(erielack) Re: EL Mail List Digest V3 #2340

["Bill K." <pontiac_@_dreamscape.com>]

A few things to bear in mind here:

PRR owned over 80% of the LV by 1962 and did try to hand it off to C&O and 
N&W; PRR and N&W each owned about half of the NKP and Wabash; C&O owned 40% 
of the RDG until 1972; and I'm not sure to what extent the B&O was tied to 
the CNJ, but it was B&O money - and B&O engines - that kept that road going 
after 1965, to the point of the paint scheme being a clone of the B&O's (it 
was a lot cheaper to just reletter those 8 SD40s and all the old junkers B&O 
sent over).  Pretty sure the C&O/B&O were tied to each other from the late 
50's if not earlier.


Which, as an amusing side note it would be funny to photoshop a new CSX blue 
unit to read CNJ.


But my main point is the reason most of these mergers went the direction 
they did is because other roads owned parts or most of them, so they had the 
say into what went where.  MARC-EL I don't think is possible without the 
bankruptcies and court/gov't intervention of post-1971.


What's still strange is the N&W sending TOFC trains to the PRR/PC controlled 
LV at Buffalo even though it owned/controlled the EL and could have sent 
them that way.



Bill K.


- ----- Original Message ----- 
>>From Archives_@_Railfan.net
> Date: Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:18:28 -0400
> From: "JG at graytrainpix" <graytrainpix_@_hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: (erielack) 1963 Notes - early MARC-EL?
>
> Paul,
>
> I'd like to contribute to the archives, but the downloads from the news
> database in question come with foreboding copyright notices.  I can say
> through fair use doctrine that the article regarding TOFC service from
> Philly appeared on page 48 of the May 2, 1963 edition of the NY Times, and
> quotes Harry C. Schmidt, EL's VP for Sales at the time.
>
> Paul, you pointed out good reasons why a RDG-CNJ-EL TOFC service from 
> Philly
> was a non-starter.  Another reason that comes to mind was the B&O/C&O.
> IIRC, by mid-1963, the CNJ and RDG were looking to the B&O/C&O for 
> salvation
> (I believe that the Chessie had control of the B&O by then).  Why even try
> to steal TOFC revenue from your savior? (I believe that the B&O's
> Chessie-funded clearance projects were done by then and that fast TOFC
> service out of Philly East Side was thus available from the B&O).  I can't
> help but wonder if some people on the RDG and CNJ were a bit suspicious as
> to how far the Chessie would go for them.  Perhaps ditto for the EL 
> relative
> to the N&W.  The LV had similar false hopes regarding its part in the
> upcoming PRR-NYC merger.
>
> I honestly wonder if this little, seemingly irrational (and obviously
> unsuccessful) attempt at service coordination reflected a bit of "MARC-EL"
> thinking way back in 1963.  Perhaps it was a 'trial balloon' for greater
> cooperation.  With 20-20 hindsight, the EL, RDG and CNJ should have 
> pressed
> on with an "operation bootstraps" consolidation plan in 1963, especially 
> if
> they could have talked the Valley into joining.  Had the D&H also joined 
> by
> 1970 (they wouldn't have had much choice), and a lot of ruthless
> consolidation were done (e.g., no more need for separate backshops in
> Hornell, Scranton, Sayre, Reading, Colonie and Elizabethport) I can't help
> but wonder if an early MARC-EL might have reached a "tipping point" of
> profitability and viability that the EL alone just couldn't (and didn't)
> achieve.  Another great "what might have been" (especially since it would
> have brought Perry Shoemaker back into the fold! He was the CNJ's leader 
> at
> the time).
>
> This little scrap of evidence hints that some people on the relevant lines
> (Perry Shoemaker?) might have been thinking this way in 1963, when there
> still might have been enough time left to do something.  Perhaps William
> White squashed whatever was happening in this regard (he was to come on
> board in another month or so).  IIRC, he was very fixated on the N&W as 
> the
> EL's ultimate savior (and his protegee, Greg Maxwell, also gave the 
> MARC-EL
> concept a pass ten years later on the eve of Conrail).  Perhaps that was
> White's one mistake.  And possibly a very big one.  A consolidation like
> that would have left the N&W over a barrel regarding the ex-NKP in Buffalo
> and the Chessie regarding the Royal Blue Route in Philly (especially if 
> the
> D&H were in the mix).
>
> Would the ICC have allowed such a merger in 1964?  My first instinct is to
> say no, but then again, perhaps the lines in question could have traded
> favors against the hearings for the pending N&W/NKP/Wabash and NYC/PRR
> mergers.  We support your mergers, you support ours.  But it was just not
> meant to be.
>
> Jim Gerofsky
>
> 

	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
	Sponsored by the ELH&TS
	http://www.elhts.org
	To Unsubscribe: http://lists.elhts.org/erielackunsub.html

------------------------------