Never Stand Still

The railroad industry basically had to pay it's own way that was the big argument back in the 20th century where planes and trucks didn't. Anyhow basically what happened out east here was New York Central

and the Pennsylvania Railroad both started to go down the toilet in the 1960s at one point in time the Pennsylvania Railroad was the biggest corporation in the USA. They had a deficit bigger then the federal government and employed more people as well.




Anyhow passenger travel by train fell out of popularity in the 1960s and The Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central were both struggling.

In what was it 1963 the two companies who were bitter bitter rivals merged. And created an abomination of a company known as Penn Central.

Penn Central was an awful company that was the most paper clipped awful operation you had ever seen.

It didn't help that the government forced Penn Central to take on the already bankrupt New Hartford and New Haven Railroad.

Which I think it was called the Staggers act that forced Penn Central to take on the New Hartford. Also the government forced Penn Central to still keep running unprofitable passenger trains until they couldn't do it anymore and then in 1973 Amtrak was invented out of the ruins of what was the old Pennsylvania and New York Central Passenger train service.


Anyhow 1978 comes Penn Central goes belly up. Penn Central Corp had there hands in all kinds of stuff they owned Strick trailer company and went bankrupt with a bunch of other bad investments.

Anyhow they went to congress and asked for a "bailout" as seen in this film:


Anyhow Penn Central ended up failing and the government created the Consolidated Rail Corp.
You may know of them as this outfit:

I live in Cleveland, Ohio and that was deep in Conrail territory I remember them well in the 1990s. They were one of the most prolific rail carriers of the 1990s.

Anyhow Conrail was the savior of the east coast rail industry and then shortly after that the entire rail road industry went into major consolidation.

In 1991 Norfolk and Western:

Merged with The Southern Railroad:

and they created Norfolk Southern Corp:

I've reached my limit of pictures so this gets a part 2

 

Part 2:

Once NS merged with the Southern
You also had the Cheesie System which was the Chesapeake and Ohio RR and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Western Maryland, Rail Road merge with the Seaboard System in the 1980s.


Anyhow those two companies married and birthed a baby known as CSX Transportation:

I think back in the day they called the railroads the big 8 and then when Burlington Northern from your neck of the woods merged with Santa Fe:

In 1996 they created what is now known today as the BNSF Railway:

Then Union Pacific bought out Southern Pacific and Chicago and Northwestern and basically all the railroads bought each other out and the entire Class 1 railroad industry went into major consolidation and now there all bland and not as fun to watch and there all pretty much the same and they don't compete with each other not really not like they used to as shown in this film:

But yes in short it is everything you said.
NYC and the PRR used to be fierce competitors same with Santa Fe and Union Pacific. Now they all trade power and lines with each other and all kind of give the same service.

 

100% correct and CF already said they couldn't compete with Federal Express or UPS in that arena. Purolator Air Freight was a small parcel carrier that Emery Bought out before CF bought Emery and Purolator was dragging Emery into the ground.

Bass wanted to switch to that format and middle management said no dice ran and told O'Brien that Bass was trying to turn Emery into a FedEx and then the CF board went and fired Bass.

 

I was in 8th grade just started my 8th grade year of middle school when CF went down. I remember we had the news on and they were down at the Richfield, Ohio break bulk terminal and I remember hushing my family up so I could hear the news.

 

My Uncle has a friend who works for Union Pacific in New Mexico. He uh, said "It's not what I thought it would be." He thought like so many others it would be about you know moving freight and men and machine vs nature and getting the job done. Nope it's about rules, bureaucracy and red tape.

 

I'm printing out this entire thread, my princess Katie wanted to read about Emery Air Freight errr I mean CF ha-ha sorrry. She said never really heard of CF before.

I think she just likes my writing

 

Okay guys let me give you a little preview of tomorrow's post.
As you all know the early 1990s was a time when CF was going through what the book calls "A vision restored." After management ran the place into the ground.

Anyhow in CFs mind they fixed Emery Air Freight which was still a dud by the way and still losing money just not as rapidly.

Anyhow with Emery written off as a lost cause CF had to look at there trucking business which was taking a real beating during the recession of 1991.

There was a rate war starting up.
The Teamsters Contract was due.
Diesel Fuel was up in price.
There was to much capacity in the market place.
Emery Air Freight was still hurting the company.
Also CFs old freight flow and relay system was outdated and in need of fixing.

Anyhow will dive into all of that, that's what's coming so stay tuned.