The wreck of the Penn Central
April 11, 2015 10:30 PM Subscribe
On February 1, 1968, the Penn Central railroad was created by the merger of the two largest railroads in the eastern United States, the Pennsylvania Railroad, long lauded as the "Standard Railroad of the World", and the New York Central Railroad, long famous for its passenger trains such as the 20th Century Limited, with its Dreyfuss-designed Hudson locomotives.
Things did not go well for the combined giant. While both railroads were solvent at the time of the merger, they came to the merger as bitter rivals. Disparate corporate cultures, operating philosophies, and incompatible signaling, computer systems and locomotives wreaked havoc. By 1974, the merged railroad was bleeding to death- finally, in a desperate move to obtain federal funding, the Penn Central produced Penn Central 1974[28m YouTube] in an effort to convince Congress to take action. The film caused a sensation in the railroad industry, a graphic example of what 'deferred maintenance' really meant for the future of the railroads.
Congress did, eventually, form a new entity, called Conrail. In 1986, having become profitable after the Staggers Act, it was IPO'd and became a private corporation, and was eventually split up between CSX and Norfolk Southern.
Things did not go well for the combined giant. While both railroads were solvent at the time of the merger, they came to the merger as bitter rivals. Disparate corporate cultures, operating philosophies, and incompatible signaling, computer systems and locomotives wreaked havoc. By 1974, the merged railroad was bleeding to death- finally, in a desperate move to obtain federal funding, the Penn Central produced Penn Central 1974[28m YouTube] in an effort to convince Congress to take action. The film caused a sensation in the railroad industry, a graphic example of what 'deferred maintenance' really meant for the future of the railroads.
Congress did, eventually, form a new entity, called Conrail. In 1986, having become profitable after the Staggers Act, it was IPO'd and became a private corporation, and was eventually split up between CSX and Norfolk Southern.
I always thought that the Penn Central would be the ideal railroad for modelling. No problems with authentic operation modes:
Incompatible material across brands? Totally doable.
Derailing and other pile-ups? Easy.
Not enough money to make it really nice? At the price level of today's model trains no real problem.
Sad enough their color scheme was pretty ugly...
posted by Namlit at 7:51 AM on April 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
Incompatible material across brands? Totally doable.
Derailing and other pile-ups? Easy.
Not enough money to make it really nice? At the price level of today's model trains no real problem.
Sad enough their color scheme was pretty ugly...
posted by Namlit at 7:51 AM on April 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
Man everything sure was dirty back then.
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:32 AM on April 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:32 AM on April 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
Had the railroads been faster to adapt with containerization and better service to smaller customers, it would be a whole different ballgame.
The railroads were very heavily regulated (a legacy of their time as economic giants that could crush entire industries with the swipe of a pen, and capable of nearly unlimited rentseeking on a national level, making the regulation sensible at the time). They didn't really have a lot of opportunities to adapt prior to deregulation.
Honestly, the fair thing to do would have been to basically buy out the underlying rights-of-way from the railroads and let them continue to operate as hauling companies on a shared network, paying a per-mile fee. This wouldn't have been that much of a stretch—railroads do the same sort of billing when running cars or trains on other railroads' lines all the time—and it would have created a national rail networking similar in scope and funding to the Interstate Highway network. Much of the infrastructure that was allowed to fall apart prior to deregulation and the gradual recovery of the industry might have been saved. (Not to mention a shitload of diesel not used in road trucks.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:32 AM on April 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
The railroads were very heavily regulated (a legacy of their time as economic giants that could crush entire industries with the swipe of a pen, and capable of nearly unlimited rentseeking on a national level, making the regulation sensible at the time). They didn't really have a lot of opportunities to adapt prior to deregulation.
Honestly, the fair thing to do would have been to basically buy out the underlying rights-of-way from the railroads and let them continue to operate as hauling companies on a shared network, paying a per-mile fee. This wouldn't have been that much of a stretch—railroads do the same sort of billing when running cars or trains on other railroads' lines all the time—and it would have created a national rail networking similar in scope and funding to the Interstate Highway network. Much of the infrastructure that was allowed to fall apart prior to deregulation and the gradual recovery of the industry might have been saved. (Not to mention a shitload of diesel not used in road trucks.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:32 AM on April 12, 2015 [6 favorites]
The railroads were very heavily regulated
Yes, and a lot of this regulation was choking them. Speeds were limited by out-of-date signaling rules, since they couldn't go fast, railroads chose to go into freight and go big instead. Slow freights don't need good track.
Honestly, the fair thing to do would have been to basically buy out the underlying rights-of-way from the railroads and let them continue to operate as hauling companies on a shared network, paying a per-mile fee.
Note this is the model the UK ended up with.
posted by eriko at 7:57 AM on April 13, 2015
Yes, and a lot of this regulation was choking them. Speeds were limited by out-of-date signaling rules, since they couldn't go fast, railroads chose to go into freight and go big instead. Slow freights don't need good track.
Honestly, the fair thing to do would have been to basically buy out the underlying rights-of-way from the railroads and let them continue to operate as hauling companies on a shared network, paying a per-mile fee.
Note this is the model the UK ended up with.
posted by eriko at 7:57 AM on April 13, 2015
I believe that model's success in the UK has been mixed.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:18 AM on April 13, 2015
posted by Chrysostom at 9:18 AM on April 13, 2015
British Rail was very efficient indeed - not much freight overall but for passengers the subsidy under BR was about a fifth that it is for the parasitic soup of 'operating companies' that infest the remains of the system. Tragic.
posted by The Salaryman at 9:25 AM on April 13, 2015
posted by The Salaryman at 9:25 AM on April 13, 2015
Well, the British arrived at it from another direction, which I'm not sure made a ton of sense given that they already had an apparently-well-functioning (to an outsider, anyway) system. Seems like a step backwards and I question if the goal was really efficiency in operating railroads, or efficiency in moving tax dollars into private hands. The latter goal is certainly not one that is unique to the US.
Also, the geography of Great Britain lends itself to a greater emphasis on passenger rail than freight, compared to the US. There is a point below which freight rail has a hard time breaking even against trucks, and even if we assume that currently-accepted figures (which tend to be about 300-500 miles) are distortedly high due to the fact that they come from the US where trucks are unfairly subsidized, it might still not leave many profitable heavy freight routes in the UK. So you are left with a passenger-dominated system. Passenger-rail systems almost never do well under privatization: they require subsidies to operate, and it never seems that companies are quite as careful with the public's money as they are with their own.
The optimal model would seem to be public ownership of the underlying infrastructure, with actual construction and maintenance done by private contractors (like the Interstates; not a stretch as many railroads outsource construction and maintenance today anyway), under the oversight of the FRA (which inspects the privately-owned rail network today), with privately operated hauling companies moving freight or providing rolling stock, and a publicly operated monopoly carrier for passenger service (e.g. Amtrak).
Of course, that's unlikely to happen in the near future, at least not in the US. The best we can probably get is that Amtrak gets more funding and is allowed to build more of its own ROWs. Which if it were taken to an extreme would be nice, since passenger rail and freight rail require increasingly different underlying infrastructure. But it doesn't get us lines put back to places where they were unfortunately removed, or stop the problem of line abandonment every time fuel prices drop and the inherent efficiencies of the railroads aren't worth as much temporarily.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:15 AM on April 13, 2015
Also, the geography of Great Britain lends itself to a greater emphasis on passenger rail than freight, compared to the US. There is a point below which freight rail has a hard time breaking even against trucks, and even if we assume that currently-accepted figures (which tend to be about 300-500 miles) are distortedly high due to the fact that they come from the US where trucks are unfairly subsidized, it might still not leave many profitable heavy freight routes in the UK. So you are left with a passenger-dominated system. Passenger-rail systems almost never do well under privatization: they require subsidies to operate, and it never seems that companies are quite as careful with the public's money as they are with their own.
The optimal model would seem to be public ownership of the underlying infrastructure, with actual construction and maintenance done by private contractors (like the Interstates; not a stretch as many railroads outsource construction and maintenance today anyway), under the oversight of the FRA (which inspects the privately-owned rail network today), with privately operated hauling companies moving freight or providing rolling stock, and a publicly operated monopoly carrier for passenger service (e.g. Amtrak).
Of course, that's unlikely to happen in the near future, at least not in the US. The best we can probably get is that Amtrak gets more funding and is allowed to build more of its own ROWs. Which if it were taken to an extreme would be nice, since passenger rail and freight rail require increasingly different underlying infrastructure. But it doesn't get us lines put back to places where they were unfortunately removed, or stop the problem of line abandonment every time fuel prices drop and the inherent efficiencies of the railroads aren't worth as much temporarily.
posted by Kadin2048 at 10:15 AM on April 13, 2015
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The railroads started to fall apart when over the road semis and Ike's interstate highway system allowed more competition and market monopolization across the country.
Had the railroads been faster to adapt with containerization and better service to smaller customers, it would be a whole different ballgame.
posted by nickggully at 7:46 AM on April 12, 2015 [2 favorites]