How did the Western railroads survive regulation

[lone geep]

So they weren't as well off as I thought. Though the Rock Island declined because it served too many cities and paralleled other rail lines. I was thinking that the ones I previously mentioned were thriving because they were maintaining passenger and getting new locomotives and such.

[BaltACD]

Lehigh Valley 2089

erikem

Powder River Basin coal.

Oh yeah, forgot about the Powder River Basin. 

Once the Power River Basin got to 'production' BN tonnage handled about doubled.

[henry6]

How do you mean this?  They were regulated just the same and faced the same fates.  UP sucked up as many railroads as it could as did the Burlington people.  But they had longer hauls, got rid of duplicated lines and facilities quickly, laid out their end to end routes for strength and were not dittled by the same Wall Streeters as PC was.  So they were in better shape than the Eastern roads because manufacturing moved to them, the Eisenhower Interstates were not a big a factor in the long haul traffic, and the St. Lawrence Seaway brought them the traffic instead of the New York Central or Pennsy.  But look what did happen to the Rock Island and Milwaukee Road and Soo...they also were similar to the EL' s, LV.s and CNJ's of the east.  

[Lehigh Valley 2089]

greyhounds

But the fact remains, that under the really dumb (and I mean that!) Federal economic regulations the railroads could be nothing other than a declining industry headed for oblivion.  Some railroads just got to oblivion ahead of others. 

They were simply sitting ducks waiting to be sucked into oblivion. 

Yes, will quite a few western railroads weren't doing any better, but they went bankrupt much later than the eastern railroads. 

The regulations  were a plague to the railroad industry. If staggers hadn't been passed, I bet you that the industry would have been no more. 

[greyhounds]

lone geep

I'm curious as to how BN, UP, AT&SF and other western roads survived when the eastern ones were faltering and falling. I know regulation wasn't the only reason why the eastern roads were going bankrupt but I still don't fully get how the other roads thrived.

The answer is:  "They weren't."

In addition to the rairoads you mention there were the Southern Pacific, Western Pacific, and Milwaukee Road who were all either at death's door or getting there.  Come a little further east and you get to near corpses such as the Katy and Rock Island.  The North Western was not in good shape.  It goes on.

BN was formed to shrink the physical plant to fit a declining traffic base.  It was saved by the Powder River coal field.  UP had a simple route structure with simple terminal operations.  With the exception of Los Angeles, it was a bridge carrier between California and the east.  Long hauls and limited terminal expenses mitigated the effect of regulation on the UP (It did loose the perishable busines, a core market, due to regulation.)

Santa Fe had the longest hauls and the advanage of being the only rail carrier under one management to link Chicago and California.  It could sell speed and reliability

These factors mitigated the adverse effects of regulation on these three carriers.  But none of these three was really a growth business with a bright future.  They were just dying more slowly than some of the others.

Regulation was a terminal illness for the US railroads.  But like cancer in humans, it affected different railroads differently.  The Southern did  RELATIVELY well because it served a geographic area experiencing good economic growth, it had more marketing smarts than most other rail lines, and it was willing to fight a Texas chain saw caged death match with the regulators through to the Supreme Court if need be.

But the fact remains that under the really dumb (and I mean that!) Federal economic regulations the railroads could be nothing other than a declining industry headed for oblivion.  Some railroads just got to oblivion ahead of others. 

It pretty much depended on the market environment for the railroad.  One malignant thing that regulation did was prevent the rail corporation from adjusting to changes in the market.  The railroads serviing the geographic areas with the most change, i.e. the Northeast, suffered the most and died the quickest.

 

[Lehigh Valley 2089]

erikem

Powder River Basin coal.

Oh yeah, forgot about the Powder River Basin. 

[erikem]

Lehigh Valley 2089

How did the BN avoid the potential trouble?

Powder River Basin coal.

[Lehigh Valley 2089]

Also, most of the eastern railroads jumped the gun on merging, or just chose a bad time to, with Penn Central being a prime example. Hence why the N&W and Southern held off until 1982 for merging. 

After the Pennsy and Central merge, the federal government burdened the troubled Penn Central with the bankrupt New Haven in 1968, which just didn't do the railroad any good at all. This, among other reasons, caused the Penn Central to go bankrupt in 1971. How did the BN avoid the potential trouble? I don't know really. However, Paul named all of the potential reasons as to why the trouble was avoided. 

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

Some - though by no means all - of the reasons:

1. Much longer hauls, on average. 
2. Not so much of a decline in the traffic base (e.g., anthracite coal, heavy manufacturing such as steel mills, etc.). 
3. Less terminal opertions in big cities.
4. Very few commuter operations and much less passenger-train miles by comparison.

Others can and will add more.  You could also pretty much list all the reasons that the eastern railroads were failing, and use the converse condition to identify why and how the western ones survived. 

- Paul North.   

[lone geep]

I'm curious as to how BN, UP, AT&SF and other western roads survived when the eastern ones were faltering and falling. I know regulation wasn't the only reason why the eastern roads were going bankrupt but I still don't fully get how the other roads thrived.