Backshop Yet, for all this talk of how well the MILW was doing and how it was trouncing everyone, it failed.
Yet, for all this talk of how well the MILW was doing and how it was trouncing everyone, it failed.
TRR Backshop Yet, for all this talk of how well the MILW was doing and how it was trouncing everyone, it failed. Is there a moral to that story, or a message we can all learn from? If so, what is it? Best regards, Michael Sol
Is there a moral to that story, or a message we can all learn from? If so, what is it?
Best regards, Michael Sol
I appreciate all the data you include, as opposed to some who can only snipe because it comes from you or because they need the PCE as a scapegoat for why the Milwaukee Road failed beyond the obvious factors of loss of traffic and mismanagement.
Amazing, isn't it?
An "expensive model collector"
TRR P. 142 of the Booz Allen Hamilton study. Profitability Projections of Eight Proposed Reorganization Alternatives, Milwaukee Road, 1978 Best regards, Michael Sol
P. 142 of the Booz Allen Hamilton study. Profitability Projections of Eight Proposed Reorganization Alternatives, Milwaukee Road, 1978
No active links were in the post.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
TRRIndeed, by 1979, the BN was staggering under a 95% Operating Ratio, almost exactly what I had predicted in ... 1970 if the trends of the 1960s at the consolidted Northern Lines did not change.
During the largest coal haulage traffic expansion in BN's history 1972-1979, due to expansion into the Powder River Basin, initially constructed in 1972 in which BN was able to obtain BOKU financing for an even larger line build during the decade of the 1970's but the C&NW was not. Yet you put BN and C&NW in the same financial class.
BaltACDNo active links were in the post.
Make sure you look at their cost projections for rehab and improvement closely. Even in 1970 dollars they are way too low. I've worked with Booze Hamilton and still work with them distantly today. They are rather sloppy in their proposals and fail to include items or projections of significance. They manage to survive as a consulting company as they are skilled at gift wrapping a turd so to speak. Notice the subtle implication they knew what they were talking about but Milwaukee Road management did not. You'll note the complete absence of the competing internal Milwaukee Road study along similar lines, which I find to be far more realistic and far less dreamy in wishful thinking. The Milwaukee Study even looked at a bare bones rehab of 90lb welded rail, knowing full well it would eventually need over 100 lb rail. It's costs with just the 90lb rail proposal and keeping curves and grades as is was prohibitively expensive and could not easily be recouped using existing traffic levels. So Milwaukee management was trying to see how vs. downplaying the PCE as not being a winner.
Lets say Milwaukee went ahead with this. It had just completed a costly tunnel revamp I believe for Tri-Level Autoracks but did not raise the clearence enough for double-stacks. A lot of the Milwaukees bridges and trestles would need to be reinforced as well for the heavier car loads as well as heavier locomotives. The Powder River traffic was already strengthing BN in it's competitive position as well. I do believe it shared some of it with Milwaukee in the 1970's but only for the short haul to reach power plants on Milwaukee's lines. I don't see in any reality how the Milwaukee could have revamped it's lines west with what Booze was proposing for costs. Check out the costs of the BN expansion into the PRB as a rough comparison.
TRRAnd I appreciate your considerate remarks.
This thread.
charlie hebdoI appreciate all the data you include, as opposed to some who can only snipe because it comes from you or because they need the PCE as a scapegoat for why the Milwaukee Road failed beyond the obvious factors of loss of traffic and mismanagement.
The PCE was built without management input? Who stated that in the past? If it was built at the behest of management then in fact it was a bad management decision right? As far as loss of traffic, no proof has been provided that traffic existed in the first place to support construction costs. In fact the actual construction cost was disputed over figures presented elsewhere on the internet but again.....nothing to backup which figure was correct. Internet figure or figure presented in this thread.
CMStPnP Make sure you look at their cost projections for rehab and improvement closely. Even in 1970 dollars they are way too low. I've worked with Booze Hamilton and still work with them distantly today. They are rather sloppy in their proposals and fail to include items or projections of significance. They manage to survive as a consulting company as they are skilled at gift wrapping a turd so to speak. Notice the subtle implication they knew what they were talking about but Milwaukee Road management did not. You'll note the complete absence of the competing internal Milwaukee Road study along similar lines, which I find to be far more realistic and far less dreamy in wishful thinking. The Milwaukee Study even looked at a bare bones rehab of 90lb welded rail, knowing full well it would eventually need over 100 lb rail. It's costs with just the 90lb rail proposal and keeping curves and grades as is was prohibitively expensive and could not easily be recouped using existing traffic levels. So Milwaukee management was trying to see how vs. downplaying the PCE as not being a winner. Lets say Milwaukee went ahead with this. It had just completed a costly tunnel revamp I believe for Tri-Level Autoracks but did not raise the clearence enough for double-stacks. A lot of the Milwaukees bridges and trestles would need to be reinforced as well for the heavier car loads as well as heavier locomotives. The Powder River traffic was already strengthing BN in it's competitive position as well. I do believe it shared some of it with Milwaukee in the 1970's but only for the short haul to reach power plants on Milwaukee's lines. I don't see in any reality how the Milwaukee could have revamped it's lines west with what Booze was proposing for costs. Check out the costs of the BN expansion into the PRB as a rough comparison.
I concur with you. After reading their study it had quite a few of loopholes. One standing out.. The mention of traffic projections lacked key information such as profit per move, and if this traffic could even cover operating cost let alone rehab cost. Also lacking was key info on crew cost, cost of locomotive maintenance, fuel usage, power utilization and delays from power mods, as stated by Mark Meyer in his anaylsis.
I'll add this too Milwaukee should be lucky that this was still an era of 263K GRCWR cars.
What has happened to this thread with its debate over the Milwaukee Road?
Euclid What has happened to this thread with its debate over the Milwaukee Road?
Based on the past few posts, the discussion is going great.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
It appears someone tried to block and delete responses. I noticed Michael Sols comments from a thread over on Classic Trains have been deleted as well.
SD60MAC9500It appears someone tried to block and delete responses. I noticed Michael Sols comments from a thread over on Classic Trains have been deleted as well.
Scanning back through the thread, Mr. Sols posts do appear to be gone, although posts quoting him are still there.
He's back, and perhaps is gone, again.
Why would all of the many comments of one poster in a thread suddenly be removed without any explanation? Is it possible that Mr. Sol removed them? I know of no way to delete a post I make without leaving the empty box and some mininal placeholder. It is really just an edit to replace the content with something like a period. Will the moderators remove posts made by other forum members if they request it of the moderators?
Whoever did what they did totally screwed up the thread. You can't even access the therad by clicking on the last post from the index.
Kalmbach IT strikes again.
NOTE - I submitted the above once and the System rejected it. When I resubmitted it - I was told that it was a duplicate of a existing post.
tree68 SD60MAC9500 It appears someone tried to block and delete responses. I noticed Michael Sols comments from a thread over on Classic Trains have been deleted as well. Scanning back through the thread, Mr. Sols posts do appear to be gone, although posts quoting him are still there. He's back, and perhaps is gone, again.
SD60MAC9500 It appears someone tried to block and delete responses. I noticed Michael Sols comments from a thread over on Classic Trains have been deleted as well.
Yep I think that's what happened. There was no name calling or other attacks I witnessed so I don't understand the issue..
So once again someone forced out interesting, albeit controversial posts. It's much akin to the Stalinist era, when photos had banished apparatchiks airbrushed outbas though they had never existed. It's a shame differing options presented in a polite manner are not allowed.
So noting color schemes will be all that remain?
SD60MAC9500Yep I think that's what happened. There was no name calling or other attacks I witnessed so I don't understand the issue..
I don't recall any name calling, but I got the impression from time to time that there was an attitude of "if you had half a brain..."
tree68 SD60MAC9500 Yep I think that's what happened. There was no name calling or other attacks I witnessed so I don't understand the issue.. I don't recall any name calling, but I got the impression from time to time that there was an attitude of "if you had half a brain..."
SD60MAC9500 Yep I think that's what happened. There was no name calling or other attacks I witnessed so I don't understand the issue..
It is the internet - brains are not required.
charlie hebdo So once again someone forced out interesting, albeit controversial posts. It's much akin to the Stalinist era, when photos had banished apparatchiks airbrushed outbas though they had never existed. It's a shame differing options presented in a polite manner are not allowed. So noting color schemes will be all that remain?
It's possible he requested to be removed.
York1 John
York1It's possible he requested to be removed.
I agree. We cannot rule that out without knowing more. It seems unlikely because he seemed comfortable and confident in making his case. So I cannot see a reason to pull it all down. That is unless he actually thought he was losing the debate and wanted to just end it in an explosive way almost as a distaction. But that is just hypothetical to make sense out of something so hard to understand.
Euclid York1 It's possible he requested to be removed. I agree. We cannot rule that out without knowing more. It seems unlikely because he seemed comfortable and confident in making his case. So I cannot see a reason to pull it all down. That is unless he actually thought he was losing the debate and wanted to just end it in an explosive way almost as a distaction. But that is just hypothetical to make sense out of something so hard to understand.
York1 It's possible he requested to be removed.
The actions of Antonio Brown of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in todays game make just as much sense.
BaltACD Whoever did what they did totally screwed up the thread. You can't even access the therad by clicking on the last post from the index. Kalmbach IT strikes again.
I've seen this before but it's been a couple of years since. When entries are removed the page count doesn't get updated. The count at the heading says 115 replies, which would mean 116 entries, which at 30 per page would be 3 full pages plus 26 entries on the fourth page. There are actually only 2 full pages plus 25 entries on the third page (85 entries not counting this entry and any following), so apparently 31 entries were removed. When you tell it to go to the last post, it tries to go to the 116th entry which should be on the fourth page which doesn't exist any more. See, it's all perfectly logical.
Wonders of modern technology!
(edit): It did the same thing to me: it reported an error, but when I re-submitted it, it said it was a duplicate.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
So, we've gone from discussing the PCE to discussing why posts have disappeared...
Who cares?
There's something strangein the neighborhood...Something's not right here. Unless there's a firefight boiling over in the sandbox being reported by lots of members, the moderators rarely come to this forum. They don't work on weekends, so they don't moderate on weekends, especially holiday weekends. Due to the mechanics of the forum, if a moderator were to delete a post, the sister posts- all those that replied to the post, or replied to the replies to that post- disappear as well.Also, due to the mechanics of the forum, if a poster were to delete his own post, there would still be a post by him, it would just be an empty box. Anybody who had replied to that post and quoted it would still have the original quote on their new post.Reality is, this is probably a technical glitch. It's obvious that Michael Sol's posts are missing from this thread. What's not obvious is that there might be others missing as well.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Anyone remember the chaos when a member asked everyone who had ever quoted him to delete said posts?
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