Re: PC: What If

["Bill K" <pontiac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Everything I've read has indicated that PC was more or less forced to
absorb the NH by the ICC, or the merger would not have been approved.  
beyond that mess, the problems with the NYC/PRR combo are:

Parrallel routes between almost every concievable pair of midwestern cities
(much of which are gone now)

Parrallel routes in the east - in the PC system there were 3 seperate
NYC-Buffalo routes, plus the EL competing (remember the LV was 97% owned by
the PC).

No end-to-end expansion of service or service routes and no easy route to
favor north-south traffic (a pattern that has remained even through Conrail
and with elimination of some lines made much more difficult).

for PC to last would have needed the deregulation that came with Conrail,
union negotiations to reduce crew sizes, and to get the commuter stuff
subsidized and out of their hands.   Some of it got done, but I remember
somewhere reading that the same crew reduction that got PC into or almost
into a strike, Conrail was able to push through.  The ICC should have made
PRR get rid of the LV along with the NKP and Wabash (what a dandy system
you;d have combining the LV, NKP or Wabash, and possibly the Reading), too.

They also could have tried what UP is now doing to move traffic - with two
parrallel routes, make one eastbound only and one wesbound only.   Also
gives a ready-made detour for priority trains in event of a derailment, and
saves the fight with the ICC trying to abandon one main in favor of a
parallel one - just make both single track.   I'm amazed it took this long
for a road to try that, really, because it's a lot easier now to just
abandon duplicate trackage.

Bill's Syracuse rail page 
 
http://www.dreamscape.com/pontiac/rail.html

----------
: From: Rick <rkiefer -AT- iusb.edu>
: To: penn-central -AT- smellycat.com
: Subject: Re: PC: What If
: Date: Sunday, July 26, 1998 2:49 PM
: 
: Don't forget that PRR and NYC were parallel lines also, both going to 
: the same destination, which you alluded to, most mergers up to that 
: point involved lines that allowed a RR to expand its market, the PRR 
: and NYC were competing in the same markets. As with the UP fiasco 
: they also pissed off an awful lot of shippers who I am sure turned to 
: trucking companies to haul their products.
: 
: >From what I have read the NYC wouldn't have survived merger or no 
: merger, who knows about the PRR.
: