Gone But Not Forgotten

[Kris94]

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=113411&nseq=5

Makes me sit back and see what was and what could have been. Then and now. Mourning over this great loss. I was never able to see SP in its last days until it was too late. I was only two years of age, to no avail. Sad, but like Naughty By Nature said, mourn till I join. Oh and a little YouTube clip that I thought would go nice with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6I59Rygndk

Now I can sit back and see how much railroading has changed and what it was back then, history and classic railroading. Memories I never could say I had.

A dream to work for the SP that has long been vanished for its now extinct like the dinosaurs. Our only hope is to find any remaining SP locos in service patched or not, whatever RR they currently operate under and preserve them and bring them back to their old ways. The ways and rituals that everyone seemed to enjoy and never forget or think would ever come to an end. Good night people.

 

[Euphod]

Well, 'then' was 1996, the year the UP finally completed the acquisition of the SP, which began in 1901.
Only 15 years ago, the SP was a separate company, although controlled by the Rio Grande.

 

[Kris94]

Well, 'then' was 1996, the year the UP finally completed the acquisition of the SP, which began in 1901.
Only 15 years ago, the SP was a separate company, although controlled by the Rio Grande.

Actually it was ended but UP wanted full control of SP and got it. Two bankruptcies and the US Supreme Court forced UP to give up SP. Yes that's right UP had to give them up. I say SP only went down because DRGW couldn't manage them and they were a fallen flag technically and SP hadn't became part of SP, then SP might still be around.

 

[peghorse]

Not being USA based, but certainly old enough to know these things.. I don't,
so any train news or history chat is good news as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Euphod]

Actually it was ended but UP wanted full control of SP and got it. Two bankruptcies and the US Supreme Court forced UP to give up SP. Yes that's right UP had to give them up. I say SP only went down because DRGW couldn't manage them and they were a fallen flag technically and SP hadn't became part of SP, then SP might still be around.

Well, 'then' was 1996, the year the UP finally completed the acquisition of the SP, which began in 1901.
Only 15 years ago, the SP was a separate company, although controlled by the Rio Grande.

 

[bl4882]

Hello Euphod,

A non-Californian will have a hard time understanding the Espee and its influence on the very culture of the state. The structure of the state was established by this railroad. Its destruction was rapid, happening in the blink of an eye. I still can't believe it is gone and replaced by the hated :hehe: Union Pacific. Yuck.

Stop and think. It's not just Donner Pass. It built an empire over some of the most forbidding geography on the planet.

Bernie

PS: I love the UP as well . UP and SP united a continent.

 

[norfolksouthern37]

...and SP hadn't became part of SP, then SP might still be around.

i can only guess you meant if the holding companies of SP and ATSF hadn't merged and been denied combining the railroads, being forced to give up SP to the nearest buyer - in that case DRGW. but over 100 years ago SP was to be merged with UP. it was always going to happen.

 

[Kris94]

Yeah I think SP was just playing along and accepting defeat. Which if I was president, would resist by all means necessary to keep from going downhill and plus I would've taken as much business from UP as I could before going down.

BTW: I once read this article about the SP/UP merger timeline and I see that the SP leaders had to agree in order to continue on. I would've rejected.

 

[bl4882]

I think that what is now the UP was always the logical railroad. It is hard to imagine why the UP and SP should have been split at middle of nowhere Promontory Point. I had occasion to study the turn of the century antitrust nonsense in law school. Regardless, the SP had the handsomest locos (Alco steam) and the best diesel paint scheme (black widow). :wave:

Bernie

 

[JCitron]

Yeah I think SP was just playing along and accepting defeat. Which if I was president, would resist by all means necessary to keep from going downhill and plus I would've taken as much business from UP as I could before going down.

BTW: I once read this article about the SP/UP merger timeline and I see that the SP leaders had to agree in order to continue on. I would've rejected.

You wouldn't be saying that if you saw what they were dealing with before the merger. Their operations were in very poor shape, coupled with operation problems due to a poor conditions and a poor economy. They were losing online shippers at the same time as their bigger connections to the east, the Rock and others were tanking. This doesn't do well for any company that's in the shipping business.

At the time of the UP/SP merger, the SP was shedding branch lines, closing routes, and trying to find their place in the world, all the while trying to absorb the pieces of the Rock Island they had picked up in 1980 when the Rock folded. The Rock its self was very bad due to lack of maintenance. They didn't have the revenue to meet payroll let alone maintain their infrastructure, and locomotives.

When the Rock was carved up after its demise in 1980, the SP picked up the Tucemcari line where the two companies once exchanged cars. They had to rebuild their own line as well as really rebuild the old Rock, which was so bad that the running speeds were down to nothing.

http://www.wx4.org/to/foam/a_rrcontents.html

Now as much as we love to see railroad lines and companies continue to operate, we have to remember that in the real world they are companies. The purpose of a company is to make money for the stakeholders, and the purpose of a railroad is to ship and deliver goods. If the traffic isn't there, or the connections are poor, then the company goes out of business, merges with a partner or competitor, and abandons lines.

So having said that, this is why we have our rail simulators. We can relive the old world and still keep them operating the way they should have always been running by supplying them with plenty of online business.

John

 

[Kris94]

You wouldn't be saying that if you saw what they were dealing with before the merger. Their operations were in very poor shape, coupled with operation problems due to a poor conditions and a poor economy. They were losing online shippers at the same time as their bigger connections to the east, the Rock and others were tanking. This doesn't do well for any company that's in the shipping business.

At the time of the UP/SP merger, the SP was shedding branch lines, closing routes, and trying to find their place in the world, all the while trying to absorb the pieces of the Rock Island they had picked up in 1980 when the Rock folded. The Rock its self was very bad due to lack of maintenance. They didn't have the revenue to meet payroll let alone maintain their infrastructure, and locomotives.

When the Rock was carved up after its demise in 1980, the SP picked up the Tucemcari line where the two companies once exchanged cars. They had to rebuild their own line as well as really rebuild the old Rock, which was so bad that the running speeds were down to nothing.

http://www.wx4.org/to/foam/a_rrcontents.html

Now as much as we love to see railroad lines and companies continue to operate, we have to remember that in the real world they are companies. The purpose of a company is to make money for the stakeholders, and the purpose of a railroad is to ship and deliver goods. If the traffic isn't there, or the connections are poor, then the company goes out of business, merges with a partner or competitor, and abandons lines.

So having said that, this is why we have our rail simulators. We can relive the old world and still keep them operating the way they should have always been running by supplying them with plenty of online business.

John

Where in the world do you all find this stuff. I mean I can't even have any luck I still can't find the article that displayed how the SP had gone downhill but I'll keep on searching.

Okay found it!! But what I'm seeing is the agriculture business went to trucks because SP was unable to get the products to the markets before rotting as well as industries in SFO moved or shipped overseas.

But note this: After the DRGW merger the SP had began to improve considerably but UP had decided to go ahead and obliterate them anyways.

Also after the merger UP almost crumbled. Here's the scope:

With the failed merger a stunning about face took place. Rio Grande Industries, the holding company for the Denver & Rio Grande Western offered to purchase the Southern Pacific and it passed not only the board’s approval at SP but also that of the ICC in 1988. However, in one of the rare events in railroading, Rio Grande Industries chose to merge the D&RGW into SP, rather than the other way around as is usually the case, mostly because the SP was much larger and better recognized than the smaller Rio Grande.

While the newly owned SP never quite became as large, profitable, and powerful as it had been prior to the 1970s it did rather well over the next eight years. It was at this time that the Union Pacific, which had been gobbling up western railroads since the 1980s motioned to purchase the SP in the early 1990s. After much deliberation the ICC approved the merger and UP officially took over its larger neighbor in 1996. However, the SP did not go out quietly following the merger. All mergers have their hiccups and it typically takes a few years before their successes can clearly be seen. However, the SP was so large that the UP was clearly not equipped, or ready, to handle the merger which nearly brought the Union Pacific to its knees as yards clogged and transit time and operating ratios soared (an eerily similar situation which happened nearly 30 years before on merger day of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central). Unlike the Penn Central disaster, however, UP was able to right itself and as the 20th century closed it began to smooth out operations and lower operating ratios.

Read this: http://www.american-rails.com/southern-pacific.html