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There's no question that PC management was
dysfunctional at best. But I'm convinced that the noose of ninteenth
century regulation had more to do with the failure than anything else.
"Wreck of the Penn Central" was written moments after the collapse,
and sought scapegoats without the benefit of retrospection. Yes, they made
bad decisions, but when you place those decisions in the context of ICC
regulation, you can see why they pulled money out of the railroad to invest in
other, less encumbered, enterprises.
You can certainly point to the culture clash as being driven
by bad management, but in the end, federal regulation, combined with the
over-riding decline in the northeastern economy, were the prime movers in the
demise of PC. If Staggers had happened 20 years earlier, you'd probably
still have a Pennsylvania Railroad instead of Norfolk Southern, and CSX would be
heavily NYC flavored instead of Seaboard.
Lee
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