Penn Central 1974

What a sad time. 

I grew up next to the NYC/Penn Central during 1955-1968.

A major part of the railroad problem was that government regulation did not allow the railroads to abandon unprofitable lines, after decades of new highway construction that enabled major competition.

Photo is ex-NYC at Rochester NY. 

This thread brings back bad memories for fans of the anthracite roads. The Penn Central went bankrupt and took local railroads with it.

Conrail was formed to deal with that mess. Labor and management got their act together and turned things around, to everyone's amazement.

How true. Now the anthracite /coal railroads are chugging along again minus the recent economic turmoil with China. Norfolk Southern,history repeats in a modern way.

And a lot of track mileage was abandoned in the process.

Very interesting but sad to watch.  I wonder what PRR and NYC would have been like in 1974 had there been no merger? 

If the merger had not happened, there probably still would have been the Northeast rail crisis that lead to the formation of Conrail. There was excess rail mileage for the area and too much government regulation which prevented abandonment of unprofitable lines.

You've got it, Ace.  I worked for USRA in the '70s; it was the government agency that created Conrail out of the ashes of the bankrupts.  I was there working in strategic planning and, considering all the political aspects of the mess, still can't accept the fact that we actually carried it off,  Not only did Conrail prosper, it actually paid back money used to fund it.  Considering also all the influential folks and organizations who had to have their thinking altered makes it all the more amazing.

If you're interested, there's a book called "The Men Who Loved Trains" by Rush Loving that tells the story of what you guys are talking about. 

EdKing

It seems like a perfect storm of taking two failing businesses and making them one colossal compounded error that began with an almost predictable total failure with the restrictions by federal mandates and ended with post bankruptcy regulatory amendments by the same federal processes, and ultimately was "cured"  by a federal take over, paid for with federal funds. It almost seems that the Penn Central management played the lesser role in choosing bad choices. 

I am thinking of this in terms of how the the bankruptcy of Detroit auto makers was recently handled, in that the Penn Central folks were prohibited from touching any railroad asset in the future..and in the other case, management was left intact although given federal mandates to clean up their act. No severing of ties. The Penn Central story is so full of ironies... 

I forgot the author, but back in the early seventies there was a very good book, 'Wreck of the Penn-Central' on how Pearlman drove the railroads in the ground. Like how the PC didn't want the bankrupt New Haven but was forced to include it. The reading was kind of dry at times.

Alfred E. Perlman was known as "the butcher" for his relentless elimination and abandonment of rail lines during his career. While at the D&RGW he was almost successful in shutting down the narrow gauge Silverton line, but to his dismay the Silverton train was making money, despite Denver management's attempts to bury the line's success in corporate accounting gobbledegook. He also had some very interesting comments here: http://www.econclubchi.org/His...s_AlfredEPerlman.pdf