PC: what if...?

[anderson <andersoncn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Regarding your "what if...?" scenarios, I thought I'd weigh in with a few 
thoughts...

If you wanted to get REAL technical, you could go back to the 50's when 
NYC and C&O were talking merger (up to the time Robert Young died), and 
fantasize about what would have happened if THAT had taken place (my 
guess is that N&W and PRR would have linked up, and everybody else in the 
northeast would have eventually joined either of the two bigger roads or 
B&O...if all that had happened, there would have been no PC OR Conrail, 
and WE wouldn't have had any fun, but I digress...).

What I really thought about, after reading your "what if" scenarios, was 
that the success of any re-drawing of the northeast rail map in the 60's 
and 70's would have been hampered by the lack of Staggers-type 
deregulation.  Perhaps Staggers, had it been enacted in the early 70's, 
would not have saved PC, but the consequences might not have been as 
draconian (i.e.: Conrail).

One more thought:  I distinctly remember David Morgan, in his TRAINS 
Magazine columns in the very early 70's, calling for a "firewall" around 
all the bankrupts in the northeast, essentially lumping them all into a 
huge terminal road under government auspices.  In a sense, Morgan saw 
Conrail several years before it was formed.  Competition in the northeast 
was less a factor, at least to Morgan, as was mere survival of a viable 
rail network there.  Only time, the growth of intermodal traffic, and 
deregulation would change that.

Hope I didn't put you to sleep...   

"Uncle E"