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Re: (erielack) Chessle+EL (was: The October calendar image... )

Pretty much a classic case of the unions just plain screwed up.  I'm amazed 
to look back and think that these guys really thought they had a better shot 
being lumped into an already planned out Conrail, who's job it was to 
rationalize the system and become profitable, not give these guys a job for 
life - instead of going to a competitor who'd have a vested interest in 
actually running their railroad.  At it's creation Conrail had over 95,000 
employees - by 1983 that was down to 41,000. Put the government in charge of 
something and when they find they can't make it work within the rules, they 
change the rules.  That's got to be enough employees to have fired the 
entire EL and then some, isn't it?  (I know they didn't all come from the 
EL, the lowest seniority systemwide lost their jobs first).

But unions do that a lot, they decide that somehow no job is better than 
keeping a job at reduced pay; even today - recently the former New Process 
Gear plant in DeWitt voted down three contracts in a row, choosing to let 
the current owners close the plant on the basis that they'd probably close 
it anyways eventually and when that happened their unemployment benefits 
would be less because they'd agreed to the pay cuts the owners wanted.



Bill K.



- ----- Original Message ----- 
> From Archives_@_Railfan.net
> Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 13:35:21 -0400 (EDT)
> From: "J. Henry Priebe Jr." <root_@_bluemoon.net>
> Subject: Re: (erielack) The October calendar image... (2)
>
> In the February 1976 TRAINS magazine it was reported that "on or about
> February 27, 1976" Chessie would aquire 1633 route miles of EL, 421 of RDG 
> and
> 131 of PC plus 744 miles of trackage rights. It was very late in the game 
> and
> it is almost surprising that they were able to be included in the FSP 
> barely a
> month later after the Chessie deal fell apart. The northeastern RR scene 
> would
> be quite different today had it gone through.
>
> I posted the Chessie-created merger map from page 2 of that issue on 
> 3-27-08:
>
> http://www.railfan.net/lists/erielackphoto.cgi?erielack-03-27-08/EL-Chessie_1975_map.gif
>
> For the Chessie Proposal thread in which that map was posted, see here:
> http://lists.railfan.net/erielack-digest/200803/threads.html#00891
>
> Henry
>
> J. Henry Priebe Jr.    Blue Moon Internet Corp Network Administrator
> www.bluemoon.net       Internet Access & Web Hosting
> www.railfan.net        Railfan Network Services
>
> On Mon, 5 Oct 2009, Paul Brezicki wrote:
>
>> Naturally, I've misfiled my reference on this subject, but I believe the
>> Chessie proposal occurred a bit later than this, perhaps 12/75. As we've
>> discussed previously, it included the EL east of Akron as well as a 
>> portion
>> of the RDG. The EL part of the deal was scuttled due to labor protection
>> issues, but for a few months it appeared to have sufficient likelihood of
>> success to cause USRA  to suspend planning involving EL during that time.
>> The proposal was withdrawn at the last minute, and it appears the hasty
>> reinclusion of EL in the FSP left the rationalization of routes east of
>> Binghamton unresolved on C-day. EL had looked seriously at abandoning the
>> former Erie as a through route, and under CR in 1976 there was 
>> significant
>> MofW activity on the former DL&W. However by 1977, CR decided it didn't 
>> like
>> the former NY&GL portion, and rehab money made available by NY state 
>> helped
>> convince CR to retain the former Erie as the sole route.
>>
>> Paul B
>
>
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