(erielack) RE: 18 hours, Advance 100

["JG at graytrainpix" <graytrainpix_@_hotmail.com>]

    * Subject: Re:(erielack) RE: 18 hours, Advance 100
    * From: "Janet & Randy Brown" <jananran__@__mymailstation.com>
    * Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 02:01:37 EDT

***Did the 1963 Lake Cities schedule include the added hour for the time 
change? The 1957 schedule showed 21:45.***

Oct 27, 1963 Form 1: Train 5 lv. Hoboken 7 PM EST, arrive Chicago 2:55 PM 
CST.  The Scranton routing cut some time off; compare the Oct 1960 (via PO) 
and April 1961 (via SC) times for 1 and 2, 5 and 6.

***I think an 18-hour freight schedule would be pretty optimistic.***

The Santa Fe’s Super C operation showed that a short, over-powered TOFC 
train could occasionally beat passenger schedules.  I would guess that a 20 
car TOFC train with 5 Geeps or F Units, the wind behind its caboose, 
extraordinary mechanical luck, and absolute dispatching priority over the 
single track stretches could occasionally make an 18 hour schedule across 
the EL (back when the track was kept up for passenger service).  But there 
were two good reasons why a sustainable super-premium schedule, say 21 
hours, was never attempted: one, the NYC could do it cheaper over the Water 
Level Route; two, there probably wasn’t a market demand that would bear the 
extra costs of such an operation, even on the NYC (which offered 24 hour 
schedules with its FlexiVan equipment). The marginal costs of cutting 
additional hours from a 24 hour schedule on the NYC, or a 27 hour schedule 
on the EL, probably went up steeply, beyond the value to any particular 
shipper.  So, my imaginary EL Super C goes into the same file as the 
discussions about how the EL might have survived into the present.  I.e., 
nice to think about, but economically unrealistic.  As Advance 100 and all 
the rest turned out to be . . . . most regretably.

Jim G.



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