look at traffic over the line today and claim, "Looky there at all the traffic running over the line!" They conveniently forget, or more likely never realized, that without the traffic "feed" from ex-MoP and UP origins, Katy by itself could command little enough traffic, so little, in fact, that it barely got by without entering Chapter 11. Katy's primary assets lay in the points it connected (access to some Dallas shippers, plus a couple of come lately on-line power plants), not in traffic it originated.
I recall as a kid going to family reunions in Grandview, Texas, 40-odd mioes south of Ft. Worth, and seeing the two streaks of (mostly) rust, and virtually NEVER seeing a passing train. One could have likened it to an empty suit -- a little something to see on the outside, nothing within.
fuzzybroken wrote: doghouse wrote: fuzzybroken wrote: Just want to throw in a technicality here... MKT was merged into MP; not that it particularly makes any difference, since MP had been a ward of UP since '82. (Or was it the other way around...?) The corporate remains of MP actually outlasted CNW... SP too, though I don't want to get too deep in, uh, technicalities... No, no, no, go ahead, Go deep. Love to hear about the Mopac.Well, it's not so much a MoPac story as a UP/SP/DRGW story, but I had this posted to my website for a few years...Union Pacific = Rio Grande?
doghouse wrote: fuzzybroken wrote: Just want to throw in a technicality here... MKT was merged into MP; not that it particularly makes any difference, since MP had been a ward of UP since '82. (Or was it the other way around...?) The corporate remains of MP actually outlasted CNW... SP too, though I don't want to get too deep in, uh, technicalities... No, no, no, go ahead, Go deep. Love to hear about the Mopac.
fuzzybroken wrote: Just want to throw in a technicality here... MKT was merged into MP; not that it particularly makes any difference, since MP had been a ward of UP since '82. (Or was it the other way around...?) The corporate remains of MP actually outlasted CNW... SP too, though I don't want to get too deep in, uh, technicalities...
Just want to throw in a technicality here... MKT was merged into MP; not that it particularly makes any difference, since MP had been a ward of UP since '82. (Or was it the other way around...?) The corporate remains of MP actually outlasted CNW... SP too, though I don't want to get too deep in, uh, technicalities...
No, no, no, go ahead, Go deep. Love to hear about the Mopac.
website for a few years...Union Pacific = Rio Grande?
Nothing wrong with trying to keep as much of your profits as you can. Incorporating a business in Delaware is just where the 'paper' is kept. Corporate offices, or where your HQ is, often speaks volumes about you're company.
doghouse wrote: fuzzybroken wrote:Just want to throw in a technicality here... MKT was merged into MP; not that it particularly makes any difference, since MP had been a ward of UP since '82. (Or was it the other way around...?) The corporate remains of MP actually outlasted CNW... SP too, though I don't want to get too deep in, uh, technicalities... No, no, no, go ahead, Go deep. Love to hear about the Mopac.
fuzzybroken wrote:Just want to throw in a technicality here... MKT was merged into MP; not that it particularly makes any difference, since MP had been a ward of UP since '82. (Or was it the other way around...?) The corporate remains of MP actually outlasted CNW... SP too, though I don't want to get too deep in, uh, technicalities...
greyhounds wrote:Then we also had to pay the Katy a similar amout as a "Deprived Revenue" claim because we misrouted the load. Hollem thought we were trying to do something bad to the Katy. He got downright upset with me. But, he did understand when I explained that operating people are basically idiots that can't be relied on to actually read instructions.
txhiballer:
About that high-handed General Order to keep MKT units off the lead of any trains:
It sounds like a warm-up for the UP mergers in the 1990s, and we know how those went, regardless of whose locos were in front.
True Katy story from my ICG days.
The rail service route from Chicago to Dallas was ICG - St. Louis - SLSF. If you turned over a TOFC trailer to the ICG in Chicago before 10:00 PM the Frisco would make it available in Dallas by 7:00 AM second morning. (As an example, if you gave us a trailer by 10:00 PM on Wednesday it was available for delivery in Dallas by 7:00 Friday.) This was fully truck competitive and beat anything the Santa Fe or MoPac did. We handled a lot of Chicago-Dallas freight. Katy couldn't compete with the Frisco service out of St. Louis. But they did have a sales office in Chicago.
A guy in the Katy's Chicago sales office was named Hollem. He'd always answer the phone: "Katy Hollem." in a loud Texas voice. He put together a Plan II TOFC rate from Chicago to Dallas that the ICG bought in to. (Plan II meant that the ICG had to do the truck pick up in Chicago and the Katy had to deliver by truck in Dallas.) He basically "bought" the frieght by offering a lower price for slower service.
This was something like on trailer per week. No big deal. But our operating (God Bless 'Em) guys always got it wrong. They consistantly delivered the trailer to the Frisco in St. Louis instead of the Katy. The Frisco then took it to Dallas and delivered it, depriving the Katy of the business that Hollem had sold. He did not like this.
So every week the ICG had to collect the revenue from the shipper, then pay the Frisco for handeling and delivering the load. Then we also had to pay the Katy a similar amout as a "Deprived Revenue" claim because we misrouted the load. Hollem thought we were trying to do something bad to the Katy. He got downright upset with me. But, he did understand when I explained that operating people are basically idiots that can't be relied on to actually read instructions.
After several screaming phone calls the mess got straightened out. Then we went on to the loads for the K Mart distribution center in Corsicana routed ICG - St. Louis - SSW. The operating guys took a couple months to figure that one out too.
Bob-Fryml wrote: Back in 1988/1989 their right-of-way through Muskogee, Oklahoma USA was even beginning to look pretty good!
Back in 1988/1989 their right-of-way through Muskogee, Oklahoma USA was even beginning to look pretty good!
I know they run the Ach Ee Double EL out of that line now!
dehusman wrote: Ishmael wrote: UP wants to tear down the bridge for the steel. This would cut the trail in half. The last I heard the bridge was still there, but there are lawsuits pending.The UP owns the bridges on the trail and wants to use the bridge to double track a single track portion of the UP's Sedalia Sub on the other side of the river. They would relocate it on the Sedalia Sub and it would once again carry trains.Dave H.
Ishmael wrote: UP wants to tear down the bridge for the steel. This would cut the trail in half. The last I heard the bridge was still there, but there are lawsuits pending.
The UP owns the bridges on the trail and wants to use the bridge to double track a single track portion of the UP's Sedalia Sub on the other side of the river. They would relocate it on the Sedalia Sub and it would once again carry trains.
Dave H.
Thanks for the information, Dave. Either way, the trail has problems.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Initially, during December 1982, the Union Pacific Railroad Company absorbed the Western Pacific Railroad Company, and Pacific Rail Systems, Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Union Pacific Corporation) gained ownership of two wholly separate railroads: U.P. and MoPac. During 1988 MoPac acquired the Missouri-Kansas-Texas and Oklahoma-Kansas-Texas for something like $110-million.
Before the federal clean air legislation of the late 1970s, the ol' Katy seemed to be pretty much a hand-to-mouth operation. It wasn't until they abandoned their broken-down Parsons-St. Louis segment and they started gaining a few unit train coal contracts out of the Powder River Basin that their fortunes really began to turn around. Back in 1988/1989 their right-of-way through Muskogee, Oklahoma USA was even beginning to look pretty good!
Katy, or at least its remnant, is still having troubles. The hiking trail in MO from Sedalia to St. Charles has been completed. It is very popular and in good shape. Trouble is, it crosses the Missouri River in Boone County on an old steel drawbridge, a quite impressive structure.
UP wants to tear down the bridge for the steel. This would cut the trail in half. The last I heard the bridge was still there, but there are lawsuits pending.
Poor Katy. I miss her also, especially the John Deere color scheme.
SFbrkmn wrote: The building Katy used as its yd office @ Herington was one or two rooms rented in the Sleep In Motel on the south side of town next to the trks.
The Katy Dispatch office in Denison, TX was a former "Piggly Wiggly" grocery store and the "records department" was a 50 ft boxcar.
I remember watching the Katy pile driver south of Tower 55 in Ft Worth driving H piles and then slipping boxcar doors between the piles to form a retaining wall.
Toward the end the Katy was a very colorful road. Besides the yellow and green katy units, there were a few old red units and a bunch of "new" engines, recycled engines from other roads. A consist might pull in with a blue ex-CR, a black ex-PC, a white and orange ex-ICG and even a rare yellow ex-Kennecott Copper engine (they were easy to spot because the fuel tanks were higher.
The Oklahoma town story brings to mind one of the reasons that some railroads struggled in the 20th century. This was the many bloodsucking local and state governments who tried to pay their way on huge disproportionate property taxes levied against the carriers.
During the Penn Central receivership hearings, one local government official (from a county in Indiana, possibly) complained that not being able to collect property taxes from bankrupt PC was seriously dragging down a local school district. The judge asked the official how many children the railroad sent to classes there.
(Remember that the employees who lived there and did have children paid their own sales and property taxes.)
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