What should PRR have done?

[Milwaukeeroad261]

ok everyone knows or has heard about the PRR. At the time before and after the war they were on the verge of greatness. In cab signals, trainphones, electrification to Chicago. But then they merged with the New York Central to become the Penn Central.....

What do you think the PRR should have done instead?

A. Let New York Central slide so far into bankruptcy that the PRR would have to buy them
B. Extend electrification to Chicago
C. Stay as they were
D. other

Leave plenty of feedback!
-AJ

 

[RooRocz]

Lobby in Congress for deregulation of the railroads so they could hope to compete with the trucking industry.

 

[rgcx]

A. PRR was the sick patient. NYC was way ahead. Remember, that the Pennsy focused on volume and the NYC marketed itself on less traffic, but an emphasis on tiers of service ~Flexivan. The green went ahead and made new operating agreements; longer runs, reduced crews. It also went ahead with diversification. Railroads are lucky to break even; just to cover the cost of operating a railroad.

What really would have helped would have been government subsidies to run/takeover the passenger trains that people weren't riding or the ability to drop the service.

What killed the PC? Simple, two very different operating philosphies. If the Central would have held all of the top positions, the PC would have run better. Perlman was a good president; he came to the WP after the PC fiasco and did what he wanted to do with the PC. He put the house into order and WP made a profit every year until he retired.

As for B. There was no money to extend electrification.

 

[cascaderailroad]

The wheels of Congress and oil companies, automobile industries, the interstate highway system, were set spinning by Eisenhower and his corrupt Government lobyists in his demented plan ... to buy up and bankrupt the stocks of he RR's ... the US deliberate conspiracy was designed to completly dismantle the trolley systms all over he US, as well as to sabotage the US RR's.

There was no choice

Why would the US Government sabotage the RR stock ? Greed for oil !

The PRR's main commodity was coal transportation ... now that oil was the main fuel and a gigantic moneymaker ... the RR's were picked apart and canabalized.

Then came PennCentral ... the Standing Derailment ... a broken down delapidated RR system.

 

[sawyer811]

wow, and i thought I was a conspiracy theorist.

 

[cascaderailroad]

No theory ... it has been documented and admitted by the US Government of their deliberate intent to destroy rail transportation, by sabotaging the Stock Markets RR & Trolley stock and bonds.

 

[289v8]

Post Deleted.

 

[sawyer811]

Cascade...I KNEW IT!!!! I KNEW the us Government couldn't have been a sideline watcher in the ralway catastrophe of the 60's and 70's. I...

Wow, maybe i am that much of a conspiracy theorist.

 

[GS41995]

D. other, I have played situations like this over again. If I were the Pennsylvania Railroad I would want to add the New Haven but not the New York Central. After acquring the New Haven, I would have extended their electric route from New Haven to Boston and made sure the railroad's electric system could operate trains across it's system under the same voltage. I also believe after the creation of the Erie Lackawanna that they should acquire or merge the Reading into their system.

 

[cascaderailroad]

In the 1930's the PRR actually had plans for overhead catenary electrification and high speed rail all the way to Chicago. But many tunnels and curve straightening along the Juniata River would have proved much too costly, and the project was abandoned. The Great Flood of 1931 washed out many miles of quad trackage along the Juniata, and was realigned with only 3 tracks in many places, as the riverbank was virtually washed away and totally gone. Still they had over 140 passenger trains per day. Altoona's main rail traffic was mainly eastbound coal train classification and weighing, processing many thosands of railcars per shift, employing 30,000 workers.

 

[springtransit]

Maybe merge with the Southern Railway and create Penn Southern!

 

[289v8]

If the PRR would have merged with the Northern Pacific this is what you would hear. Go to RadioReference.com-click on Live Audio Home-run mouse up to North Dakota and click-then click on BNSF Fargo-Dilworth area Road and Yard-click on little speaker.

 

[GS41995]

What I meant was elecftrication from Washington DC to Boston as well as extension of their other electfifed line, which is the Philadpheia to Harrisburg, to go to Pittsburgh.
Excuse any spelling mistake sof mine.

 

[PereMarquette1225fan]

In my honest opinion, the Pennsylvania Railroad should've bought out the New York Central and subsequently, the New Haven. Then, buy the Seaboard for Miami bound trains and extend west to California by buying out Southern Pacific and Santa Fe, and even taking over the international railroad market by buying track in England, France, Spain, Japan and so on. Plus, launching a huge steam program with every steam locomotive that they preserved operating in excursion service and keeping the GG1 active for a long time. And much, much more.

 

[K4driver]

They should have converted to Narrow gauge. And Painted all their Locomotives GREEN. :hehe: But Seriously though, I hate to say it being a Pennsy fan, But they were doomed after the end of 50's. If they did invest in smaller, more efficient trains, More efficient Locomotives, cut the waste lines earlier, They MIGHT have survived till the late 70's on their own, but eventually consumed by Conrail and Amtrak.

 

[simulatortrain]

In my honest opinion, the Pennsylvania Railroad should've bought out the New York Central and subsequently, the New Haven. Then, buy the Seaboard for Miami bound trains and extend west to California by buying out Southern Pacific and Santa Fe, and even taking over the international railroad market by buying track in England, France, Spain, Japan and so on. Plus, launching a huge steam program with every steam locomotive that they preserved operating in excursion service and keeping the GG1 active for a long time. And much, much more.

Even if they discovered El Dorado they'd have a hard time doing that.

 

[StorkNest]

The PRR did not buy out the NYC, they along with the N&W and C&O pushed the NYC into the PC disaster.

 

[jadebullet]

What do you think the PRR should have done instead?

A. Let New York Central slide so far into bankruptcy that the PRR would have to buy them
B. Extend electrification to Chicago
C. Stay as they were
D. other

A) Would have been useless. PRR would have gone bankrupt well before the Central.
B) Too costly.
C) Would have bankrupted themselves. Just more slowly.


My choice is D)
What they should have done is to stop their obsession with competition with the other railroads in the Alphabet route and focused on competition with trucks. Of course, really, it was too late. The Alphabet Route was taking too much away from them for the PRR to stay solvent anyway. Merging with the NYC was a horrible idea, as the mismanagement of the assets, and the complete opposite business practices doomed it from the start.

The NYC probably would have survived, but just barely.
The PRR, unfortunately for them, probably woudn't have. They had too many assets that were draining money, such as the LVRR. They should have cut free the LVRR, and allowed the CNJ, the Reading and the LVRR to merge, as was proposed in the early 70s. Of course, due to the lack of the Penn Central, the Reading would have still been solvent due to interchange traffic that wouldn't have been taken away.

But, of course, cutting these assets would have weakened the PRR, and strengthened the Alphabet Route, and probably wouldn't have helped them anyway.

Really though, the key is deregulation of the railroads. If they could have just held out a bit longer, they probably could have survived. The regulation was even worse for big railroads like the PRR. Smaller lines like the Reading were affected, but not as much. Especially with things like the Bee Line Service.


Oh and Cascade. Yeah, that was two people that wanted that in Congress. Not the entire US government. And it never happened. Hell, the railroads, after dieselization, were actually pretty big purchasers of oil products. Also, oil trains were more cost effective than oil trucks for longer distances. While other commodities went to the trucks, oil stayed relatively on the rails.

Also, in the 1970s there was the oil embargo. During this time, the US government was paying big subsidies to the energy departments to switch to coal in the powerplants in order to alleviate the crisis. Hell, the L&N and other railroads were actually short on locomotives. Of course, this was mainly Bituminous coal, so it didn't help anthracite, but that doesn't matter in the case of the PRR which was a minority player in the anthracite market.

TL;DR Cascade doesn't know what he is talking about. The US government, if hungry for oil, wouldn't have pushed for companies to switch to coal.