Things might've been slightly better if they hadn't agreed to absorb the bankrupt New Haven as part of the merger. I read a really bizarre article in Trains magazine one time about someone who worked for the PC and supposedly saw a document that proved exactly why the NYC and PRR were so eager to merge despite all the red flags that presented themselves during the process, but the article must've been edited after it was submitted because the supposed document turned out to be a photo of the executives hanging around on a private jet with some escorts, which didn't really explain anything in the article.
@@dknowles60 The NYC was eager to merge, just not eager to merge with PRR. NYC wanted C&O, C&O said no thanks and went for B&O, and NYC even bought over 10% of B&O to somehow gain bargaining leverage. Why C&O choose B&O isn't immediately clear, as B&O was marginal itself. My guess --- only a guess ---- was that while B&O might be marginal, NYC was marginal AND with a gigantic passenger business that lost more and more money over time with the ICC still being all stubborn about force keeping passenger services. With C&O still saying no, NYC felt it had no friends left and felt cornered to merge with PRR. Read ex-NYC boss Perlman, he said it was a PRR takeover, and as an example gave that operating chief and sales chief were both ex-PRR and he couldn't fire them for incompetency as long as their overall PC boss was ex-PRR Saunders.
@@raymondpaller6475 wrong the NYC never wanted a merger with PRR The NYC was still making money . the PRR was not making money, it was a fed gov forcing the take over by the PRR
My grandfather was an engineer of switches and tracks on the PRR and retired in 1970 as the chief engineer of switches and signals on the Long Island Railroad. I never heard him cuss, except when he talked about the Penn Central.
The 'lost trains' were reported in a story about the failed merger. As described in the paperback book "Great Business Disasters", "there was one train that just disappeared." The competing managements of the former PRR and NYC were barely speaking to each other at the CEO level, the former railroads never settled on a common operating philosophy, never mind common computer systems, data interchange or apparently anything else. Some $75 million (1960's value) had to be spent just physically connecting PRR and NYC tracks in some places. Somewhere I still have a pad of PC Form 19's (train orders), given to me by a long-passed PC train dispatcher who was a neighbor. RIP Mr. Hollis; thanks for your old timetables, forms, and the info you shared with me long ago.
I was going to comment about the entire train that must have succumbed to the Bermuda Triangle or a black hole. They never found it, you know and I assume that even today someone must be looking for it. 😉
At one point, 10% of the entire North American railcar fleet was lost somewhere in the Penn Central system. There was a whole industry for a few years of investors buying railcars through short lines to fill the demand created by not having those cars available in the rest of the country. When that bubble burst, tons of lightly used cars were returned to those shortlines and scrapped, as some shortlines actually had more cars in service than they had total track. Most of the investors had at least broken even if not made a profit though, according to a guy I know who was involved in that market at the time.
The 'per diem' cars for investors came around based on a huge tax incentive to invest in boxcars. The cars were not bought 'through short lines' but through leasing companies like ITEL, BRAE, NRUC and others. The overwhelming vast majority of those cars were not scrapped and many are in service today. Very few initial investors broke even but those who came along and bought them from the investors did well.
Penn Central wasn't actually dissolved, the US government took over the rail assets and the remaining business focused on insurance and currently goes by the name American Premier Underwriters.
@@rockguitarist931 CR was also supposed to use brown and imitation gold instead of blue and white, but it was deemed too drab, so it was changed. a very small amount of equipment, all cabooses, were painted in this scheme.
Can’t forget the time they had a train derail on a highway, in Boston, An hour before rush hour started, and also had all the brakes activated on the locomotive before it “ran away”.
As someone who lives in PA and has studied the "Standard Railroad of the World", I can understand why it's often referred to as the "Wreck of the Penn Central."
I worked the very busy extra board as a brakeman on the PC main line between Toledo and Cleveland during summer breaks from college in '70 and '71. I quit that second summer when I went to collect my paycheck and payroll had no record of me working for them.
*I quit that second summer when I went to collect my paycheck and payroll had no record of me working for them.* WTF?!?!??!?!?!???!... dirty unorganized cocksuckers
Glad to see you mention the Bangor and Aroostook! (Although it's not pronounced "banger", more like "bang-ore". I know I know... us Mainer's have an accent.. and we make it look easy. hahahha We don't have much of BAR's rails left here, lots have been redone into snowmobile and atv trails. Great content as usual! Thank you, from up in northern Maine - Bryan.
There’s one of those instances where the word “Bangor” (bang - ore) written in English seems simple enough to say. So what happened across the Penobscot in “Brewer” (brew - aa)?
Southern plains, you forgot, one railroad that merged to make the Penn Central as well. You forgot the New Haven forced too merged with New York Central in Pennsylvania because the government told them to
In every old book i can find with the colorized pictures (and a fair smount of black and white) along the New Haven, they called that forced merger a number of colorful terms, *none* of them positive.
And another reason on why merging with other railroads, if u are going to merge, have both executives try to find a way to cooperate with one another instead of butting heads at one another
This severely glosses over one very important key detail, the Pennsylvania had actually been bankrupt since 1962, and had been cooking the books all the way till merger day. they used money raised by their subsidiary's (such as the every strong Norfolk & Western, Six Flags, Lehigh Valley, Ironton Railroad, and thier many landholdings and real-estate holdings to make it look like the company was still strong. It also helped that the banks were still willing to give the PRR financing for equipment purchases and loans. On the surface, and through the official reports, the PRR looked to be turning a tidy profit. PC continued to cook the books all the way till 1970 when they got caught through an audit, and had to declare bankruptcy. The entire situation also wasnt helped by the fact they could not get unions to negotiate on standard contracts, weren't permitted or unable to combine, abandon, or sell duplicate routes and terminals, and that a good 3rd of thier locomotive fleet was produced by manufacturers that had exited the locomotive manufacturing business. Rollingstock also needed severe updates and replacement, and that too wasnt being done. Add in the already long bankrupt New York New Haven & Hartford, and that they had to give up all stock in the lucrative N&W, and they couldnt win. Now, the NYC was well on its way to returning to being a great company, but they needed to reduce competition as well as to get a massive cash infusion. they had already perfected PSR before it was called PSR, as well as being extremely innovative with not only creating transload facilities through its Flexi-Flo program, but had bulk mail on tap till USPS removed it. that essentially made all thier passenger services unprofitable, of which they had many. With the ICC forcing the end of the C&O and NYC merger plans, N&W owning the EL (and being majority owned by the PRR), they were out of options. C&O had picked up the B&O just after its bankruptcy scare on the cheap, and the C&O wanted to keep it, the WM, and take on the NYC as well. the ICC wouldnt allow that, and rejected the merger proposal. All of this forced the NYC to go to its bitter rival, which on the surface, looked alright, a bit scampy around the edges, but appeared to be doing decent for itself. had PRR just declared bankruptcy like it actually was, the whole mess could have been avoided.
I worked on Penn Central from the beginning ...You pretty much nailed it...The physical plant of the Pennsylvania RR was large and had not modernized after WW 2, and so they had miles of bridges and tunnels that needed repairs. The Central had leaped miles ahead of the PRR in technology.
I've always found it interesting how the worst RR merger in modern history ("Pain Central" - as a young NYC railfan, I can't tell you how painful that was to witness) was followed shortly by one of the most successful mergers (Burlington Northern). I'm waiting for the presentation contrasting these two in detail.😮
Unbelievable. Many years ago, I was a technician with CN Telecommunications, part of the railway. One of the systems I worked on, back in the mid 70s, was called "TRACS", which kept track of all the freight cars entering and leaving a yard, with the information sent to the mainframe computer in Montreal. On that system, there was a punch card for every car in the train. There were also printouts of the train consists, both in the yard and where ever the train was going to. BTW, CN was also formed from several bankrupt railroads. It's still going strong and has even bought some U.S. lines. There seems to be a competition between CN and Canadian Pacific to see who can acquire the most U.S. track. After the merger with Kansas City Southern, CP now reaches into Mexico!
I grew up blocks away from the Altoona Shops in the 70's through mid 80s. My father was an electrician most of the neighbors also worked there and my Uncle was a fireman on the locomotives. PRR & Penn Central were nostalgia at that time even a radio station had the call letters WPRR. I used to ask about why things changed to Conrail and mostly got "it is what it is answers". There were no new jobs at the time I graduated and most of my classmates had zero intent to work at the railroad. We saw layoffs, injuries and strikes and it didn't seem stable even if there would have been jobs at the time. Pity PRR kept other large employers out of Altoona in order to maintain their workforce and the primary employer became a local chain of convenience stores. My Uncle and Dad both told us "you don't want that life" and I understand now.
I was glad to see references to the incompatible systems as a factor in the collapse of the Penn Central. My late grandfather, who retired from the PRR about the time of the merger, said that the Penn Central would never work, because the PRR and New York Central used different signal systems. PRR used positional signals with three white lights. New York Central used red-yellow-green signals.
Really interesting to note at 5:21 it says at the time, potatoes were moved on a former Bangor & Aroostook line. Really shows how good the BAR was. And recently i saw a Bangor & Aroostook Ho scale freight train at my local model railroad club's open house. Many of the freight cars were the classic State of Maine red white and blue cars.
I have heard penn central was America’s worst railroads especially filling for bankruptcy and after hearing all that good too know it’s not around anymore, great video ❤👍🏼
During my college years at Penn State, I worked summers for the Pennsy > Penn Central as a trackman from 68-71 out of Emporium, Pa. (btw, just north of there is one of the steepest grades in the east at 2.6%). So I was there close to the start of the merger and during the bankruptcy. In the summer of '70, I recall our camp car cook had trouble cashing the Penn Central checks to buy groceries for our crew. But, no, we did not take any of those potatoes!
I really liked this video. Very informative in a great old-school way that takes me back. The...ambiance...you create is comfortable. It feels good like a nice, warm, country supper. Good job!
The shortline railroad i work for has an ex-bangor and aroostook gp38-2, still a pretty decent motor, its one of our few motors that have dynamics that work really well
I realize the Rock Island ops in Arkansas werent a huge part of the big picture. But running a line on tracks so bad that mainline speed was 5 mph and yard tracks so lousy and crooked that a snake would've been proud to crawl alongside. The Rock is right up there with this one
My dad worked at Rock Island....it was the complete opposite story, they were trying to save the railway, and in 1978 they were actually showing profit....then 1979 came along ....
@@ShawnCalay I hear ya. A guy I worked with here in Arkansas joined the Rock and moved somewhere in Illinois. We were talking one day and he complained about the current job (a local) he was working. Said the tracks crossed over another four track line. Sometimes he had to wait almost his entire shift just to get clearance to cross and the same on return. Seems things like that would surely affect the ability to make money.
@@stevearcher3921 Probably talking about Joliet Union Station. Even to this day, the Rock Island crosses two tracks of the Chicago & Alton, and two tracks of the Santa Fe.
The NS is basically the same railroad. Incompetent management, poor or no maintenance on rolling stock, locomotives, or rail bed. Rock bottom morale of employees. Even the same crappy colors of the locomotives.
And thus, Conrail was born. I grew up watching Conrail trains go around the Horseshoe Curve all the time, and my model railroad was filled with Conrail trains. Once in a while, the Southern Pacific Daylight would appear for "railfan excursions." Good memories.
The Penn Central had another (unwanted) partner that merged with it, the New Haven. BAR used to give the potatoes to the B&M who would give it to the New Haven. Then the NH gave it to the Erie to take it to Chicago...
As a business owner who has tried to ship commodities by rail, my first time was my last.. delivery windows in weeks. While cost effective and efficient, I'll use trucks, especially owner operators over rail any day.
In 1974, I went to work for one of the 6 engineering companies to inventory the 7 bankrupt northeastern railroads that wound up being formed into Conrail or abandoned lines. I still have some of the papers from all of that. At the time, that was the largest bankruptcy to ever take place. Penncentral had the ignominious distinction along with the KCS of having trains derail while standing still.
Pennsy and NYC were reeling by the time they consummated their union. PC had mikes of duplicate and non-performing track that the ICC refused to allow abandonment. PRR's Stuart Saunders signed agreements that kept superfluous employees on the payroll. Instead of a methodological combination, the two (later 3) railroads were simply to get on with it from day 1. Add to that the banks advancing funds as fast as David Bevan could sign the mortgage.
As a retired CP guy I can recall Mexican beer coming through our yard in Ontario. This was in the early 2000’s. It was loaded in plain boxcars which had endured hot roasting temps the whole up to Canada. In the summer you could hear the caps popping in the hot car. Beer would be running out the bottom of the doors. People then pay a premium for their “imported beer”. So many other stories as well apply today especially moving cars within the computer system to show that they are in the move when in fact they have moved a track away just outside yard limits where they sit and rot for days on end. PSR railroading at its finest.
From what I recall, they where two vastly different in the way the operated, both bitter rivals being forced to come together and work with each other. It was perhaps doomed from the beginning and failed because they were proud of their original heritage.
Not only was this a major blow for the Bangor & Aroostook, but it also killed 90% of the Aroostook Valley Railroads traffic, as well as CP's light rail branches in Aroostook county and northern New Brunswick.
AS A KID, I REMEMBER MY DAD SAYIN' THIS MERGER WOULDN'T EVEN LAST A YEAR! HE WAS A 33YEAR VETERAN OF THE PENNSY AND NEVER KNEW IF HE'D HAVE A JOB FROM ONE DAY TO THE NEXT! HE BUSTED ASS AS A FREIGHT HANDLER ON THE DOCKS THAT REQUIRED MEN AMONG MEN; LONG BEFORE TOWMOTORS WERE INVENTED / MEN WERE LIKE MULES PULLIN' FREIGHT ACROSS DOCKS WITH WAGONS!
The Pennsylvania and NYC were still in operation when I was a kid. The old man next door worked for the New York Central for sixty years. He retired from the railroad a couple of years before the merger. Imagine having one employer for sixty years.
Grew up next to penn central tracks a company that did know the meaning of the phrase track maintenance.I dont know how we didnt have derailments every day.
I grew up beside the Canada Southern Railway. It was a mainline of the New York Central prior to the merger. Sadly, the years of deferred maintenance and declining freight took its toll on the CaSo. When Conrail took it over, they sold it to CN and CP. It was abandoned in 1997 and torn up in 2008.
As a New Yorker I saw the whole steady depressing decline of American passenger trains all thought the 60s and 70s. The succession of RRs running trains out of Grand Central got worse and worse. My cousins lived in Westchester commuting into NYC during the day so got lotta war stories from them. New York Central had gotten bad but then Penn Central was worse, Conrail was even worse still, just appalling. Things finally improved when Metro-North RR took over ConRails commuter trains. But that was in the 80s I think.
I've heard of the potato disaster, but there's another one that I read of. Back in the days before we figured out how to synthesize insulin, it was extracted from pancreases which had been extracted from cattle. There was a reefer of beef pancreases from a meatpacking plant somewhere out on the Great Plains, headed for the Eli Lilly main pharmaceutical plant in Indianapolis. I believe it was sent by the Santa Fe, on a priority manifest freight, to either Chicago or Streator, (or maybe even Logansport, via the TP&W) and handed off to Penn Central. Somewhere between there and Indianapolis, a distance which could have been covered in a single day on a time freight, the car was lost. By the time it was discovered, the diesel for the reefer engine had run out. The result was...unpleasant.
One thing I remember is they started to repaint box cars Penne nCe trail while keeping same number. This lead to a duplications as NY CENTRAL 235 and PENNSYLVANIA 235 BOTH became PC 235! Actually because both had subsidiary lines, there could be even 4 or more with SAME NUMBER! Resulting in cars arriving with both wrong cargo.and in many cases a set of paperwork for a third shipment. What made it so stupid, neither top management realized for months what happened! Also if they had changed Numbers slighty by adding a letter like (P) or # code like (2) theu could have keep the original number but with a distinguishing difference. This alone contributed to loss
The PC was doomed from the start. Railroad acquisitions succeed by gaining new service territory. The NYC and Pennsy were direct competitors servicing most of the same areas. That strapped the PC with thousands of miles of redundant trackage to maintain and offered very little improvement to either existing service. They thought they needed the biggest possible merger so they chose eachother, but it would’ve been better if they had sought mergers with southeastern railroads instead. I think the Pennsy would still be around if they had acquired the N&W, and the NYC would still be around if they had acquired the C&O.
Great video, I had no idea this happened and Penn Central was that notorious! I guess it’s very easy to screw up a RR through lack of communication. Very informative video, big like👍🏼👍🏼😎🇺🇸
so this is where the NS playbook came from! even now, a block of freight cars will travel back and forth between terminals to finally get the odd ones billed out and classed! i'm surprised NS hasn't tried to "fix" horseshoe curve.
This is very interesting to me , i started working for metro north in 1985 , shortly after it was formed. I was told at that time metro north was created as result of Conrail leaving the passenger business. Metro north is part of the MTA along with long island rail road , new york city transit authority , MTA bus and MTA bridges and tunnels. You want to talk about incompetence and wasting money , how about this: The MTA operating budget for 2023 was $19.4 billion . Here is where the money comes from : ONLY 23% of that money was generated from the actual fare collection , 37% comes from dedicated taxes , 12% from tolls 15% from the federal covid aid 3% from subsidies , and 10% from other sources. The capital budget was another 54.8 billion over 5 years 2020 to 2024. Roughly 10 billion a year. The funding is very similar percentage wise. So if you do the math the MTA spends 29+ billion a year / 365 = thats roughly $79 million a day , and they are only collecting 23% from the actual users of the system. They have to make up 77% =$60.8 million a day from NY / NJ residents who are not using the system at all. To top it all off fare evasion cost them $690 million in 2023 , and they continue to let it happen
Kinda related but I worked for a truck wash and we constantly had trucks coming in with mostly empty trailers of potatoes they were always so hard to get out of the grooved floor
It still happens! The switch crews are given more work than they can realistically keep up with, and there’s simply not enough time to keep up with making computer entries for where every piece of equipment was placed
I lived near Pittsburgh when the merger was being debated c. 1968. There was a lot of opposition to the merger and in order to silence the opposition, the companies agreed to compromise after compromise. They should have simply cancelled the merger and simply kept operating under one or the other went broke. The survivor could suddenly become quite profitable and could pick and choose pieces of the other RR to fit into their system. Other pieces might be operated by local governments or various short line outfits. The merger wiped out the shareholders of BOTH companies. At worse, continued competition would have wiped out one set of shareholders.
Basically the American real life version of "Thomas the tank engine and friends" with the derailments, undelivered goods, mystery consists and crappy tracks
To answer your question on, how in the world do you up and lose rolling machines the size of a building? You send it off on the tracks. Geez! You know who we're dealing with.
Read the Book " The Wreck of the Penn Central" it documents the infighting between the NYC people and the PRR people also where the money went, it wasn't spent upgrading the Rail Road infrastructure and equipment, it was spent on the Biltmore Hotel and other properties that wasn't Rail Road related!! I grew up next to the NYC Dow line from Anderson Indiana to Elkhart yards, it was an extremely busy main line both North and South everyday, in the end of the Big 4 era of the NYC and into the PC era track maintenance was deferred to a point that the ties pumped mud when a Train came thru and it still was laid with jointed rail, when the Conrail era started they rebuilt everything from Anderson to Avon yards and Anderson to Elkhart yards so more tonnage could run at higher speeds!!! Now NS has the line from Anderson to Elkhart yards with a connecting track in Alexandria Indiana to access it's yard in Muncie Indiana and CSX took the Anderson yard and the routes to Ohio and East St Louis, their connections with UP and BNSF!!
BNSF failed to transport North Dakota grain in late 2014. In 2015, the grain began to rot. I never heard the total amount that the BNSF paid out for that blunder.
Another Maine railroad the potato fiasco killed was the Aroostook Valley. Potato shipments were its bread and butter with warehouses all along its tracks. Trains or Model Railroader magazine did an article on the Aroostook Valley back in the 1960s showing the daily operations - all long gone.
note most of penn central problems come from 3 things one where not allowed to sell off duplicate lines force to merge and take all debt of the New Haven railroad and company in fighting they where doing really good for the most part until the force addon of the New Haven
They didn't buy them, the government forced the Merger of the PRR, NYC and New Haven into the Penn Central, which was the worst decision in all railroad history.
Did they deliberately choose the plainest, dullest livery they could think of? A GG1 swapping the magnificent Pennsylvania Tuscan red for plain black was just sad 😕
The late sixties and early seventies were definitely not a good period for railroads in the northeastern United States. Penn Central, Erie Lackawanna, Jersey Central, Lehigh Valley, Reading... they all wound up in literal financial hell, with PC leading the way. The PC's bankruptcy would be the largest bankruptcy in US history for over three decades... until Enron happened. I used to have a book about the whole PC fiasco titled 'The Wreck of the Penn Central', which was published in the early seventies while the PC was still operating. It's worth checking out... if you can even find a copy these days, as it's been out of print for many years now.
![Would You Fall for It? [ST08]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n94-_yE4IeU/mqdefault.jpg)
Once upon a time, some financially insolvent railroads got together to form a railroad that was even more financially insolvent.
lol
Things might've been slightly better if they hadn't agreed to absorb the bankrupt New Haven as part of the merger. I read a really bizarre article in Trains magazine one time about someone who worked for the PC and supposedly saw a document that proved exactly why the NYC and PRR were so eager to merge despite all the red flags that presented themselves during the process, but the article must've been edited after it was submitted because the supposed document turned out to be a photo of the executives hanging around on a private jet with some escorts, which didn't really explain anything in the article.
@@rockguitarist931 The NYC was not Eager to Merge
@@dknowles60 The NYC was eager to merge, just not eager to merge with PRR. NYC wanted C&O, C&O said no thanks and went for B&O, and NYC even bought over 10% of B&O to somehow gain bargaining leverage. Why C&O choose B&O isn't immediately clear, as B&O was marginal itself. My guess --- only a guess ---- was that while B&O might be marginal, NYC was marginal AND with a gigantic passenger business that lost more and more money over time with the ICC still being all stubborn about force keeping passenger services. With C&O still saying no, NYC felt it had no friends left and felt cornered to merge with PRR. Read ex-NYC boss Perlman, he said it was a PRR takeover, and as an example gave that operating chief and sales chief were both ex-PRR and he couldn't fire them for incompetency as long as their overall PC boss was ex-PRR Saunders.
@@raymondpaller6475 wrong the NYC never wanted a merger with PRR The NYC was still making money . the PRR was not making money, it was a fed gov forcing the take over by the PRR
My grandfather was an engineer of switches and tracks on the PRR and retired in 1970 as the chief engineer of switches and signals on the Long Island Railroad. I never heard him cuss, except when he talked about the Penn Central.
Penn Central: We've ruined thousands of lives.
Montreal Maine And Atlantic: Hold my tank cars!
The 'lost trains' were reported in a story about the failed merger. As described in the paperback book "Great Business Disasters", "there was one train that just disappeared." The competing managements of the former PRR and NYC were barely speaking to each other at the CEO level, the former railroads never settled on a common operating philosophy, never mind common computer systems, data interchange or apparently anything else. Some $75 million (1960's value) had to be spent just physically connecting PRR and NYC tracks in some places. Somewhere I still have a pad of PC Form 19's (train orders), given to me by a long-passed PC train dispatcher who was a neighbor. RIP Mr. Hollis; thanks for your old timetables, forms, and the info you shared with me long ago.
I was going to comment about the entire train that must have succumbed to the Bermuda Triangle or a black hole. They never found it, you know and I assume that even today someone must be looking for it. 😉
At one point, 10% of the entire North American railcar fleet was lost somewhere in the Penn Central system. There was a whole industry for a few years of investors buying railcars through short lines to fill the demand created by not having those cars available in the rest of the country. When that bubble burst, tons of lightly used cars were returned to those shortlines and scrapped, as some shortlines actually had more cars in service than they had total track. Most of the investors had at least broken even if not made a profit though, according to a guy I know who was involved in that market at the time.
Are you talking about this?
ruclips.net/video/zew6obPiVXo/видео.htmlsi=4alekXOEkvXSQrzR (2024-01-10)
"some shortlines actually had more cars in service than they had total track" Amazing.
The 'per diem' cars for investors came around based on a huge tax incentive to invest in boxcars. The cars were not bought 'through short lines' but through leasing companies like ITEL, BRAE, NRUC and others. The overwhelming vast majority of those cars were not scrapped and many are in service today. Very few initial investors broke even but those who came along and bought them from the investors did well.
Penn Central wasn't actually dissolved, the US government took over the rail assets and the remaining business focused on insurance and currently goes by the name American Premier Underwriters.
I've heard that anyone who was worth their salt wound up working for Conrail, hence why the Conrail and PC liveries are so similar.
Story of American economy in the 20th century. Went from being the world's factory to selling blatantly useless financial products.
@@rockguitarist931 CR was also supposed to use brown and imitation gold instead of blue and white, but it was deemed too drab, so it was changed. a very small amount of equipment, all cabooses, were painted in this scheme.
I remember a while back American Premier Underwriters sued Amtrak about old Penn Central stock Amtrak had "unfairly". APU lost.
@@rockguitarist931 what are you talking about? The liveries look nothing alike.
"Nobody, nobody's better than the Penn Central" -Rodney Kantorski
Fact
"Penn central baby! You can count on us!"
@@OldIron2188 To lose you shipment lol
Don't tell Rodney about this video
1:42 As soon as I saw the potato in the thumbnail, all I could say was: *Bangor & Aroostook railfans are about to be LIVID!!* 😅😅😂😂
lol
“Penn central you can count on us!!”
- Rodney Kantorski
“Central Rules” and “f*ck prr” - Rodney Kantorski
“ONE OF THE GREATEST RAILROADS IN HISTORY, THE PENN CENTRAL!!!”
-Rodney Kantorsky
dammit i was gonna make that joke
He better not see this video
The Fat Controller laughed, "Ho, ho. You were wrong."
Can’t forget the time they had a train derail on a highway, in Boston, An hour before rush hour started, and also had all the brakes activated on the locomotive before it “ran away”.
"One of the greatest railroads in history, 50 years of great railroading, the Penn Central. Penn Central, you can count on us!"
-Rodney Kantorski
As someone who lives in PA and has studied the "Standard Railroad of the World", I can understand why it's often referred to as the "Wreck of the Penn Central."
Its so sad that penn central is such a bad railroad with one of the best logo ive ever seen
Agreed
well clearly thats where all the effort and time was spent.
"Sometimes called the mating worms"
I was actually scared of it when I was a little kid!
@@michigandon sure
I worked the very busy extra board as a brakeman on the PC main line between Toledo and Cleveland during summer breaks from college in '70 and '71. I quit that second summer when I went to collect my paycheck and payroll had no record of me working for them.
*I quit that second summer when I went to collect my paycheck and payroll had no record of me working for them.*
WTF?!?!??!?!?!???!... dirty unorganized cocksuckers
2 failing companies merging is like 2 drunks propping each other up
Lol
the Only Failing Company Was the PRR
only 1 was Failing, it was the PRR
Glad to see you mention the Bangor and Aroostook! (Although it's not pronounced "banger", more like "bang-ore". I know I know... us Mainer's have an accent.. and we make it look easy. hahahha We don't have much of BAR's rails left here, lots have been redone into snowmobile and atv trails. Great content as usual! Thank you, from up in northern Maine - Bryan.
I know a guy who pronounced it as “Bangor & Aerostock”
There’s one of those instances where the word “Bangor” (bang - ore) written in English seems simple enough to say. So what happened across the Penobscot in “Brewer” (brew - aa)?
Seeing as I could throw a potato at the original Bangor in County Down this lad has it right. Bang as in bang, or as in or.
@@anonemoose7777 lol Great response!
That BL2 is still around in different colors
I'm only an hour from Selkirk yard and never knew things got that bad. Great video SPF!
Southern plains, you forgot, one railroad that merged to make the Penn Central as well. You forgot the New Haven forced too merged with New York Central in Pennsylvania because the government told them to
In every old book i can find with the colorized pictures (and a fair smount of black and white) along the New Haven, they called that forced merger a number of colorful terms, *none* of them positive.
And another reason on why merging with other railroads, if u are going to merge, have both executives try to find a way to cooperate with one another instead of butting heads at one another
Rodney's not too happy about this post.
This severely glosses over one very important key detail, the Pennsylvania had actually been bankrupt since 1962, and had been cooking the books all the way till merger day. they used money raised by their subsidiary's (such as the every strong Norfolk & Western, Six Flags, Lehigh Valley, Ironton Railroad, and thier many landholdings and real-estate holdings to make it look like the company was still strong. It also helped that the banks were still willing to give the PRR financing for equipment purchases and loans. On the surface, and through the official reports, the PRR looked to be turning a tidy profit. PC continued to cook the books all the way till 1970 when they got caught through an audit, and had to declare bankruptcy.
The entire situation also wasnt helped by the fact they could not get unions to negotiate on standard contracts, weren't permitted or unable to combine, abandon, or sell duplicate routes and terminals, and that a good 3rd of thier locomotive fleet was produced by manufacturers that had exited the locomotive manufacturing business. Rollingstock also needed severe updates and replacement, and that too wasnt being done. Add in the already long bankrupt New York New Haven & Hartford, and that they had to give up all stock in the lucrative N&W, and they couldnt win.
Now, the NYC was well on its way to returning to being a great company, but they needed to reduce competition as well as to get a massive cash infusion. they had already perfected PSR before it was called PSR, as well as being extremely innovative with not only creating transload facilities through its Flexi-Flo program, but had bulk mail on tap till USPS removed it. that essentially made all thier passenger services unprofitable, of which they had many. With the ICC forcing the end of the C&O and NYC merger plans, N&W owning the EL (and being majority owned by the PRR), they were out of options. C&O had picked up the B&O just after its bankruptcy scare on the cheap, and the C&O wanted to keep it, the WM, and take on the NYC as well. the ICC wouldnt allow that, and rejected the merger proposal.
All of this forced the NYC to go to its bitter rival, which on the surface, looked alright, a bit scampy around the edges, but appeared to be doing decent for itself. had PRR just declared bankruptcy like it actually was, the whole mess could have been avoided.
I thought it filed bankruptcy because it ran out of cash, not because of an audit.
I worked on Penn Central from the beginning ...You pretty much nailed it...The physical plant of the Pennsylvania RR was large and had not modernized after WW 2, and so they had miles of bridges and tunnels that needed repairs. The Central had leaped miles ahead of the PRR in technology.
I've always found it interesting how the worst RR merger in modern history ("Pain Central" - as a young NYC railfan, I can't tell you how painful that was to witness) was followed shortly by one of the most successful mergers (Burlington Northern). I'm waiting for the presentation contrasting these two in detail.😮
Penn Central: IRL derail valley
Unbelievable. Many years ago, I was a technician with CN Telecommunications, part of the railway. One of the systems I worked on, back in the mid 70s, was called "TRACS", which kept track of all the freight cars entering and leaving a yard, with the information sent to the mainframe computer in Montreal. On that system, there was a punch card for every car in the train. There were also printouts of the train consists, both in the yard and where ever the train was going to.
BTW, CN was also formed from several bankrupt railroads. It's still going strong and has even bought some U.S. lines. There seems to be a competition between CN and Canadian Pacific to see who can acquire the most U.S. track. After the merger with Kansas City Southern, CP now reaches into Mexico!
I grew up blocks away from the Altoona Shops in the 70's through mid 80s. My father was an electrician most of the neighbors also worked there and my Uncle was a fireman on the locomotives. PRR & Penn Central were nostalgia at that time even a radio station had the call letters WPRR. I used to ask about why things changed to Conrail and mostly got "it is what it is answers". There were no new jobs at the time I graduated and most of my classmates had zero intent to work at the railroad. We saw layoffs, injuries and strikes and it didn't seem stable even if there would have been jobs at the time. Pity PRR kept other large employers out of Altoona in order to maintain their workforce and the primary employer became a local chain of convenience stores. My Uncle and Dad both told us "you don't want that life" and I understand now.
I was glad to see references to the incompatible systems as a factor in the collapse of the Penn Central. My late grandfather, who retired from the PRR about the time of the merger, said that the Penn Central would never work, because the PRR and New York Central used different signal systems. PRR used positional signals with three white lights. New York Central used red-yellow-green signals.
that was with yellow lights
Really interesting to note at 5:21 it says at the time, potatoes were moved on a former Bangor & Aroostook line. Really shows how good the BAR was.
And recently i saw a Bangor & Aroostook Ho scale freight train at my local model railroad club's open house.
Many of the freight cars were the classic State of Maine red white and blue cars.
I have heard penn central was America’s worst railroads especially filling for bankruptcy and after hearing all that good too know it’s not around anymore, great video ❤👍🏼
Banger of a video. Maybe do a video on Amtrak or passenger rail 😅.
Rodney wont be happy with this one
During my college years at Penn State, I worked summers for the Pennsy > Penn Central as a trackman from 68-71 out of Emporium, Pa. (btw, just north of there is one of the steepest grades in the east at 2.6%). So I was there close to the start of the merger and during the bankruptcy. In the summer of '70, I recall our camp car cook had trouble cashing the Penn Central checks to buy groceries for our crew. But, no, we did not take any of those potatoes!
“Penn Central is a Best Railroad Ever!”
- Rodney Kantorski
I really liked this video. Very informative in a great old-school way that takes me back. The...ambiance...you create is comfortable. It feels good like a nice, warm, country supper. Good job!
Oh boy I can’t imagine Rodney catorski watching this
The shortline railroad i work for has an ex-bangor and aroostook gp38-2, still a pretty decent motor, its one of our few motors that have dynamics that work really well
I realize the Rock Island ops in Arkansas werent a huge part of the big picture. But running a line on tracks so bad that mainline speed was 5 mph and yard tracks so lousy and crooked that a snake would've been proud to crawl alongside. The Rock is right up there with this one
My dad worked at Rock Island....it was the complete opposite story, they were trying to save the railway, and in 1978 they were actually showing profit....then 1979 came along ....
@@ShawnCalay
I hear ya. A guy I worked with here in Arkansas joined the Rock and moved somewhere in Illinois. We were talking one day and he complained about the current job (a local) he was working. Said the tracks crossed over another four track line. Sometimes he had to wait almost his entire shift just to get clearance to cross and the same on return. Seems things like that would surely affect the ability to make money.
@@stevearcher3921 Probably talking about Joliet Union Station. Even to this day, the Rock Island crosses two tracks of the Chicago & Alton, and two tracks of the Santa Fe.
The NS is basically the same railroad. Incompetent management, poor or no maintenance on rolling stock, locomotives, or rail bed. Rock bottom morale of employees. Even the same crappy colors of the locomotives.
And thus, Conrail was born. I grew up watching Conrail trains go around the Horseshoe Curve all the time, and my model railroad was filled with Conrail trains. Once in a while, the Southern Pacific Daylight would appear for "railfan excursions." Good memories.
The Penn Central had another (unwanted) partner that merged with it, the New Haven. BAR used to give the potatoes to the B&M who would give it to the New Haven. Then the NH gave it to the Erie to take it to Chicago...
I love Penn Central
As a business owner who has tried to ship commodities by rail, my first time was my last.. delivery windows in weeks. While cost effective and efficient, I'll use trucks, especially owner operators over rail any day.
In 1974, I went to work for one of the 6 engineering companies to inventory the 7 bankrupt northeastern railroads that wound up being formed into Conrail or abandoned lines. I still have some of the papers from all of that. At the time, that was the largest bankruptcy to ever take place.
Penncentral had the ignominious distinction along with the KCS of having trains derail while standing still.
When did KCS have that issue? I though they were a decent railroad.
Pennsy and NYC were reeling by the time they consummated their union. PC had mikes of duplicate and non-performing track that the ICC refused to allow abandonment. PRR's Stuart Saunders signed agreements that kept superfluous employees on the payroll.
Instead of a methodological combination, the two (later 3) railroads were simply to get on with it from day 1. Add to that the banks advancing funds as fast as David Bevan could sign the mortgage.
but there was nothing stoping from useing the good track on the NYC and runing 1 train on the Prr, Con rail did that with out the Icc ok
As a retired CP guy I can recall Mexican beer coming through our yard in Ontario. This was in the early 2000’s. It was loaded in plain boxcars which had endured hot roasting temps the whole up to Canada. In the summer you could hear the caps popping in the hot car. Beer would be running out the bottom of the doors. People then pay a premium for their “imported beer”. So many other stories as well apply today especially moving cars within the computer system to show that they are in the move when in fact they have moved a track away just outside yard limits where they sit and rot for days on end. PSR railroading at its finest.
From what I recall, they where two vastly different in the way the operated, both bitter rivals being forced to come together and work with each other. It was perhaps doomed from the beginning and failed because they were proud of their original heritage.
but the NYCF was making Money and the PRR was not
Not only was this a major blow for the Bangor & Aroostook, but it also killed 90% of the Aroostook Valley Railroads traffic, as well as CP's light rail branches in Aroostook county and northern New Brunswick.
THE PENN CENTRAL! 50 YEARS OF GREAT RAILROADING! PENN CENTRAL BABY!!!
-Rodney Kantorsky
AS A KID, I REMEMBER MY DAD SAYIN' THIS MERGER WOULDN'T EVEN LAST A YEAR! HE WAS A 33YEAR VETERAN OF THE PENNSY AND NEVER KNEW IF HE'D HAVE A JOB FROM ONE DAY TO THE NEXT! HE BUSTED ASS AS A FREIGHT HANDLER ON THE DOCKS THAT REQUIRED MEN AMONG MEN; LONG BEFORE TOWMOTORS WERE INVENTED / MEN WERE LIKE MULES PULLIN' FREIGHT ACROSS DOCKS WITH WAGONS!
The Pennsylvania and NYC were still in operation when I was a kid. The old man next door worked for the New York Central for sixty years. He retired from the railroad a couple of years before the merger. Imagine having one employer for sixty years.
Worked there - sometimes daily derailments.
I'm all like so seriously dude be trippin' and this video pops up, like whoa slow down and enjoy the ride, y'know? Feel me?
Grew up next to penn central tracks a company that did know the meaning of the phrase track maintenance.I dont know how we didnt have derailments every day.
that was the PRR side
Like the video I never would’ve known that if it wasn’t you, so thank you for that information
I grew up beside the Canada Southern Railway. It was a mainline of the New York Central prior to the merger. Sadly, the years of deferred maintenance and declining freight took its toll on the CaSo. When Conrail took it over, they sold it to CN and CP. It was abandoned in 1997 and torn up in 2008.
like that lines was needed after 1955,
As a New Yorker I saw the whole steady depressing decline of American passenger trains all thought the 60s and 70s. The succession of RRs running trains out of Grand Central got worse and worse. My cousins lived in Westchester commuting into NYC during the day so got lotta war stories from them.
New York Central had gotten bad but then Penn Central was worse, Conrail was even worse still, just appalling. Things finally improved when Metro-North RR took over ConRails commuter trains. But that was in the 80s I think.
I've heard of the potato disaster, but there's another one that I read of. Back in the days before we figured out how to synthesize insulin, it was extracted from pancreases which had been extracted from cattle. There was a reefer of beef pancreases from a meatpacking plant somewhere out on the Great Plains, headed for the Eli Lilly main pharmaceutical plant in Indianapolis. I believe it was sent by the Santa Fe, on a priority manifest freight, to either Chicago or Streator, (or maybe even Logansport, via the TP&W) and handed off to Penn Central. Somewhere between there and Indianapolis, a distance which could have been covered in a single day on a time freight, the car was lost. By the time it was discovered, the diesel for the reefer engine had run out. The result was...unpleasant.
You should tell more stories like this
What a calamity. Thanks for this educational video.
One thing I remember is they started to repaint box cars Penne nCe trail while keeping same number.
This lead to a duplications as NY CENTRAL 235 and PENNSYLVANIA 235
BOTH
became PC 235! Actually because both had subsidiary lines, there could be even 4 or more with SAME NUMBER! Resulting in cars arriving with both wrong cargo.and in many cases a set of paperwork for a third shipment.
What made it so stupid, neither top management realized for months what happened!
Also if they had changed Numbers slighty by adding a letter like (P) or # code like (2) theu could have keep the original number but with a distinguishing difference.
This alone contributed to loss
The PC was doomed from the start. Railroad acquisitions succeed by gaining new service territory. The NYC and Pennsy were direct competitors servicing most of the same areas. That strapped the PC with thousands of miles of redundant trackage to maintain and offered very little improvement to either existing service. They thought they needed the biggest possible merger so they chose eachother, but it would’ve been better if they had sought mergers with southeastern railroads instead. I think the Pennsy would still be around if they had acquired the N&W, and the NYC would still be around if they had acquired the C&O.
the N&W the not want the PRR. no body wanted the PRR.
Great video, I had no idea this happened and Penn Central was that notorious! I guess it’s very easy to screw up a RR through lack of communication. Very informative video, big like👍🏼👍🏼😎🇺🇸
Nice video, sad to see derailment. We love our train videos in Clemson SC, Go Tigers!
This circus sounds like Union Pacific today!
Oh I see what you did you sneaky little devil by placing that Farmrail switchlist in there! 😂
I remember that a financial advisor commented that you should invest in a business that could be run by an idiot because sooner or later it will be.
So much for the "You Can Count on Us!" slogan. All I learned was I can _count on them_ to screw around
So demolishing New York’s Pennsylvania Station in 1963 was only the tip of how bad Penn Central was
so this is where the NS playbook came from! even now, a block of freight cars will travel back and forth between terminals to finally get the odd ones billed out and classed! i'm surprised NS hasn't tried to "fix" horseshoe curve.
and what could Ns do to fix Horseshoe curve
Bangor&Aroostook’s biggest mistake
This is very interesting to me , i started working for metro north in 1985 , shortly after it was formed. I was told at that time metro north was created as result of Conrail leaving the passenger business.
Metro north is part of the MTA along with long island rail road , new york city transit authority , MTA bus and MTA bridges and tunnels.
You want to talk about incompetence and wasting money , how about this: The MTA operating budget for 2023 was $19.4 billion . Here is where the money comes from : ONLY 23% of that money was generated from the actual fare collection , 37% comes from dedicated taxes , 12% from tolls 15% from the federal covid aid 3% from subsidies , and 10% from other sources.
The capital budget was another 54.8 billion over 5 years 2020 to 2024. Roughly 10 billion a year. The funding is very similar percentage wise.
So if you do the math the MTA spends 29+ billion a year / 365 = thats roughly $79 million a day , and they are only collecting 23% from the actual users of the system.
They have to make up 77% =$60.8 million a day from NY / NJ residents who are not using the system at all. To top it all off fare evasion cost them $690 million in 2023 , and they continue to let it happen
Like PRECISION SCHEDULED RAILROADING?
Kinda related but I worked for a truck wash and we constantly had trucks coming in with mostly empty trailers of potatoes they were always so hard to get out of the grooved floor
How can you lose cars? An entire consist? That's a no-no. That's dispatching 101.
It still happens! The switch crews are given more work than they can realistically keep up with, and there’s simply not enough time to keep up with making computer entries for where every piece of equipment was placed
I lived near Pittsburgh when the merger was being debated c. 1968. There was a lot of opposition to the merger and in order to silence the opposition, the companies agreed to compromise after compromise. They should have simply cancelled the merger and simply kept operating under one or the other went broke. The survivor could suddenly become quite profitable and could pick and choose pieces of the other RR to fit into their system. Other pieces might be operated by local governments or various short line outfits.
The merger wiped out the shareholders of BOTH companies. At worse, continued competition would have wiped out one set of shareholders.
Basically the American real life version of "Thomas the tank engine and friends" with the derailments, undelivered goods, mystery consists and crappy tracks
And I thought British Rail was incompetent.
To answer your question on, how in the world do you up and lose rolling machines the size of a building? You send it off on the tracks. Geez! You know who we're dealing with.
The Milwaukee Road went down the similar path as Penn-Pathetic Central.
Read the Book " The Wreck of the Penn Central" it documents
the infighting between the NYC
people and the PRR people also where the money went, it
wasn't spent upgrading the Rail Road infrastructure and equipment, it was spent on the
Biltmore Hotel and other properties that wasn't Rail Road related!! I grew up next to
the NYC Dow line from Anderson Indiana to Elkhart yards, it was an extremely busy main line both North and South everyday, in the end of the Big 4 era of the NYC and into the PC era track maintenance was deferred to a
point that the ties pumped mud when a Train came thru and it still was laid with
jointed rail, when the Conrail era started they rebuilt everything from Anderson to Avon yards and Anderson to
Elkhart yards so more tonnage
could run at higher speeds!!!
Now NS has the line from Anderson to Elkhart yards with
a connecting track in Alexandria Indiana to access it's yard in Muncie Indiana and
CSX took the Anderson yard and the routes to Ohio and East St Louis, their connections with UP and BNSF!!
This sounds like something fresh out of the 50's!
it sounds like a horror story from the USSR about their many attempts to regulate themselves into superiority over the West
The penn central was a very incompetent railroad but its fun too model in HO scale. LOL🤣.Great video.
“PENN CENTRAL YOU CAN COUNT ON US!!!!” -Rodney Kantorski
BNSF failed to transport North Dakota grain in late 2014. In 2015, the grain began to rot. I never heard the total amount that the BNSF paid out for that blunder.
Mystery trains? Oh man I didn't know it was that bad.
Milwaukee Road, ruined by incompetence.
Poukeepsie bridge fire lots of question marks.
Another Maine railroad the potato fiasco killed was the Aroostook Valley. Potato shipments were its bread and butter with warehouses all along its tracks. Trains or Model Railroader magazine did an article on the Aroostook Valley back in the 1960s showing the daily operations - all long gone.
note most of penn central problems come from 3 things one where not allowed to sell off duplicate lines force to merge and take all debt of the New Haven railroad and company in fighting they where doing really good for the most part until the force addon of the New Haven
Penn Central also bought the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad.
They didn't buy them, the government forced the Merger of the PRR, NYC and New Haven into the Penn Central, which was the worst decision in all railroad history.
was forced to by the Fed gov
Would see Penn Central go between Detroit and Chicago as well as Amtrak on the same tracks
Did they deliberately choose the plainest, dullest livery they could think of? A GG1 swapping the magnificent Pennsylvania Tuscan red for plain black was just sad 😕
What’s the background song?????
So basically when I'm catching from this whole situation. Penn Central almost destroyed the railroad in industry as a whole.
Ah yes, the Potato Central.
Coming back to this video for the PC’s birthday!
The late sixties and early seventies were definitely not a good period for railroads in the northeastern United States. Penn Central, Erie Lackawanna, Jersey Central, Lehigh Valley, Reading... they all wound up in literal financial hell, with PC leading the way. The PC's bankruptcy would be the largest bankruptcy in US history for over three decades... until Enron happened.
I used to have a book about the whole PC fiasco titled 'The Wreck of the Penn Central', which was published in the early seventies while the PC was still operating. It's worth checking out... if you can even find a copy these days, as it's been out of print for many years now.
at least Penn Central didn't derail on horseshoe curve
Remembering the book, The Wreck Of The Penn Central.