Re: (erielack) A controverial topic? :)

[Njricky2_@_aol.com]

Paul,
 
You make interesting points. I often wonder whether or not the EL merger  was 
a good thing. I think that they had no choice in the end because things in  
the industy were happening quickly.
 
From what we see in hindsight, DLW and NKP could have been a good  
combination. They had their interchange at Buffalo and then could go west. As  one, they 
might possibly have been a major factor of stabilty within the  industry at 
that point in time.
 
Erie on the other hand could have formed, without a merger, an  affiliation 
with Santa Fe. They were both in the position to do so. If that took  place, 
that would have given both a trans-continental railroad without having to  
answer to the ICC. Again, the Chicago interchange.
 
Erie had lousy management from Day 1. The "corporate ones" who controlled  
Erie were into making money, not into running a railroad. It's surprising that  
Erie did as well as it did and overall, it did very well. Erie turned out to 
be  "a survivor". Erie competed with PRR and NYC and did so  efffectively.
 
Lackawanna on the other hand, had for the most part, very good management  
but again, it was a much smaller railroad and much easier to manage as compared  
to Erie. Although it was smaller than Erie and others in the Northeast, it's  
feats are uncompared. DLW was the shortest route between NYC (Hoboken) and  
Buffalo. They did it well.
 
I too am a bit road-biased as you say. I grew up with Erie in Scranton and  I 
remember very well the black and yellow. It was a very powerful look, as was  
DLW with maroon and grey. 
 
You're not over simplistic at all. Had they managed things properly when  
they became one, yes, freight should have travelled via Erie and passengers via  
DLW. The DLW route was much more populous than Erie. 
 
The people who worked for both and then for the comined railway, I think  
never became one. There are others on our list who can refute this and I'd sure  
like to hear them tell us otherwise.
 
Anyone out there who can tell us if Erie and Lackawanna employees actually  
put differences aside and worked for the success of Erie Lackawanna?
 
That's a story that as far as I know has yet to be told.
 
Rick
 
In a message dated 2/18/2007 8:25:44 PM Eastern Standard Time,  
paultup_@_comcast.net writes:

Hi  folks,

While out and about today, I got thinking while driving home  (never a good 
thing ;) about the DL&W and its grand place in the railroad  world (this line 
of thought occurred while I was driving alongside the  DL&W on Route 80 in 
Mount Arlington, NJ). The DL&W only ran between  Hoboken and Buffalo (with several 
branches), and from the start, the big "cash  cow" on the road was its 
anthracite traffic. It's what helped fund all the  Lackawanna's engineering 
masterpieces and turned it into a "super railroad"  (as it's been labeled in several 
magazine articles). But after the anthracite  dried up, it had a harder time 
with standard manifest freight since it's  western terminus was Buffalo, not 
Chicago. Granted, most of the Chicago-bound  traffic went via partner NKP, but 
was this a result of myopic thinking on the  part of railroad management? PRR 
and NYC both had through roads from the NYC  market to Chicago, and they took a 
lion's share of that traffic. Instead of  spending all that money o!
n its v
arious engineering projects, would it  have been more prudent for DL&W to 
build or acquire a line between Buffalo  and Chicago to compete for the lucrative 
NYC-Chicago traffic  market?

Yes, the various engineering projects did help to increase  speeds and reduce 
train transit times, but perhaps some money could have been  used for 
expansion. Granted, by the time the DL&W got into thinking about  this (such as a 
potential NKP merger), it was already too late, but if they  had approached this 
tact much earlier, could they have been  successful?

And just so I'm not perceived as "road biased," I thought a  similar question 
about the Erie. Why this railroad, that had great high-wide  clearances and a 
line from the NY market to Chicago, go through so many  bankrupties and was 
only able to get a small portion of that traffic, compared  to its NYC and PRR 
competitors? Was the Erie so cash-starved (and in  bankruptcy) that they 
simply couldn't improve its main line to make it more  competitive with the other 
roads?

Thoughts like this make the EL merger  even more interesting in my mind, but 
again, "too little, too late." It's  interesting that EL's sales people 
finally began to capitalize on the  advantages of its NY-Chi line by capturing 
lucrative UPS traffic. It just  seems that the DL&W and Erie had two fundamentally 
different problems, but  if a merger happened "way back when," (and if you 
took the strong feelings of  the two roads' employees out of the picture), could 
they have been a  successful road? The DL&W's money could have been used to 
improve the Erie  main from Binghamton-Chicago, bringing it up to "Lackawanna 
standards" and  making it a more competitive road, and the Erie's line opening 
up the  Lackawanna's former west end of Buffalo. Or am I being overly  
simplistic?

Just my random thoughts for the day. :)

- - Paul

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