I agree with others....no one could have saved Penn Central. When the New Haven was thrown in as a condition...it sealed the doom, which was pretty well cast anyway.
Declining freight base, high passenger costs, commuter service, 5 man crews, low volume branch lines, deferred maintennace, high property taxes, mismanagement, etc.
It was time to reboot.
ed
What if Jay Gould had run the ICC when its powers were at their zenith?
Oh dear, I have to disagree and correct daveklepper, who I admire and respect. It's about the "Titanic" rivet comment. No-one substituted iron for steel rivets, they were ALL iron rivets, just as the hull plates were iron. A VERY high grade of rolled iron, but iron just the same.
You see, "Titanic" was built of the best matierials available at the time. Would those matierials be used today? Certainly not, but Harland and Wolf, the shipbuilders, were a class act and used the best stuff they could get.
In the end, it wasn't poor matierials, poor workmanship, or poor engineering that caused the sinking. It was poor seamanship that killed "Titanic". Take it from someone who's been a "Titanic" freak since he was 10 years old.
Sorry to set this topic "adrift".
Oh, as for Al Perlman: He SAID the merger of the Pennsy and the NYC was a bad idea, but no-one listened. No-one could have saved Penn Central.
I doubt Pearlman heck JP Mrogan Hill or any of the BEST Railroad CEO's Present or Past could have saved the PC I highly doubt the Mighty Hunter Harrison could have saved that Monster why the Regulatory Enviroment itself was not setup to allow it to make the CHANGES NEEDED TO SAVE IT. When it took Years to abandon a line that had no frieght they were basically a Duplicate system that needed to pare almost half their Systems down and then they had Massive Passenger losses that they did not loose for 3 years after the merger.
Put it to you in Terms anyone could understand They were a couple making 50K a year spending 90K a year and living on Credit Cards and then when the Credit cards came due they would get another one with a bigger Credit limit. Basically think the Goverment except the Goverment has NO LIMIT.
The carriers & the AAR had been pleading their case for years for legislative fixes - all fell on deaf ears until the PC sank, Perlman may have prevented the sinking for several months - but PC was sinking and there were no actions outside of legislation that would have prevented it and until it sank legislators didn't think there were any problems.
daveklepper Pearlman could have been the steel rivits for Penn Central. He would have seen things as they were and warned people that legislative action was neccessary to save freight railroading from becoming a money-loosing ward of government as passenger service (worldwide) has become.
Pearlman could have been the steel rivits for Penn Central. He would have seen things as they were and warned people that legislative action was neccessary to save freight railroading from becoming a money-loosing ward of government as passenger service (worldwide) has become.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
About the Titanic: Investigators have uncovered the fact that the shipyard ran out of steel rivits and substituted obsolete iron rivits where they thought the hull would be least stressed. If steel rivits had been used throughout, the ship would not have broken apart nor sunk.
Murphy Siding What was the alure, that brought Perlman east to start with?
What was the alure, that brought Perlman east to start with?
And also the patience to deal with people who were at the limits of their abilities.(ie he did not throw chairs at people without very very good cause. If you did your best for the man he would respect that, if you tried to bs Mr Perlman he would take you apart).
He knew the business.
Thx IGN
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
The Titanic is a good analogy. Bringing back PC from the brink would have been tantamount to bringing the Titanic safely to shore after striking the iceburg. As J Paul Getty famously stated...many things are IMPOSSIBLE.
The conditions that took, PRR, NYC & PC under were far beyond the ability of any carrier management to overcome. The changes necessary to bring profitability to those lines and what became ConRail required both legislative and regulatory changes that no management could pull off until the wreckage of the companies became fully evident to those who could make such changes - legislators & regulators. As the Titanic was considered unsinkable in it's day, the railroads, when viewed by legislators & regulators, in the 50's, 60's & early 70's were also considered unsinkable - until they sank!
I wonder if Perlman would have taken the job, had he fully understood the true situation he was getting into. Had he left at the start of PC, the railroading world may have been different.
They also had money loosing passenger and commuter operations all over the place, plus the dead weight of the New Haven and its passenger trains. My personal opinion is that no mortal could have saved PC.
Mac McCulloch
Quite possibly, but they had alot going against them right from the get go...incompatible computer systems, a regulatory environment that didn't allow pricing in accordance with the market, outdated labor practices and featherbedding, strong competition from trucking on general freight, ..etc. In retrospect they probably never had a chance... They had talented people..but they ran out of time and money... bascally they had a couple of years to make changes that would normally require 15 or 20 years.
I asked this question in another thread and someone suggested I start a thread on this. So I ask:
What if Al Perlman had run Penn Central with or without the support of Blevens (the CFO) and other money people?
Could his management team have made it work? Mr Perlman had been and had developed a lot of 1st rate talent. And when he left the Rio Grande he left a railroad that certainly was hustling for a living.
When he was at the New York Central Mr Perlman had immediate impacts.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.