Re: (erielack) Discouraging carload traffic

[Mike Spinelli <sms158_@_uakron.edu>]

If you were not located on a mainline that was a "traffic lane", the 
railroads were doing everything they could to discourage all business 
on that line so they could petition for abandonment. There was no way 
to make a profit on them unless there was a trainload customer on the 
line.

Some lines were taken over by shortlines, and some of them convinced 
the customers they were going to take care of them, and some couldn't. 
All of the business that was lost on the line by my house (former Erie 
main) during the Conrail days, the shortline has not been able to 
regain any of it. It's a much different story down on the Ohio Central, 
but with the A&BC/W&LE, it seems they have all they're going to get.

I remember seeing the entire track structure mysteriously twisted into 
a tight "S" on lines that Conrail was trying to abandon but couldn't. 
They went to the state saying the track was "vandalized" and would 
require thousands of dollars to repair. It was a real circus around 
here during that time. Conrail pulled the old Erie main from Kent to 
Akron, apparently without the state's permission, and had to relay it. 
The port authority then bought it.

Mike Spinelli

Quoting Paul Brezicki <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>:

> You didn't mention the exact timeframe, but by the 1980's, Conrail, like
> most other Class 1's, was focused on large customers and wholesale
> transportation. So if you were a steel mill, coal mine, auto manufacturer,
> freight forwarder/consolidator or containership line, you would have been
> well looked after. Conrail simply didn't maintain a sufficient staff of
> sales people or freight agents to service the shipper of one or a few
> carloads. There isn't enough profit in that, particularly in the shorthaul
> move you offered, so they really didn't want your business and behaved
> accordingly. The retail carload business has become the domain of shortlines
> and regionals.
>
> In future, it would be nice if you could include your first name in your
> post.
>
> Paul B
>
> From: secbyte_@_ptd.net
> Subject: Re: (erielack) Water bottles...
>
> Sometimes I wonder if this would be true.
>
> I remember having a business in Dover along the old CNJ line on North
> Salem St. and it was next to impossible to get the railroad to add me as
> a customer.  First of all it was like pulling teeth to get to the people
> I needed to talk to in the first place and then it was one excuse after
> another to get things shipped out by boxcar. We spoke to the M&E and to
> Conrail.  We were sending huge loads to a recycling plant in Mass and
> they would have preferred material shipped by boxcar but it got to be
> such a project that we hired a trucking company to service us.  It was
> like they just did not want any new business.  In other industry you
> loose customers and you develop new ones.  It seemed to me that the RR
> was only interested in burning the ones they had up and not developing
> new ones.
>
>
> 	The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List
> 	Sponsored by the ELH&TS
> 	http://www.elhts.org
> 	To Unsubscribe: http://lists.elhts.org/erielackunsub.html
>



Mike Spinelli


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

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