Re:(erielack) Re: The EL un-merger

["Janet & Randy Brown" <jananran_@_mymailstation.com>]

Any non-Conrail solution would have depended on revision of the per diem rules to allow set-offs of payments to PennCentral  against payments due from PennCentral.  With PC protected against debt collection, the other northeastern roads could not have survived, no matter who merged with whom.

If that change had happened, ConRail wouldn't have, and a competitive structure would have fought for a diminishing traffic base, threatening to become a financial black hole, dragging solvent railroads in and releasing nothing -- not even light.  No photos!

We made the choice.  We chose federally supported highways, airways, bargeways and seaways while we taxed the railroads out of existence.  There is no "they." Pogo's words were never more true:

"We have met the enemy, and he is us!"

Randy Brown
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I love to speculate on what the picture might have looked like if the DL&W and Erie went separate ways instead of merging. . . .

Curtis Brookshire
Manassas, VA



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