The Erie Lackawanna was the first railroad that I remember. My father used to commute on them from Lincoln Park, NJ to NYC and back. My Mom would take me down to the station to pick him up and remember the big U34CH locos painted in the EL/NJDOT black paint scheme with the red EL logo on the front.
I'm so glad you did a video on the E-L merger. I went to college in Scranton, PA, and hometown railroad DL&W has been my favorite ever since. E-L had the best chance of escaping the fate of all northeast railroads in the 60s and 70s in my opinion, and the fact that it couldn't shows you how much it was up against. All the former anthracite-hauling roads (DL&W, Erie, D&H, Lehigh Valley, Reading, Jersey Central) were already facing an existential crisis well before the 1950s as people switched from anthracite to oil and gas for home heating, causing their main source of revenue to wither. All of their routes paralleled each other, and several (particularly the Erie, DL&W, and Jersey Central) were saddled with money-losing-but-essential commuter operations near NYC. The boom in traffic caused by WWII granted only a temporary reprieve. Then came the 1950s and the rise of new modes of competition in the form of government-subsidized projects like the Interstate Highway system, FAA-run airways and government-built airports, and the St. Lawrence Seaway (this allowed greater shipping traffic to Chicago via the Great Lakes, bypassing eastern railroads entirely). The ICC's outdated regulations and the fact that, in contrast to the completely subsidized Interstates, the railroads' right-of-ways were taxed by the states through which they ran (NJ was notorious for this) were the cherry on top of the disaster sundae. However, the E-L merger has left its mark if you know where to look. The most obvious is the huge, brightly-lit sign over Hoboken Terminal facing Manhattan reading "Erie Lackawanna." NJ Transit's Hoboken Division still operates commuter services on the old E-L lines. The Montclair-Boonton Line in particular is an amalgamation of two branch lines, one each from the Erie and DL&W, that is a direct result of the merger and combining of redundant trackage. As mentioned in the video, Conrail abandoned the former E-L/DL&W main line, but regional road Delaware-Lackawanna now operates the segment between Scranton and the Delaware Water Gap. Norfolk Southern operates the former E-L trackage north of Scranton into New York's Lower Tier. The western part of the Lackawanna Cut-off that once connected the present-day Delaware-Lackawanna at East Stroudsburg, PA to the current terminus of NJT's Morristown Line at Hackettstown, NJ remains abandoned but, due to its well-engineered structures, is still easily visible (the massive concrete arch bridge over the Delaware River is hard to miss as you drive under it on I-80). New Jersey bought the right-of-way, and there are hopes to restore passenger service as far as Scranton in the future.
I'm glad that somebody else realized the cost of providing commuter services into NYC and the impact that had on their overall operations. On some roads, long distance trains might even break even if there were enough post office cars on the train, when the PO pulled out of railroad operations it wasn't long before the trains themselves disappeared. I used to ride the Phoebe Snow going to college in upstate NY and I still miss that train. Another factor little discussed in the real estate taxes levied on railroads, I suspect that more often than not, when a RR proposed abandonment of a branch line the town folks are not crying about loss of service but rather loss of tax revenue. Sales taxes also apply to industrial investments, so buying a new locomotive is a good day for the tax collector. NY and NJ are both big on sales taxes. I remember a story about the New Haven, a particular station in one of their nicer communities had been rather nice but was run down over the years, some town citizens started a drive to get the RR to fix it up, they did and for a short time everybody was happy. Then the evil tax assessor paid a visit hitting the RR where it hurt, shortly thereafter the crane with the ball of death appeared reducing the nice station to rubble, they parked one of those trailer offices construction cos. use and keeping the wheels on it so it is still 'mobile' and not taxed. Both of these roads had problems after the coal business died as they had very little industrial activity located along their lines, NJ was once a big industrial state but between unions and taxes that all changed after WW2, this meant that much of their freight revenue was shared with another line who saw the origination or termination of the traffic. The Erie and the Lackawanna did at least a fair job of merger planning and they were able to retire a number of duplicative assets (two almost parallel main lines) unlike the mess that the PennCentral did with theirs. Combining the operation of two class 1 railroads is never an easy task. The end of this railway was probably more related to the Penn Central collapse than bad operation by the Erie Lac, I believe they were still marginally profitable till the end.
The "Montclair Boonton" Line is a combination of three, not two branches. From Hoboken, trains run on the Lackawanna Morris & Essex/Montclair line to Montclair, where they switch to the former Erie Greenwood Lake Branch. At Mountain View, trains move to the former Lackawanna Boonton Line to and sometimes west of Dover.
The favourite railroad of one of my best friends back in the old country, Sweden....he's as obsessed with DL&W, Erie and Erie Lackawanna as I'm obsessed with Milwaukee Road! Keep 'em videos coming! 🤜🏻🤛🏻🍻 Greetings from a Swede in Glasgow, Scotland!
Really enjoyed this video awesome stuff. My grandfather worked for the Erie Lackawanna from the beginning until the end at the Conrail merger he decided to retire. Along with a couple other RRs before that. He's passed on now but we keep it alive, Him and the EL, have a model railroad dedicated to the EL along with tons of stuff he left us from his days on the rail. It's a part of history that a day doesn't go by that I don't think about.
@@huckstaunfiltered8200 that is awesome it's the little things like that that keep the memories golden. And yeah we miss him every day but he enjoyed his job and had a good life as I'm sure your grandfather did as well. Best Wishes!
Nice job on the history of the E-L merger. Hurricane Agnes and the labor union issue were the two final nails in the coffin. My Dad worked at the E-L (formerly Erie) Repair Shops in Hornell, NY. The first thing ConRail did when they took over on April 1, 1976 was to announce the closure of the Shops, which devastated the local economy. Later, General Electric moved in for four years, so many former E-L employees (like my Dad) who decided not to take the offer to transfer to the ConRail Altoona, PA Repair Shops, were able to return to work. After GE left, Morrison-Knudsen moved in. Now Alstom is building the next generation Amtrak Acela units, continuing the railroad tradition in the area.
I appreciate how your videos go in depth into the operational and management sides of these famous railroads instead of just their main lines and rolling stock. Not too many videos cover this vital portion of the railroad, as well as the various possibilities of what could have been, especially with the Chessie attempting to acquire EL. I also never knew the Erie Western existed either. Looks like a pretty interesting shortline, with designs reminiscent of present day grain plant operators.
Erie Lackawanna was abandoned by Conrail. Conrail was purchased by both CSX AND NORFOLK & SOUTHERN. I'm surprised they didn't retain parts of the ERIE from Conrail and operate on that line into Chicago.
CR didn't need three lines into Chicago,that why they abandoned the PRR Panhandle line.They just kept the two NYC Lines west of Cleveland.The Big Four to St Louis and the Chicago Line
I'm from Marion, Ohio and I get to drive past the old ghosts of the Erie Lackawanna every day... Sad to see I wise I got to see them run back in the day...
After Hurricane Agnes in 1972. The Erie Lackawanna was heavily damaged by the storm. Chessie system was interested in absorbing the erie-lackawanna but the unions demanded six-man crew trains witches featherbedding in the extreme. The Railroad Union extreme demand killed any chance of survival the Erie Lackawanna had outside of Conrail. In trying to save a few jobs Union lost them all.
The traffic was gone! The bonds blew up. The banks wanted a bailout, so assets the bonds were connected too were sold to pay to pay off debt. It was a court action. The fire on the bridge that locals say Penn Central railroad police set was the end. Cut the Union crap, the traffic was the issue. I can assure you management sucked every dime they could. Even as the assets were sold.
Im happy I got to see my town, Spencerville, on the map. My grandparents were around to see the Erie Lackawanna and told me there was a train about every 30 minutes! Now there's only one every two weeks because RJ corman owns the line now and west end of tracks that continued west through Elgin was torn up but not the east end that's around the mill. Lima still has some of it is still standing but very overgrown, I have managed to find a train signal at MP 67, between Spencerville and Elgin, that Erie Lackawanna may of used but the signal part is missing.
The reason why chessie probably didn't consult with unions is because Chessie is a Virginia based company and southern states didn't work the unions at the time
Chessie tried working with the unions of EL. EL used 6 men crew and chessie 5 men crew on their trains. EL union refused to give up on 6 men crew. The reason the union refused to budge on that was they knew EL was going into Conrail and they would get a very generous severance pay. It is the fault of the US congress offering such severance pay that was unprecedented in a corporation. As an example a 25 to 30 year employee got life time severance pay. It was prorated on years of service
That is not the case. Chessie tried to get EL union to agree to 5 men crew on their trains instead of 6 men crew used on EL. The reason EL union did not give in on this was due to the ridiculous severance pay US congress set up. A 30 year employee got life time severance pay. It was then prorated by their years of service. Nothing like this was ever done in any corporation. Chessie wanted the Erie from Akron Ohio on east. West of Akron it was to be abandoned by Conrail. Blame EL union for Chessie not getting it
I grew up in Clarks Summit, PA, the highest point of DL&W's main line north of Scranton. I was home for summer college break when Agnes hit, and it was mind-boggling. Rained for four days. Flood recovery in Wilkes-Barre was slowed down because the phone lines had been cut by boat props! During the recovery one local station reported the EL had suffered over 100 bridges and culverts had been damaged or destroyed, and that recovery would take years. Crying shame. Conrail abandoned and remove about 26 miles of trackage in NW New Jersey, the Lackawanna Cutoff. When it was built it was one of the largest rail construction projects east of the Mississippi. From first proposal to first train run took less than 5 years. New Jersey Transit proposed reopening this route to ease commuter problems in 2003. To date, 2023, they have reopened less than four miles, and one station.
The two lines, along with the PRR and Lehigh Valley, both ran through the town I grew up in. That would be the Elmira/Horseheads, NY area. Just a single track if the Erie mainline remains, and the Lackawanna right of way is almost completely gone.
My grandparents lived on the Lackawanna main line west of Painted Post, N.Y, and I rode the Phoebe Snow from Buffalo to Corning several times. If I remember correctly, the Erie tracks were less than one-half mile away, and they served the Ingersoll-Rand foundry. My grandparents house was flooded up to the second floor during the hurricane. It was really sad to see the Lackawanna go under. Really enjoyed the video.
it could have happened. In the early 70's, the Santa Fe rang the president of the EL and wanted to talk about a merger but EL replied they were too far down the road with their commitment to Conrail by that point. Merging with the Sante Fe would have created the USA's first coast to coast railroad.
Have you thought of doing something on the white pass and yukon ? They survived until 1983 as a common carrier before shutting down for 5 years and lying dormant until rising like a phoenix and becoming one of the best trips in Alaska
I’m noticing a theme with failed railroad mergers. There’s almost always a “do things the way we’ve always done them” group and a progressive group trying to work together to run the railroad. The “do things the way we’ve always done them” almost always comes from the railroad that was worse off, and they usually end up winning out in board meetings. And thus the merger eventually fails.
It's probably because the top brass are worried that the progressive group's suggestions could have so many problems that just haven't became apparent yet
it's been long rumored but never proven or debunked for that matter that the Maybrook bridge was burned on purpose by the Penn Central. As an interesting side note, the bridge still exists to this day and has been repaired as a pedestrian bridge.
That was because the security and fire fighting equipment on the bridge was cut after the merger. Penncentral had tried to stop the traffic that was going to E-L at Maybrook and they (Penncentral) had lost several legal fights about it. When the bridge burned it stopped the traffic at Maybrook to the E-L and Penncentral was broke anyway so they could just ignore the court ordered payments to E-L. In many ways the E-L line to Chicago was superior to Penncentral routes as it was cheaper to operate and had fewer opportunities for delays between Chicago and New York so the service was more predictable and shippers had been specifying the route until Penncentral started a campaign to delay traffic that was routed to E-L at MAybrook.
@@keithstudly6071 was not, the NYC water lever route was a lot cheaper to run. the El needed 3 sd 45's to get the train to marion on then 2 sd 45's to get the Train to Chicago Pluss helpers around Scranton Pa and Susquehanna pA, the Nyc water dould get the Same job done with 2 Gp 40 From Nyc to Chicago and fewer crew change points, Ps i watch some El trains in Lima Oh
Next, cover the Virginian Railway, "The Richest little Railroad in the World". If you cannot make a joke out of that, I would be very disapointed. And it is an actual success story of two rail companies merging, though the dirty little secret is that both the Deepwater and Tidewater Railways were run by the same people.
The Virginian, with its founder and original headquarters being near where I grew up, is considered my “hometown railroad”. I’m always down for any videos on the Virginian
The Chicago & Indiana RR was not meant to try and have a go at making it… it was formed to finish serving the few remaining customers after the Erie Western went under…. It gave time for them to change over to trucking shippers or alt rail. There were a couple smaller short lines that formed after that for local work, basically to transfer cars to the nearest class 1 RR
I stayed at the Erie/Lackawanna hotel. Which is the former train station. Talk about vertigo i was in a top floor. The building has no floors just catwalk. But beautiful. I was there in 2020 working the traffic control for a lane clouser on I84 and I80 for the bridge inspection/repairs there then. They set up k-rails/jersey barriers but went to slipknot concert with a Peterbiilt TMA.
That space above the stained glass skylight is definitely odd. I'm glad it was saved; I grew up in the area and remember reports about repeated vandalism of the building when it stood abandoned circa 1980. The city was in pretty bad shape then, with increasing downtown vacancy and dwindling finances. Much of Lackawanna Ave had dilapidated buildings, particularly where the mall now stands, and a block from the station was the massive Hotel Casey closed (where the garage with Bartari now stands.)
I was there for 3 weeks. And there were crews that were there hired to restore the building. That was back in 2020 or 2021. I live in Allentown and it was killing me waking up 2am to go king of Prussia to pick up a TMA to drive to Scranton. So i got a room there and per diem for staying out of town.
Rock Island had the same issues. Everywhere the Rock went there is a interstate highway. Rockets came off as the mail and express went to GM trucks. Now XPO. The bonds were bought for nothing by Henry Crown. When they blew up and Rock had no money to pay the coupon. He went to court and got the railroad closed down. Assets the bonds were connected to sold off and he walked away with millions. The company continued as Chicago Pacific. And was bought by Magtag washers which was sold to a Swedish appliance maker. The Company history and brand were recently sold to a short line and now operates again! Look them up if ya want.
You should cover the Lehigh and New England in the future, it has a similar story to EL and some of the things that brought about their downfall could be a lesson for the Class 1s today.
Good job on this subject. It still ticks me off about the way N&W dropped the EL after Hurricane Agnes caused so much damage. Think about this, if the N&W would have kept the EL they would have had a direct connection to the New York market. The EL was running TOFC and container traffic from Chicago to New York on a 24 hour schedule. Something the PC couldn’t do. BTW that issue of Chessie and the unions also applies to the Reading Railroad. Don’t know about the pay scale but it had to do with Reading employees losing their seniority, basically they would have to start like a new employee. The Reading folks said NO, and the Reading ended up in Conrail.
Very interesting!! Thanks for the effort you put into this. I remember the Erie Lackawanna during the Penn Central era. You’re personally reminds me of Cody Johnston from the TH-cam channel Some More News
@@thomasbush8663 Pavonia/Newport on the PATH is further in from the water than the Erie station. They had some kind of moving walkway there at some point to mitigate the walking distance. Where the light rail runs used to be all yard tracks & such. The whole area was basically rail yard up to the river.
The Erie terminal was wood and was in very sad physical condition. It was said that the only reason that the building didn't fall in was because the termites held hands.
To show you how the government work with Railroad when the bankrupt New Haven was forced upon the Penn Central and further killed it. In order to replace the passenger service for commuters the New Haven provided for the government made three different Transportation agencies that spent 10 times the amount of money that they could have spent to just buy the New Haven railroad Lock Stock & Barrel.
Could you do Chicago and Northwestern eventually? I don’t know much about what happened to them before they were sold to the employees but I’ve always liked them. Or the Rock Island, as I’m a conductor for Kyle Railroad in Kansas and we run on they’re old mainline.
It would have been nice if Chessie was able to acquire EL. As a result of this, the D&H was granted trackage rights over parts of CR, thus providing a (rather meager) form of competition. But I would have loved to see Chessie have an expanded presence in the Northeast. R.I.P. to the Erie Lack of Money.
@@fanofeverything30465 How about Erie-Lackawampum? Erie and B&O crossed both at Sterling, Ohio and Akron, Ohio, both on shallow movable point crossovers, so connecting the pieces at either of those points would not have been that difficult. B&O had the easier grade between Sterling and Akron, but came at it in a more roundabout way, swinging South through Clinton, Ohio (Warwick Jct.) where the line to Holloway and Wheeling came off (now RJ Corman to Dover), then shared RoW and trackage with Pennsy/PC from there to Akron Jct., operating the two separately owned tracks as one route, under B&O signaling. The Erie had the more direct route to Akron, and then on east to Youngstown, but had a significant grade in Wadsworth Hill in both directions West of Barberton. The Erie always had the faster route through Akron, fairly level through town, and the straight shot at the B&O crossover, while the B&O, which arrived in Akron later, dropped down into the valley of the Little Cuyahoga River and had to climb out of it on the ruling grade between Willard and New Castle (1.1% Eastbound). Connecting the two in downtown Akron at JO interlocking would have made the most sense, it would have straightened out the B&O at that point and they could have avoided the slower crossover route of the two there. Chessie could have used the E-L to Youngstown, or kept going on up into Southern NY. B&O/Chessie used trackage rights on the P&LE from Youngstown to Pittsburgh for most through traffic, their own route was a windy and hilly single-track line over Bakerstown Hill, still in use by a short line. Taking the eastern end of the E-L would have given Chessie access to the New York City area over 20 years earlier than they got in the division of Conrail in 1999.
Actually, much of the Penn Central's mishandling of freight was due to the negligence and apathy of its surrounding railroads in the area. One of the largest obstacles it had to overcome in the months following the merger was the radically different ways the New York Central and Pennsylvania moved freight. NYC's freight yards were mostly modernized by that time, whereas those of the Pennsylvania were still operated the same way they'd been since the turn of the 20th century. In addition, the two railroads used entirely different methods for classifying freight traffic. So the PC's management asked all the other surrounding railroads which it did business with to continue to separate freight traffic as they did before the merger until the PC could reorganize and consolidate its methods of handling freight. The PC had also prepared detailed instructions for the other railroads how to do this while still taking into account that technically, there was now only one railroad. But the other railroads totally ignored the PC's request and sent incoming freight traffic to whichever yard they felt to be most convenient. As for what happened to the freight after it was handed off to the PC, well, they didn't consider it to be their problem. The end result was a predictable series of multiple clusterfucks all leading to diminished freight traffic.
Yo HITD! Have you ever heard about a Japanese Man during WW2 who is behind the plan to help the Jews escape Nazi Germany to the Japanese ocupided lands. This saved him from Execution during the Tokyo trials, he ended up as the first Ambassador for Israel in 1952.
great video, a book titled " Death of an American Railroad, 1938-1992" by H. Roger Grant is a great read about the history of the Erie and the Erie Lackawanna railroad
Hey I got news for the reader. it was NOT A HAPPY ENDING FOR EMPLOYEES, TOWNS, OR CUSTOMERS. JUST WALL STREET! AND THE TRUCKERS AND ROAD BUILDERS. Don't believe all of what Grant said. He was right in there with top management that sucked every dollar out of the company to the last day. He was not a customer nor employee or lived in the towns wrecked by it's loss.
It’s only my opinion based on the stuff I’ve read, but I wonder, when PennCentral went bankrupt I often wonder if the ICC would’ve just broke the PennCentral up back to pre merger status including NH would some of these other roads been able to survive, especially since commuter service was to be taken over by local state governments?? Idk just a thought??……
@@fanofeverything30465 Yes the NYC was in the best shape in 1968 and 1976. Most of the Money Conrail spent Rebuilding was On the PRR side. The fed gov never should have oked the Merger as the Prr was losing money in most years After WW2 and was proped up by N&W stock divends
A lot of EL track goes thru areas with no traffic potential, i.e. the southern tier of NY, one vast rust belt, a region that features NY level taxes and appalachian economics to pay them. Ohio and Indiana don't have the taxes but they don't have much to offer either.
And this is why railfans most popular pastime is dreaming up an alternate reality in which the Penn Central was successful. Don't lie, you've done it too.
Ah! I was preparing a video on the history of the EL! It's a long an arduous process but hopefully one day I can get it done! Also I don't get how you could have "the best engineered line" across a state that was already pretty flat to begin with A few more interesting things: - I believe it's pronounced Shoe-MAKER not Schumacher - White did actually manage to get rid of a lot of short branch lines in New Jersey in 1966 - Refusal of the unions to cooperate with each other made it so that some people said the EL didn't exist as one until June 1961 - The EL discontinued its last intercity train (the Lake Cities) in early 1970- cities like Binghamton, Scranton, Elmira have lacked passenger service ever since - The Santa Fe reportedly expressed interest in acquiring the EL but the latter declined because they were too far along the path to Conrail - One scheme was to have all the non-Penn Central Conrail railroads become part of what was to be called MARC-EL (Mid Atlantic Rail Corporation-Erie Lackawanna)- not to be confused with the commuter agency in Maryland known as MARC- that would act as the main competitor to the rehabilitated PC lines but this didn't take off because a second government system wasn't wanted
Passenger travel by rail was really never a thing in the USA, as the railroads didn’t seem to even want passenger traffic since about 1960. Back in the day, I saw many EL trains running through south Buffalo. Aside from BNSF & UP, most railroads are overbuilt/redundant, run down or abandoned. A waste from yesteryear.
I don't understand what ever happens to the insurance money they put on the infrastructure. Oh the bridge is insured, it burns, and magically they never have the money to rebuild it
To be fair Erie Lackawanna did better then the other two merger especially Penn central cause it did post profits for a good long time before hurricane agnes came
The loss of MAIL AND EXPRESS killed the passenger service. GM got that done. Railroads were private companies taxed and those taxes were used to build super highways and airports. In fact there was a extra tax even on tickets. Erie was high and wide could run the future stackers. Eire had 150 curves along the Delaware River they are still there! Port Jervis to Binghamton. ICC had nothing to do with the failure. It was the government super highways that did it. Not the ICC. As mail and express went to trucks some to air the trains came off. Under 1000 miles trains were cheaper and just as fast . But the highway people got into government and lobbied against trains. Most traffic goes between and to small towns in between not between the very profitable end points. Even in the good old days. Long as the cash came in it didn't matter about management issues. Erie was the company that was the survivor for sure. Airlines get loans from the government. In a year or two they are forgiven! That's how some of their bailouts worked. No such bailout for railroads Penn Central went broke and didn't have to pay their interchange bills. That killed all NE railroads. The bridge could have been fixed but the banks did not want it fixed. There was a Wall Street plan called Conrail. Norfolk and Western had a interest in EL to the end! The very end in 1992. No competition is what the customers did not want! Government didn't care. Wall Street owned it and their influence counted. . The commuter losses were the issue. Conrail only bought and operated the lines they wanted. The EL conditioned on with the rest. Selling them and leasing them out. Erie Western was managed by Greg Burroughs .I only met him once. He was a liquidator who sucked the money out of the company then scrapped it. He only leased the west end. Which was built for the bridge traffic like the NKP that is still there not far away. With Fort Wayne on it. El continued on paying dividends as they sold off property and assets. A line that was a super railroad, could have been used for the coming stackers. But the issue was there was too much money to be made on the assets being sold. No competition would drive up rates inflation too. by the way. There are bailouts all the time for airlines, buses, water carriers oh yes they get lots of government help! Ports Ice breakers and bailouts! None for Erie Lackawanna. Conrail was a BANK BAILOUT so they could sell bonds worth 25 cents to the government for 1000 thousand dollars. In the future there would be trillions in bailouts for airlines, auto industry. Socialism always bails out Capitalism . Loss of EL impacted employees, towns and customers. .
nice Lie the NCY Water level had almost no grades and was a better route and faster route . the El needed 3 sd 45's to get a train fron NYC to Marion on then 2 Sd 45's to get to chicago plus helpers from Stroudsburg Pa to Clarks summit Pa, the NYC water level route could get the same train from NYC Ny to Chicago Il with 2 Gp 40's need more crew change points then the NYC did
E-L kinda got the shit end of the stick on everything, and it wasn’t even their fault. Chessie was ran with an iron fist and historically had an adversarial approach to their own unions. I can’t imagine the hatred for E-L’s labor contracts that Chessie had.
😏I can now only imagine Erie merging with the Pennsy and Lackawanna merging with NYC I think everyone would’ve been happy 🙄😒but no that’s not what happened but what matters is it got all long solved now
I've really enjoyed your videos. They have been very good quality documentaries, but having to insert your face really detracts from the quality and I find it annoying. There's just no need for it.
I respect CN n CP but it is bizarre that they survived n excelled in an era when dozens of American RRs fell by the wayside! Not a great 50yrs for American capitalism! Wowowow! So sad…greed, incompetence, ICE pathetic over-sight/hurdles, n likely dozens of other problem variables.
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my left ear is about to explode
no more Comercials please
The Erie Lackawanna was the first railroad that I remember. My father used to commute on them from Lincoln Park, NJ to NYC and back. My Mom would take me down to the station to pick him up and remember the big U34CH locos painted in the EL/NJDOT black paint scheme with the red EL logo on the front.
I'm so glad you did a video on the E-L merger. I went to college in Scranton, PA, and hometown railroad DL&W has been my favorite ever since. E-L had the best chance of escaping the fate of all northeast railroads in the 60s and 70s in my opinion, and the fact that it couldn't shows you how much it was up against. All the former anthracite-hauling roads (DL&W, Erie, D&H, Lehigh Valley, Reading, Jersey Central) were already facing an existential crisis well before the 1950s as people switched from anthracite to oil and gas for home heating, causing their main source of revenue to wither. All of their routes paralleled each other, and several (particularly the Erie, DL&W, and Jersey Central) were saddled with money-losing-but-essential commuter operations near NYC. The boom in traffic caused by WWII granted only a temporary reprieve. Then came the 1950s and the rise of new modes of competition in the form of government-subsidized projects like the Interstate Highway system, FAA-run airways and government-built airports, and the St. Lawrence Seaway (this allowed greater shipping traffic to Chicago via the Great Lakes, bypassing eastern railroads entirely). The ICC's outdated regulations and the fact that, in contrast to the completely subsidized Interstates, the railroads' right-of-ways were taxed by the states through which they ran (NJ was notorious for this) were the cherry on top of the disaster sundae.
However, the E-L merger has left its mark if you know where to look. The most obvious is the huge, brightly-lit sign over Hoboken Terminal facing Manhattan reading "Erie Lackawanna." NJ Transit's Hoboken Division still operates commuter services on the old E-L lines. The Montclair-Boonton Line in particular is an amalgamation of two branch lines, one each from the Erie and DL&W, that is a direct result of the merger and combining of redundant trackage. As mentioned in the video, Conrail abandoned the former E-L/DL&W main line, but regional road Delaware-Lackawanna now operates the segment between Scranton and the Delaware Water Gap. Norfolk Southern operates the former E-L trackage north of Scranton into New York's Lower Tier. The western part of the Lackawanna Cut-off that once connected the present-day Delaware-Lackawanna at East Stroudsburg, PA to the current terminus of NJT's Morristown Line at Hackettstown, NJ remains abandoned but, due to its well-engineered structures, is still easily visible (the massive concrete arch bridge over the Delaware River is hard to miss as you drive under it on I-80). New Jersey bought the right-of-way, and there are hopes to restore passenger service as far as Scranton in the future.
I'm glad that somebody else realized the cost of providing commuter services into NYC and the impact that had on their overall operations. On some roads, long distance trains might even break even if there were enough post office cars on the train, when the PO pulled out of railroad operations it wasn't long before the trains themselves disappeared. I used to ride the Phoebe Snow going to college in upstate NY and I still miss that train. Another factor little discussed in the real estate taxes levied on railroads, I suspect that more often than not, when a RR proposed abandonment of a branch line the town folks are not crying about loss of service but rather loss of tax revenue. Sales taxes also apply to industrial investments, so buying a new locomotive is a good day for the tax collector. NY and NJ are both big on sales taxes. I remember a story about the New Haven, a particular station in one of their nicer communities had been rather nice but was run down over the years, some town citizens started a drive to get the RR to fix it up, they did and for a short time everybody was happy. Then the evil tax assessor paid a visit hitting the RR where it hurt, shortly thereafter the crane with the ball of death appeared reducing the nice station to rubble, they parked one of those trailer offices construction cos. use and keeping the wheels on it so it is still 'mobile' and not taxed. Both of these roads had problems after the coal business died as they had very little industrial activity located along their lines, NJ was once a big industrial state but between unions and taxes that all changed after WW2, this meant that much of their freight revenue was shared with another line who saw the origination or termination of the traffic. The Erie and the Lackawanna did at least a fair job of merger planning and they were able to retire a number of duplicative assets (two almost parallel main lines) unlike the mess that the PennCentral did with theirs. Combining the operation of two class 1 railroads is never an easy task. The end of this railway was probably more related to the Penn Central collapse than bad operation by the Erie Lac, I believe they were still marginally profitable till the end.
@@henryostman5740 From what i've read the hurricane Agnes finally did them in, because it caused tremendous damage to the railroad.
The "Montclair Boonton" Line is a combination of three, not two branches. From Hoboken, trains run on the Lackawanna Morris & Essex/Montclair line to Montclair, where they switch to the former Erie Greenwood Lake Branch. At Mountain View, trains move to the former Lackawanna Boonton Line to and sometimes west of Dover.
The favourite railroad of one of my best friends back in the old country, Sweden....he's as obsessed with DL&W, Erie and Erie Lackawanna as I'm obsessed with Milwaukee Road!
Keep 'em videos coming! 🤜🏻🤛🏻🍻
Greetings from a Swede in Glasgow, Scotland!
Really enjoyed this video awesome stuff. My grandfather worked for the Erie Lackawanna from the beginning until the end at the Conrail merger he decided to retire. Along with a couple other RRs before that. He's passed on now but we keep it alive, Him and the EL, have a model railroad dedicated to the EL along with tons of stuff he left us from his days on the rail. It's a part of history that a day doesn't go by that I don't think about.
So sorry for your loss 😢
@@huckstaunfiltered8200 that is awesome it's the little things like that that keep the memories golden. And yeah we miss him every day but he enjoyed his job and had a good life as I'm sure your grandfather did as well. Best Wishes!
Nice job on the history of the E-L merger. Hurricane Agnes and the labor union issue were the two final nails in the coffin. My Dad worked at the E-L (formerly Erie) Repair Shops in Hornell, NY. The first thing ConRail did when they took over on April 1, 1976 was to announce the closure of the Shops, which devastated the local economy. Later, General Electric moved in for four years, so many former E-L employees (like my Dad) who decided not to take the offer to transfer to the ConRail Altoona, PA Repair Shops, were able to return to work. After GE left, Morrison-Knudsen moved in. Now Alstom is building the next generation Amtrak Acela units, continuing the railroad tradition in the area.
Yea and I-90 and highway 30! EL traffic is on them today. The New York Central Route has some too.
I appreciate how your videos go in depth into the operational and management sides of these famous railroads instead of just their main lines and rolling stock. Not too many videos cover this vital portion of the railroad, as well as the various possibilities of what could have been, especially with the Chessie attempting to acquire EL. I also never knew the Erie Western existed either. Looks like a pretty interesting shortline, with designs reminiscent of present day grain plant operators.
Erie Lackawanna was abandoned by Conrail. Conrail was purchased by both CSX AND NORFOLK & SOUTHERN. I'm surprised they didn't retain parts of the ERIE from Conrail and operate on that line into Chicago.
The Erie west of Marion, Ohio was not transferred to Conrail. Also there's no "and" in NS's name.
Over 60% Erie Lackawanna is still around
line not needed very little on line traffic and track was in poor shape west of youngs town
CR didn't need three lines into Chicago,that why they abandoned the PRR Panhandle line.They just kept the two NYC Lines west of Cleveland.The Big Four to St Louis and the Chicago Line
One of my cats is called Chessie. She is an evil genius. Your quotes about Chessie being awkward and difficult are scarily accurate.
I'm from Marion, Ohio and I get to drive past the old ghosts of the Erie Lackawanna every day... Sad to see I wise I got to see them run back in the day...
*Wish
After Hurricane Agnes in 1972. The Erie Lackawanna was heavily damaged by the storm. Chessie system was interested in absorbing the erie-lackawanna but the unions demanded six-man crew trains witches featherbedding in the extreme. The Railroad Union extreme demand killed any chance of survival the Erie Lackawanna had outside of Conrail. In trying to save a few jobs Union lost them all.
The traffic was gone! The bonds blew up. The banks wanted a bailout, so assets the bonds were connected too were sold to pay to pay off debt. It was a court action. The fire on the bridge that locals say Penn Central railroad police set was the end. Cut the Union crap, the traffic was the issue. I can assure you management sucked every dime they could. Even as the assets were sold.
Im happy I got to see my town, Spencerville, on the map. My grandparents were around to see the Erie Lackawanna and told me there was a train about every 30 minutes! Now there's only one every two weeks because RJ corman owns the line now and west end of tracks that continued west through Elgin was torn up but not the east end that's around the mill. Lima still has some of it is still standing but very overgrown,
I have managed to find a train signal at MP 67, between Spencerville and Elgin, that Erie Lackawanna may of used but the signal part is missing.
The reason why chessie probably didn't consult with unions is because Chessie is a Virginia based company and southern states didn't work the unions at the time
Chessie tried working with the unions of EL. EL used 6 men crew and chessie 5 men crew on their trains. EL union refused to give up on 6 men crew. The reason the union refused to budge on that was they knew EL was going into Conrail and they would get a very generous severance pay. It is the fault of the US congress offering such severance pay that was unprecedented in a corporation. As an example a 25 to 30 year employee got life time severance pay. It was prorated on years of service
That is not the case. Chessie tried to get EL union to agree to 5 men crew on their trains instead of 6 men crew used on EL. The reason EL union did not give in on this was due to the ridiculous severance pay US congress set up. A 30 year employee got life time severance pay. It was then prorated by their years of service. Nothing like this was ever done in any corporation. Chessie wanted the Erie from Akron Ohio on east. West of Akron it was to be abandoned by Conrail. Blame EL union for Chessie not getting it
@@kentmiller4687 ok thank you 👍
@@kentmiller4687 ditto that
The traffic was gone, the right of way wrecked by water and the bridge gone.
I grew up in Clarks Summit, PA, the highest point of DL&W's main line north of Scranton. I was home for summer college break when Agnes hit, and it was mind-boggling. Rained for four days. Flood recovery in Wilkes-Barre was slowed down because the phone lines had been cut by boat props! During the recovery one local station reported the EL had suffered over 100 bridges and culverts had been damaged or destroyed, and that recovery would take years. Crying shame.
Conrail abandoned and remove about 26 miles of trackage in NW New Jersey, the Lackawanna Cutoff. When it was built it was one of the largest rail construction projects east of the Mississippi. From first proposal to first train run took less than 5 years. New Jersey Transit proposed reopening this route to ease commuter problems in 2003. To date, 2023, they have reopened less than four miles, and one station.
The two lines, along with the PRR and Lehigh Valley, both ran through the town I grew up in. That would be the Elmira/Horseheads, NY area.
Just a single track if the Erie mainline remains, and the Lackawanna right of way is almost completely gone.
My grandparents lived on the Lackawanna main line west of Painted Post, N.Y, and I rode the Phoebe Snow from Buffalo to Corning several times. If I remember correctly, the Erie tracks were less than one-half mile away, and they served the Ingersoll-Rand foundry. My grandparents house was flooded up to the second floor during the hurricane. It was really sad to see the Lackawanna go under. Really enjoyed the video.
Imagine if there was an alternate universe where the Erie Lackawanna succeeded
Imagine an alternate universe where the US didn't destroy its passenger railroads out of incompetence thus wasting vast amounts of right of way.
It did! In my basement. Then it merged with The Milwaukee Road!
Indiana would have a main line from Hammond to Cincinnati
it could have happened. In the early 70's, the Santa Fe rang the president of the EL and wanted to talk about a merger but EL replied they were too far down the road with their commitment to Conrail by that point. Merging with the Sante Fe would have created the USA's first coast to coast railroad.
@@yourcrazyteacher585 That's a good fit TBH. Maybe not as good at ATSF but
why was this video not with your railroad history playlist. I almost missed this
Love your energy and voice. Your railroad history lessons are fun to watch and have many great photos.
I really enjoyed the video. Great presentation and knowledge. I'll check out more of yr videos, really dig rail history
My grandpa was an engineer for EL started with Lackawanna as a fireman on the steams......Took his last orders ride in the Bison Yard!!
Don't forget, a former DL&W roudhouse site became the home of Steamtown.
Have you thought of doing something on the white pass and yukon ? They survived until 1983 as a common carrier before shutting down for 5 years and lying dormant until rising like a phoenix and becoming one of the best trips in Alaska
Car company: They've been dead for 5 years, it's not li-*White pass and yukon bursts out of grave*
WPY: I'm back bitches
I’m noticing a theme with failed railroad mergers. There’s almost always a “do things the way we’ve always done them” group and a progressive group trying to work together to run the railroad. The “do things the way we’ve always done them” almost always comes from the railroad that was worse off, and they usually end up winning out in board meetings. And thus the merger eventually fails.
It's probably because the top brass are worried that the progressive group's suggestions could have so many problems that just haven't became apparent yet
Someday the NS and CSX will be gone too.
it's been long rumored but never proven or debunked for that matter that the Maybrook bridge was burned on purpose by the Penn Central.
As an interesting side note, the bridge still exists to this day and has been repaired as a pedestrian bridge.
That was because the security and fire fighting equipment on the bridge was cut after the merger. Penncentral had tried to stop the traffic that was going to E-L at Maybrook and they (Penncentral) had lost several legal fights about it. When the bridge burned it stopped the traffic at Maybrook to the E-L and Penncentral was broke anyway so they could just ignore the court ordered payments to E-L. In many ways the E-L line to Chicago was superior to Penncentral routes as it was cheaper to operate and had fewer opportunities for delays between Chicago and New York so the service was more predictable and shippers had been specifying the route until Penncentral started a campaign to delay traffic that was routed to E-L at MAybrook.
@@keithstudly6071 was not, the NYC water lever route was a lot cheaper to run. the El needed 3 sd 45's to get the train to marion on then 2 sd 45's to get the Train to Chicago Pluss helpers around Scranton Pa and Susquehanna pA, the Nyc water dould get the Same job done with 2 Gp 40 From Nyc to Chicago and fewer crew change points, Ps i watch some El trains in Lima Oh
Next, cover the Virginian Railway, "The Richest little Railroad in the World". If you cannot make a joke out of that, I would be very disapointed. And it is an actual success story of two rail companies merging, though the dirty little secret is that both the Deepwater and Tidewater Railways were run by the same people.
The Virginian, with its founder and original headquarters being near where I grew up, is considered my “hometown railroad”. I’m always down for any videos on the Virginian
The Chicago & Indiana RR was not meant to try and have a go at making it… it was formed to finish serving the few remaining customers after the Erie Western went under…. It gave time for them to change over to trucking shippers or alt rail. There were a couple smaller short lines that formed after that for local work, basically to transfer cars to the nearest class 1 RR
I stayed at the Erie/Lackawanna hotel. Which is the former train station. Talk about vertigo i was in a top floor. The building has no floors just catwalk. But beautiful. I was there in 2020 working the traffic control for a lane clouser on I84 and I80 for the bridge inspection/repairs there then. They set up k-rails/jersey barriers but went to slipknot concert with a Peterbiilt TMA.
That space above the stained glass skylight is definitely odd. I'm glad it was saved; I grew up in the area and remember reports about repeated vandalism of the building when it stood abandoned circa 1980. The city was in pretty bad shape then, with increasing downtown vacancy and dwindling finances. Much of Lackawanna Ave had dilapidated buildings, particularly where the mall now stands, and a block from the station was the massive Hotel Casey closed (where the garage with Bartari now stands.)
I was there for 3 weeks. And there were crews that were there hired to restore the building. That was back in 2020 or 2021. I live in Allentown and it was killing me waking up 2am to go king of Prussia to pick up a TMA to drive to Scranton. So i got a room there and per diem for staying out of town.
So would you ever do one on the Rock island since it has a very interesting story and how it's now back on a smaller scale
Rock Island's Stubborn Battle to Survive | Oversight, Politics, and a Strike | History in the Dark. on this channel!
Rock Island had the same issues. Everywhere the Rock went there is a interstate highway. Rockets came off as the mail and express went to GM trucks. Now XPO. The bonds were bought for nothing by Henry Crown. When they blew up and Rock had no money to pay the coupon. He went to court and got the railroad closed down. Assets the bonds were connected to sold off and he walked away with millions. The company continued as Chicago Pacific. And was bought by Magtag washers which was sold to a Swedish appliance maker. The Company history and brand were recently sold to a short line and now operates again! Look them up if ya want.
The Rockets were 10mph trains for miles at the end. @@eako2107
You should cover the Lehigh and New England in the future, it has a similar story to EL and some of the things that brought about their downfall could be a lesson for the Class 1s today.
Good job on this subject. It still ticks me off about the way N&W dropped the EL after Hurricane Agnes caused so much damage. Think about this, if the N&W would have kept the EL they would have had a direct connection to the New York market. The EL was running TOFC and container traffic from Chicago to New York on a 24 hour schedule. Something the PC couldn’t do. BTW that issue of Chessie and the unions also applies to the Reading Railroad. Don’t know about the pay scale but it had to do with Reading employees losing their seniority, basically they would have to start like a new employee. The Reading folks said NO, and the Reading ended up in Conrail.
Delaware-Lackawanna is a short line based out of Scranton founded in 1993. If you want to shorten the DL&W, just say "Lackawanna" instead.
Yes and if not for local government saving the track it would have been Conrailed too!
Very interesting!! Thanks for the effort you put into this. I remember the Erie Lackawanna during the Penn Central era. You’re personally reminds me of Cody Johnston from the TH-cam channel Some More News
wow the old erie livery is practicaly identical to the Victoria State Railway
The area where Erie's terminal used to sit is now a mall and offices/condos.
If I’m not mistaken, Pavonia Avenue station is now the site of Newport Station serving the Path and Hudson Bergen Light Rail
@@thomasbush8663 Pavonia/Newport on the PATH is further in from the water than the Erie station. They had some kind of moving walkway there at some point to mitigate the walking distance. Where the light rail runs used to be all yard tracks & such. The whole area was basically rail yard up to the river.
The Erie terminal was wood and was in very sad physical condition. It was said that the only reason that the building didn't fall in was because the termites held hands.
To show you how the government work with Railroad when the bankrupt New Haven was forced upon the Penn Central and further killed it. In order to replace the passenger service for commuters the New Haven provided for the government made three different Transportation agencies that spent 10 times the amount of money that they could have spent to just buy the New Haven railroad Lock Stock & Barrel.
I enjoy all of your videos ❤️!! My favorite line is the Nickel Back
you need to talk about the Alton railroad, Gulf Mobile and Ohio , and latter the Illinois Central Gulf road.
Could you do Chicago and Northwestern eventually? I don’t know much about what happened to them before they were sold to the employees but I’ve always liked them. Or the Rock Island, as I’m a conductor for Kyle Railroad in Kansas and we run on they’re old mainline.
It would have been nice if Chessie was able to acquire EL. As a result of this, the D&H was granted trackage rights over parts of CR, thus providing a (rather meager) form of competition. But I would have loved to see Chessie have an expanded presence in the Northeast.
R.I.P. to the Erie Lack of Money.
you need to do a video on the story of Conrail comp
The yellow painted nose on the last photo's is a good color, a nice paint job!
Ah, the poor old Erie-Lackatraffic. Sad story, that one...
Nice nickname 👌🏼
@@fanofeverything30465 How about Erie-Lackawampum? Erie and B&O crossed both at Sterling, Ohio and Akron, Ohio, both on shallow movable point crossovers, so connecting the pieces at either of those points would not have been that difficult. B&O had the easier grade between Sterling and Akron, but came at it in a more roundabout way, swinging South through Clinton, Ohio (Warwick Jct.) where the line to Holloway and Wheeling came off (now RJ Corman to Dover), then shared RoW and trackage with Pennsy/PC from there to Akron Jct., operating the two separately owned tracks as one route, under B&O signaling. The Erie had the more direct route to Akron, and then on east to Youngstown, but had a significant grade in Wadsworth Hill in both directions West of Barberton. The Erie always had the faster route through Akron, fairly level through town, and the straight shot at the B&O crossover, while the B&O, which arrived in Akron later, dropped down into the valley of the Little Cuyahoga River and had to climb out of it on the ruling grade between Willard and New Castle (1.1% Eastbound). Connecting the two in downtown Akron at JO interlocking would have made the most sense, it would have straightened out the B&O at that point and they could have avoided the slower crossover route of the two there. Chessie could have used the E-L to Youngstown, or kept going on up into Southern NY. B&O/Chessie used trackage rights on the P&LE from Youngstown to Pittsburgh for most through traffic, their own route was a windy and hilly single-track line over Bakerstown Hill, still in use by a short line. Taking the eastern end of the E-L would have given Chessie access to the New York City area over 20 years earlier than they got in the division of Conrail in 1999.
EL Indiana lines are really cool to research and find artifacts. Alot to see in indiana
@5:24 it’s pronounced Binghamton.
Bing
Ham
Ton
You’re welcome
Like Captain Binghamton in McHale's Navy.
You could possibly do a video about O gauge manufacturers suing each other and make it interesting to listen to.
Actually, much of the Penn Central's mishandling of freight was due to the negligence and apathy of its surrounding railroads in the area. One of the largest obstacles it had to overcome in the months following the merger was the radically different ways the New York Central and Pennsylvania moved freight. NYC's freight yards were mostly modernized by that time, whereas those of the Pennsylvania were still operated the same way they'd been since the turn of the 20th century. In addition, the two railroads used entirely different methods for classifying freight traffic. So the PC's management asked all the other surrounding railroads which it did business with to continue to separate freight traffic as they did before the merger until the PC could reorganize and consolidate its methods of handling freight. The PC had also prepared detailed instructions for the other railroads how to do this while still taking into account that technically, there was now only one railroad. But the other railroads totally ignored the PC's request and sent incoming freight traffic to whichever yard they felt to be most convenient. As for what happened to the freight after it was handed off to the PC, well, they didn't consider it to be their problem. The end result was a predictable series of multiple clusterfucks all leading to diminished freight traffic.
Haha that PennCentral moment to come and f things up 😂😂 that was great . HEY GUYS how’s it going !!!!
Yo HITD! Have you ever heard about a Japanese Man during WW2 who is behind the plan to help the Jews escape Nazi Germany to the Japanese ocupided lands. This saved him from Execution during the Tokyo trials, he ended up as the first Ambassador for Israel in 1952.
"Waddya' do Giovann, on the Delaware Lakawann?
Waddya do Giovann?
Oh, I push, I push, I push."
Know the tune?
those beautiful emds sd 45 were the best of the el
new Haven as going down hill and the erie lackwana knew it bad choices were made and the wrong lines were closed down like the bootom branch
great video, a book titled " Death of an American Railroad, 1938-1992" by H. Roger Grant is a great read about the history of the Erie and the Erie Lackawanna railroad
That is a fantastic book for sure. hard to find. Wish I kept my copy .. all my EL books in fact- worth quite a biut now
Hey I got news for the reader. it was NOT A HAPPY ENDING FOR EMPLOYEES, TOWNS, OR CUSTOMERS. JUST WALL STREET! AND THE TRUCKERS AND ROAD BUILDERS. Don't believe all of what Grant said. He was right in there with top management that sucked every dollar out of the company to the last day. He was not a customer nor employee or lived in the towns wrecked by it's loss.
I.loved the erie lawawanna, the big e,Milwaukee road,rock island, my favorite roads,
Very interesting and informative video.
Long live the Delaware and Lackawanna Railroad.
It’s only my opinion based on the stuff I’ve read, but I wonder, when PennCentral went bankrupt I often wonder if the ICC would’ve just broke the PennCentral up back to pre merger status including NH would some of these other roads been able to survive, especially since commuter service was to be taken over by local state governments?? Idk just a thought??……
Probably
the Only one that could have made it was the NCY
@@dknowles60 You mean NYC
@@fanofeverything30465 Yes the NYC was in the best shape in 1968 and 1976. Most of the Money Conrail spent Rebuilding was On the PRR side. The fed gov never should have oked the Merger as the Prr was losing money in most years After WW2 and was proped up by N&W stock divends
A lot of EL track goes thru areas with no traffic potential, i.e. the southern tier of NY, one vast rust belt, a region that features NY level taxes and appalachian economics to pay them. Ohio and Indiana don't have the taxes but they don't have much to offer either.
20:19-20:40 needs to become a short
And this is why railfans most popular pastime is dreaming up an alternate reality in which the Penn Central was successful.
Don't lie, you've done it too.
Well researched and presented. It's a sad story for the Erie, which was r*ped by Wall Street crooks more than once.
Ah!
I was preparing a video on the history of the EL!
It's a long an arduous process but hopefully one day I can get it done!
Also I don't get how you could have "the best engineered line" across a state that was already pretty flat to begin with
A few more interesting things:
- I believe it's pronounced Shoe-MAKER not Schumacher
- White did actually manage to get rid of a lot of short branch lines in New Jersey in 1966
- Refusal of the unions to cooperate with each other made it so that some people said the EL didn't exist as one until June 1961
- The EL discontinued its last intercity train (the Lake Cities) in early 1970- cities like Binghamton, Scranton, Elmira have lacked passenger service ever since
- The Santa Fe reportedly expressed interest in acquiring the EL but the latter declined because they were too far along the path to Conrail
- One scheme was to have all the non-Penn Central Conrail railroads become part of what was to be called MARC-EL (Mid Atlantic Rail Corporation-Erie Lackawanna)- not to be confused with the commuter agency in Maryland known as MARC- that would act as the main competitor to the rehabilitated PC lines but this didn't take off because a second government system wasn't wanted
Now, that is proper Halloween story:(:(:(
In your opinion which is better steam or Diesel
The way he said Poughkeepsie 😂😭
Passenger travel by rail was really never a thing in the USA, as the railroads didn’t seem to even want passenger traffic since about 1960.
Back in the day, I saw many EL trains running through south Buffalo.
Aside from BNSF & UP, most railroads are overbuilt/redundant, run down or abandoned. A waste from yesteryear.
I don't understand what ever happens to the insurance money they put on the infrastructure. Oh the bridge is insured, it burns, and magically they never have the money to rebuild it
Don’t worry about it that money is safe in the back pockets of the railways high ups 😉
the E3l would have work out if the Lackwana Management ran the Rail road
It wasn't really a merger It was really a takeover of Delawhere Lackwana and Western by Erie
@@fanofeverything30465 The PRR did the Same thing to the NYC
@@dknowles60 I know all about that The Penn Central video is one of my favourite videos on this channel
Do the Missouri Kansas Texas railroad also known as the Katy
Intermodal is pronounced with a long "o", because, you know, different modes of travel.
You shood do one on the DRGW
To be fair Erie Lackawanna did better then the other two merger especially Penn central cause it did post profits for a good long time before hurricane agnes came
but would have fail even if no Hurricane Angnes their bread basket was the steel mills in youngstown and the steel mills closed down
@dknowles60 honestly if they have played their cards rigth they could have made a breadbasket out of those piggy bank services
eire lackawanna have such a bad luck
and what we learned today? Penn Central will always be a bummer
Top 10 saddest anime death
The loss of MAIL AND EXPRESS killed the passenger service. GM got that done. Railroads were private companies taxed and those taxes were used to build super highways and airports. In fact there was a extra tax even on tickets. Erie was high and wide could run the future stackers. Eire had 150 curves along the Delaware River they are still there! Port Jervis to Binghamton. ICC had nothing to do with the failure. It was the government super highways that did it. Not the ICC. As mail and express went to trucks some to air the trains came off. Under 1000 miles trains were cheaper and just as fast . But the highway people got into government and lobbied against trains. Most traffic goes between and to small towns in between not between the very profitable end points. Even in the good old days. Long as the cash came in it didn't matter about management issues. Erie was the company that was the survivor for sure. Airlines get loans from the government. In a year or two they are forgiven! That's how some of their bailouts worked. No such bailout for railroads Penn Central went broke and didn't have to pay their interchange bills. That killed all NE railroads. The bridge could have been fixed but the banks did not want it fixed. There was a Wall Street plan called Conrail. Norfolk and Western had a interest in EL to the end! The very end in 1992. No competition is what the customers did not want! Government didn't care. Wall Street owned it and their influence counted. . The commuter losses were the issue. Conrail only bought and operated the lines they wanted. The EL conditioned on with the rest. Selling them and leasing them out. Erie Western was managed by Greg Burroughs .I only met him once. He was a liquidator who sucked the money out of the company then scrapped it. He only leased the west end. Which was built for the bridge traffic like the NKP that is still there not far away. With Fort Wayne on it. El continued on paying dividends as they sold off property and assets. A line that was a super railroad, could have been used for the coming stackers. But the issue was there was too much money to be made on the assets being sold. No competition would drive up rates inflation too. by the way. There are bailouts all the time for airlines, buses, water carriers oh yes they get lots of government help! Ports Ice breakers and bailouts! None for Erie Lackawanna. Conrail was a BANK BAILOUT so they could sell bonds worth 25 cents to the government for 1000 thousand dollars. In the future there would be trillions in bailouts for airlines, auto industry. Socialism always bails out Capitalism . Loss of EL impacted employees, towns and customers. .
Interesting
@14:58 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Long Live Lackawanna
nice Lie the NCY Water level had almost no grades and was a better route and faster route . the El needed 3 sd 45's to get a train fron NYC to Marion on then 2 Sd 45's to get to chicago plus helpers from Stroudsburg Pa to Clarks summit Pa, the NYC water level route could get the same train from NYC Ny to Chicago Il with 2 Gp 40's need more crew change points then the NYC did
Seems like, in all these rail topics, you do alot of nice lies.
@@Joe-d7m6k oh the turth hurts you how young are you
Why are all your train finders under water?
E-L kinda got the shit end of the stick on everything, and it wasn’t even their fault.
Chessie was ran with an iron fist and historically had an adversarial approach to their own unions. I can’t imagine the hatred for E-L’s labor contracts that Chessie had.
Of course the west end was literally abandoned overnight by Conrail after April 1st 1976.
same with the PRR Panhandle line.They just need the old NYC Chicago line
Good old Erie Lackofmoney
it was not gibson ny it was Painted post Ny
that guy has it wrong most of the Erie Lackwana was momthball west of youngstown Ohio
Your SOURCE ???????
@@Joe-d7m6k can you use Google or google Maps
is he a weeb? 0:36
😏I can now only imagine Erie merging with the Pennsy and Lackawanna merging with NYC I think everyone would’ve been happy 🙄😒but no that’s not what happened but what matters is it got all long solved now
British rail but the rolling Stones be like
All of those kettles there I want them to turn black
All steam and diesels are all never coming back
It's Binghamton, not Birmingham!
Slowest way to Chicago. Yes I can understand why they went bankrupt.
they were faster then the Prr
I've really enjoyed your videos. They have been very good quality documentaries, but having to insert your face really detracts from the quality and I find it annoying. There's just no need for it.
Yea, I decided to stop doing that for the most part.
the NCY water level route was a lot better, it had no helpers, the Erie had helpers. it was joked the erie found every hill in ohio
NYC only''grade'' was Albany Hill that connects the Hudson Valley with the Mohawk Valley which didn't need helpers
@@stephenheath8465 kind of wrong there is a grade at south Byron. some trains have stalled but apx 99% did not need helpers
I respect CN n CP but it is bizarre that they survived n excelled in an era when dozens of American RRs fell by the wayside! Not a great 50yrs for American capitalism! Wowowow! So sad…greed, incompetence, ICE pathetic over-sight/hurdles, n likely dozens of other problem variables.
Ah a fellow weeb 😎