So I don't know if your still taking suggestion for videos. (You took down your "I Want you", video asking for leads on stories) but if there a storie that might interest you, look into Norte Dame College old coal line. "Rough Railroad XING" www.google.com/maps/@41.6932992,-86.2669887,3a,75y,329.64h,75.59t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sNqEmgmDkuDN1sRGpIvHIyw!2e0!5s20111001T000000!7i13312!8i6656?authuser=0&entry=ttu
If your still interested in American stories about railroads, looks into the Notre Dame College old coal line. It ran right through the middle of the campus back in the 1920 to 1990. But it suffered the same problem as Penn central did with dump trucks and the high way being more reasonable.
Ah, the Penn Central. This is something I'd argue is the "main show" to modern American railroad lore given how impactful its establishment and fall were.
Same. I’d argue to show this in US history books too, especially those in schools. Schools are so badly undereducated about trains these days, let alone Penn Central. So many millions of my fellow Americans don’t even know that the Northeast almost collapsed once because of Penn Central’s failure
@@AndrewTheRocketCityRailfan4014 what do you think would’ve happened if the northeast corridor had indeed collapsed from Penn Central and Amtrak and Conrail were not formed to save it
Good question. There’d be nowhere else to make high speed rail out of an existing line. That idea to Americans would have died and or taken years and so much more money and building to bring into the country. There’s a ton more that could be said but that’s just what I know from the top of my head. I’m just glad the NEC didn’t collapse because too many lines in North America already have, especially the Lackawanna cutoff
@@AndrewTheRocketCityRailfan4014 I heard that some parts of the Lackawanna cut off we’re getting restored, although I have no idea about how much of the line that would equate to. In any case, the reason I asked about a worst case scenario for Penn Central, if Conrail and Amtrak never formed, and if deregulation never happened is that I had wondered these subjects for a possible alternate history about if the USSR won the Cold War in part because of severe infrastructure degradation in the United States and sustained social instability, starting from the 1960s onwards. The collapse of Penn Central, being far worse, and the cascading effect on other railroads is a key part of the story, because like how stuff like the Chernobyl disaster and other industrial failures in the Soviet union severely hurt the Soviet economy at a incredibly vulnerable time, I was going to have that the collapse of the railroad industry in much of the United States causes the break up of supply chains in large parts of the country and combined with chronic oil shortages that are far more severe than in real life. Roads and air travel are not able to take up the slack in shipping and transportation. many things happen to cause the collapse of the United States but the long and short of it is that by the 2020‘s, after a pro Soviet dictatorship is overthrown and a second United States begins There would be a large effort to rebuild the shattered and rusted infrastructure from the 20th century, and this would include rebuilding stuff like the northeast corridor, and the Lackawanna cut off. I am assuming that several new railroads are started because of this and Amtrak and Conrail get formed half a century later than real life from this effort. It would be a aspect of a far larger, bouncing back of America as a whole termed, the “American Renaissance.” As part of this speculative hypothetical, I wanted to ask what other major railroads could’ve collapsed into insolvency in the period of the 1960s and 70s other than Penn Central and the other railroads that got taken over by Conrail? I am aware that the Milwaukee Road by this point was very bankrupt and could’ve collapsed so that was going to be a part of it , but I’m not sure what other roads could’ve fallen apart and I wanted to know if you had any suggestions
Penn Central would have fallen no matter what happened. Any good management from New York Central that tried to wrangle things was forced out, including New York Central's president, Alfred Perlman, who had dragged NYC out of dire financial straits once before. After PC collapsed, widespread corruption was found in the upper levels of the company. Funnily enough, Perlman then went on to save the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, and the Western Pacific Railroad, before retiring. Both of those railroads survived long enough to merge with others and both are now part of Union Pacific.
@@carltonleboss That is because unlike other railroad executives of their day (and now even) who were blue-blood, ivory tower, elitists who never had to work a hard day in their lives, Perlman started at the bottom working in rail yards as a regular scrub. He worked every shit job a railroad worker had to and earned his way to the top. Therefore, he knew how the railroads worked. Almost like the people who eventually become managers and bosses should start from the bottom so they know how the business operates vs. outsiders who have no clue which ultimately lead to companies failing with tons of corruption on top.
@@TheEldritchHyena I get it, railfans want to see the stuff we value as historically important saved and Perlman's lack of any nostalgia as he sent all the steam engines he had in-droves to the scrap heap is not how railfans think. It is the same attitude that has people banging on the name of Dr. Beeching in the UK, and I feel is somewhat inherited at least via the "Thomas foamers" among us from watching to many TV specials about "steamies vs. diesels." But, separate out the nostalgia for steam power and look at it as a businessman balancing the books. Steam is just another "asset" on the railroad, and once it has outlived it's usefulness it is most logical to strike it from the company as quickly as possible. It is clean and efficient business practices, even if it leaves little room for nostalgia. Perlman was clearly an efficient businessman and he made the call that was the most practical from his vantage point in the company. Number goes up, steam goes down; good for the bottom line. There are benefits to keeping steam for publicity's sake as Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific, Norfolk & Western and the Southern all did at various points in their lives (and as UP and CPKC still do to this day), but at that point those exist really because the steam budget was likely subtly shifted from the "operating locomotive expense" line to the "advertising" line. UP 844 and UP 4014 are basically rolling billboards for a company like Union Pacific, and even then the recent donations to Silvis show that when UP corporate wants to trim the fat they will kick locomotives like 3985 out of the stable still (I think UP Steam worked hard with Silvis to make sure those engines found a good home, but one can imagine the bosses in Omaha lacked the same nostalgia for say 3985 as the actual steam team might).
Now while penn central was a bust, the employees that stuck through it were the toughest men I’ve seen in years. Hell my great uncle on my dad side was one of em. Hired out in the late 30s as a Freight Conductor for the Pennsy and was around right up into early 80s Conrail. Why am I mentioning this? He was photographed and featured in the company’s Employee Magazine around early 1973. Good stuff man.
That's why I love the early Burlington Northern because you had colors from five different railroads all mashed together. No wonder the BN's first few years were called "The Rainbow Era".
Alfred Perlman knew what he was doing because he worked his way up from a working scrub at the bottom of the railroad hierarchy working every job to understand how the railroads worked. Thus, when he entered management, unlike his peers like Saunders who never worked a hard day in his life, he actually knew how to run railroads. Had they given Perlman complete control he could have turned things around.
The ICC would have still killed them. It literally set rules restricting how much money railroads could charge to transport goods, and it didn’t really believe in the concept of inflation. What finally did the ICC in was the collapse of Penn Central. Once that happened, the federal government took over the northeastern railroads and made them into Conrail with the aim of fixing the bad management, axing the worst lines, making Conrail profitable, and re-privatizing it. Once the government was running the railroads, they realized that it was impossible to actually do that. Facing with the sudden realization that they’d be forced to spend taxpayer money to run Conrail at a loss basically forever, Congress decided that the ICC’s rules needed to go. Similarly to how the destruction of Penn Station saved Grand Central, the death of Penn Central probably saved most of the other railroads in the US.
One other issue that caused problems was a difference in operating philosophy. The Pennsy concentrated on drag freights, serving heavy industry and coal mining. The NYC emphasized carload service and fast freight.
sounds like when me and a friend play railway corp. I'm of the opinion "might as well move half a building worth of freight and get paid a shit tonne on arrival. Minimizing overhead only using one engine" and he does the "moving freight fast means I'll be paid faster, cancelling out the overhead of using multiple engines" it gets interesting when we're using each others track.
I can never get enough Penn Central content. I’m not even a huge rail fan, but the PC intrigues me because poor planning (or lack thereof), and horrible execution turned two once great railroads into a three ring circus. The merger was doomed from the start. Government overregulation was actively killing the railroad industry, the two railroads were also wholly incompatible. NYC’s president, Alfred Perlman, had intended on NYC merging with the C&O and B&O, while his design had the PRR merge with N&W. Perlman viewed the PRR as a house of cards about to fall, as did N&W. He also knew that there were too much duplicate infrastructure, and management styles too different for them to work together. However, obstinance from the ICC forced them into a match made in hell. Penn Central’s death, ironically was the event that saved the railroad industry in the US.
3:01 I answered someone in a reply but since there are a lot of people asking: That's called a gauntlet track. Basically, it's a switch (points) configuration that slightly shifts the train when there's no space for another full track. For example, an express passenger or freight train can take the through rails that keep it furthest from a station platform. A local passenger train that needs to stop at the station can take the diverging rails that brings it right up to the platform.
The story of Penn Central is a text book example of how overbearing regulation can kill an industry. It’s also been a bit of an enigma to me, like why merge with a company’s who’s trackage goes to same places you go to? Honestly, it probably would’ve been better if the merger hadn’t happened, and instead the PRR merged with the N&W, and the NYC with the B&O.
Penn Central is the exact reason the KCS/CN merger was denied, parallel lines and management conflicts, CN only wanted KCS to screw over CP, like how the Pennsylvania threw a wrench in the NYC/B&O merger
In theory consolidating duplicate lines of competitors makes sense. The merged company can take on all the customers while reducing overhead. What killed that calculation was a regulatory board forcing them to operate redundant routes.
They really had no other choice. Going deeper into the merger era reveals a few things. The New York Central’s intended merger was a three-way merger between the NYC, Chesapeake & Ohio, and Baltimore & Ohio. Under that plan, the Pennsylvania Railroad and Norfolk & Western would merge. Ultimately, NYC execs and C&O execs couldn’t find common ground, the ICC denied all of those merger requests, and N&W wanted away from the PRR as it viewed the PRR as a house of cards about to fall. Curiously, NYC’s president viewed PRR in the same light. Left with no other options, NYC had to merge with PRR and the rest was history
@@Engine33Truck Outstanding one paragraph summary. One piece of additional color commentary, it was Robert Young ----- backed by Bass family Texas oil money that helped him to win a mid 1950s proxy fight with old guard NYC Vanderbilt leftover dumb-ass inheritor types ----- who together with PRR boss James Symes who were the sole big proponent instigators of the PRR-NYC 2-peas-in-a-pod-for-merger-savings. Young commits suicide and Symes eventually retired. Only Symes-Young were super gung-ho about the idea. PRR Saunders and NYC Perlman never were enthusiastic (esp if New Haven forced upon them), yet like a single minded drug addict Saunders kept on (including labor contract stupidity ---- his natural workforce attrition argument was crap) and Perlman felt he lost any other optionality. PRR-NYC guys hated each others guts, insolvent New Haven & extra bad labor agreements, unlike say BN merger where it was a Hill family reunion love-in (everybody likes Louis Menks!) and loserboy Milwaukee Road was told to get lost (fun fact: Menks was head huntered to become PC boss and he turned PC down).
It really is understated how much of a financial hit the PC Corp took in 1972 from Hurricane Agnes. I'd go so far to label it the final nail in the coffin from which PC had no hope to dig itself back out of. To this day there still lies abandoned sections of rail that were given up on because of the extensive and devastating damage sustained from the floods.
Oh the irony of the PRR half being shut down from merging into the N&W, and NYC not ending up in the B&O, when that's exactly what would happen 50 years later. But the two did work together in the past, namely with the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie. It's such a shame how we let our rail infrastructure go to crap back then, as we are still paying for the decisions that we made as a country back then. Rail is profitable again, but the cost cutting done by CR, despite how I loved them so, is really hampering traffic in the region now.
People love Conrail, but forgot they are the ones who abandoned so much trackage.... As long as the government is into tomfoolery, we should be eliminating as many costs/taxes on railroads building new trackage.
Note about Penn Central passenger service...... Amtrak only addressed part of Penn Central's passenger dilemma. All three component railroads had extensive commuter operations, none of which fell under Amtrak's intercity service mandate. Commuter fares were regulated by the various states' public service commissions, and these were often obstinately opposed to permitting fare hikes, even reasonable ones that would help to improve service. It's why commuter trains into the 1960s and 70s used such decrepit equipment and worn out locomotives. The commuter agencies we know today did not, for the most part, get formed until the 1980s and deregulation. The funny thing is, this noose around the railroads' necks wasn't all bad. If there had been deregulation earlier, say in the 1960s or even the 1950s, long-distance and commuter trains might have vanished by the 1980s, and cities like New York and Chicago might now look like Los Angeles with 10, 16, or 20-lane ribbons of clogged highways full of the commuters handled by the LIRR, NJT, Metra, etc.
6:04 Yes, yes, yes! My grandfather retired from the PRR about the time the merger was finalized. He said then it wasn’t going to work out due to the incompatible signal systems.
Worked with a gentleman who was in account acquisition. He told me many times that he would almost have to bribe prospective customers to ship with PC. Things like vacations, air travel, and high-end golf clubs. Or maybe all three just to get a few cars of grain a week. He did say it was a fun place to work. On the other side, worked with a diesel mechanic who worked out of Selkirk NY. He said once the merger happened all the good power disappeared, and they worked on "nothing but Pennsy junk." He hated working there and quit before the formation of Conrail.
Completely ignores why the government had to regulate in the first place and how the ignorance at the management level fueled the disaster. Here's your Von Mises trophy! Now go work your third job.
Abe was actually quoting Jesus of Nazareth. "Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, 'Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.'" Matthew 12:25 (ESV)
Honestly, it sounds like the Pennsylvania Railroad not only managed to destroy themselves, but every other railroad they touched too. Yes, I know the commission didn't help, but I feel even without it, PR would have still found a way to mess things up for everyone.
You not wrong. Based on several videos I've watch on Penn Central, even though both parties were to blame, it sound like the managers of the Pennsylvania Railroad are largely to blame because the New York Central managers saw the state of the railroads and knew changes had to made, but the Pennsy managers were roadblocking them from doing so. Essentially NYC was being smart, while PRR was being stubborn... in a bad way.
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad had already been the victim of the scam run by Patrick B. McGinnis, making it a very poisonous addition to Penn Central. And never forget that the competition to the railroads was subsidized: If the roads and air traffic control system had to pay for themselves, the railroads would have been in much better shape.
I worked for the Federal Railroad Administration in the mid 1970s, and I have to say this analysis is spot on. I would add three data points, however. First, the Penn Central's bankruptcy took down six other railroads in the Northeast and these railroads were combined with the Penn Central to form ConRail. Second, one of the causes of the railroad's financial problems was discriminatory taxation by state and local governments. This problem was mostly solved by the Staggers Act. Third, another cause of the Northeastern railroad bankruptcies was the construction of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The Seaway, along with introducing 180 invasive species into the Great Lakes, diverted traffic away from the railroads to ships in each direction.
Except the Rock Island actually had competent leadership for the most part. It was the inverse of Penn Central where Penn Central was the giant fish in a small pond, Rock Island was a small fish in a small pond surrounded by other small fish. Rock Island had unlucky routes that may have worked back in the day but became obsolete as time went on thus competition went to the other railroads around it. They were on the way to recovery when a strike happened so the unions killed the company even when they offered to show the books, the unions refused.
@@OriginalBongoliathThe ironic thing about the Rock Island is that their Choctaw Route, Amarillo-Little Rock-Memphis, was mostly abandoned, but nowadays would be very useful.
I feel like many of us train/railroad/railway TH-camrs are currently going through a phase where the main topic is Penn Central; The Railroad You Can't Trust With Your Potatoes. But, I'm not complaining as the 70s were really an interesting time for American rail and the Penn Central was a big player despite being the biggest loser of it all and how incredible it is to see how Penn Central and the old rivalry between the two former railroads pushed the rest of the rail companies in the country in the direction we have now.
It's funny how things work out in the end since when CSX and NS split Conrail, for the most part CSX got the remaining lines that had belonged to the NYC. And now that the US is down to just four huge rail companies, we're back in a semi-monopolistic situation, at least for things that are best shipped by rail.
I feel like the Penn Central could have survived had they given the New Haven to a more competent, coal funded railroad such as the Chessie System along with the CNJ, Reading, EL, & L&HR. While PC would still struggle with incompetent management, without the burden of the New Haven they could actually have a shot at maybe lasting until deregulation in the late 70’s. But yeah the double whammy of the New Haven combined with completely incompetent ex PRR management basically doomed the company before it even started.
Mark McCummins A good idea, in hindsight, would have been to let both the PRR & NYC operate independently whilst pooling their profits. The two managements were too unlike each other for them to co-operate. It became a fiasco precisely because the two attempted to fully integrate. Both managements at the time recognised the folly.
That's called a gauntlet track. Basically, it's a turnout configuration that slightly shifts the train in areas with no space for another full track. For example, an express or freight can take the through rails that keep it furthest from a station platform. A local that needs to stop at the station can take the diverging rails that brings it right up to the platform.
I like how people talk about the business decisions of the rail companies but does anyone ever think, I wonder what the ICC has done to help any of this. It also doesn't help that the Pennsylvania and New York Central were basically fighting with each other and the Pennsylvania's attempt to sabotage the NY Central essentially destroyed themselves in the process. Essentially this was sort of an even worse but very similar situation that led to the demise of the Rock Island. Too much competition in a declining market and being essentially forced into running lines that weren't creating any profit for the railroad to use in other areas. Though in the case of the Rock Island, they were mostly done in by a labor strike at the worst time possible.
Does anyone know what tower or dispatcher office the big CTC machine is in at 10:52 ? Interesting arrangement of telephones and "stomp" pedals as well.
I love railways and it's a shame to see one fail. I heard that Florida apparently has a quite-new railway company that is apparently doing well - good to hear! Maybe lessons from that successful railway could be applied to Penn Central if anyone decides to resurrect what remains of it.
besides both NYC & PRR paralleled each other in the first place Doomed right from the start the PC logo has been called Hugging Worms While Conrail's logo is called a Can Opener Jan 1 1996 ICC went defunct
Funnily, if you look at one of their early promotional videos, the "Whiteworm" was supposed to resembled interlocked knuckle couplers. I like that much better
What I do know about the Penn Central Railroad is that it was a merger between the Pennsylvania and the New York Central Railroads. Also that it was a complete failure. Before the merger, the Pennsylvania Railroad operated the General Electric GG1 electric locomotives. I believe the best merger was between the Canadian Pacific Railway and Kansas City Southern Railroad to become Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC). It's a profitable win-win situation for the USA & Canada. Increased collaboration between two mighty countries.
please do a video on eletric trains (evaluation of them and some of the mechanics) and evaluation of diesel and steam, atualy just evaluation of different types of trains the porters steam loco the Japanese class d5, the Chinese QJ 2,10,2 or just exsamples of asian trains how do gear trains work something on saddle bolier and side tanks (like the big water boxes) tank engines double ended diesel trains (and electric) American and European switches other then the British class 07-09 what to do if the train stalls one talking about the different types of steam funnles and there uses, steam locomotive combination breaks (steam and vacuum brakes) the breaks commonly on wagons that you turn like a valve/leaver mechanical breaks a short video on how a Armstrong turn table works a basic video on flagmen/break men who would ride with the train and any other "small" jobs what did trains (mostly steam) do when going in tunnels, ive heard of gas masks or just useing a wet cloth, or did they bring in other engines like later on they used electric trains, or were there no big tunnels. why are some trains wagion tops (the stream lining thing to boilers) railway terms abd slang one on the meaning of flag and lantern colors like green on rear engine means theres another one coming soon, the different types of cut offs/reversers/Johnson bar some are a big lever, some are a big valve wheel, and ive also seen some that are like rods, one exsample is train sim world 3 and im not sure where to find the other reverser wet vs dry/saturated vs super steam,
Impressive. Most can't start a railway in 2 years, but all it would really take is one bad year to lose a lot of trust in people so they move away from it.
The two contrasting styles of NYC and PRR can be illustrated by the way executives eat lunch in those days. NYC execs eat in a democratic manner, whatever the position. PRR execs eat in a hierarchical manner, with the senior executive present leading the others.
I've always wondered how differently the Penn Central story would've played out if McGinnis got his way and merged the Boston and Maine with the New Haven. Would Penn Central have been successful enough that Conrail didn't need to exist and the Lehigh, Erie, Reading, and Susquehanna Railroads that were also kept afloat by the Conrail takeover be bought out by Penn Central? Would the Boston, New Haven and Maine Railroad attempted to take over the Maine Central, Rutland, and Bangor & Aroostook railroads, leading to effectively a monopoly on New England railroading with the sole exceptions of CN to Portland and New London, CP through central ME, and PC through Mass?
I think “commerce” usually pronounced COMM-erce, not c’merce. I grant that it would make sense to pronounce it like the start of the word “commercial”, but I've never heard anyone do that. Other than that, thanks for another interesting video 😀
I'm amazed Amtrak stuck around for so long... Our passenger service in Canada became VIA Rail under the gov't, same as Amtrak, but its even worse than Amtrak... Oh boy.
Imagine if the Penn Central decided to go out of business and file a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy to do so. We probably would have seen a cascading collapse of the nation's railroads and a forced nationalization of all the railways under an interstate railway act.
As an aspiring railroad fan, I grew up thinking Amtrak was a company that did travel on rails. I equated it to being the Railroads United Airlines. I was today years old when I found out Amtrak was government owned. Now I know why American passenger services suck
Dude, look up VIA Rail in Canada. Amtrak is a luxury service compared to what we have here. There is a train that goes to my home town, it's a 4 hour drive, taking 12 hours by train. It's a joke of a service.
I would think that they could use old carriages for people to sleep in for rent like put A stove in AND bed and bunks for the kids and A lounge room àt least they could be used for the homeless people and lower income worker's As long as they didn't have espestos or mould maybe then they wouldn't have gone bankrupt God bless you all and your families Warren and Ingrid Melbourne Australia 🦘😎😎😺😻😻👩👩👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍🙏🌞🐨🐨🦘🦘
Ah yes penn central the railroad that went down faster in of itself than my country national railway you think they would have planned out the merger during the 10 year much like Santa fe and Southern pacific
"Get in losers, we're going to Penn Central"
**Derails before even leaving the yard**
So I don't know if your still taking suggestion for videos. (You took down your "I Want you", video asking for leads on stories) but if there a storie that might interest you, look into Norte Dame College old coal line. "Rough Railroad XING"
www.google.com/maps/@41.6932992,-86.2669887,3a,75y,329.64h,75.59t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sNqEmgmDkuDN1sRGpIvHIyw!2e0!5s20111001T000000!7i13312!8i6656?authuser=0&entry=ttu
If your still interested in American stories about railroads, looks into the Notre Dame College old coal line. It ran right through the middle of the campus back in the 1920 to 1990. But it suffered the same problem as Penn central did with dump trucks and the high way being more reasonable.
fr 💀
This is a great video well done man
The Engineer: 🤦♂️
The Brakeman: 🤬
The Conductor: 😔
The Passengers: 😐🫤😐🫤😐🫤😐🫤😐🫤
Ah, the Penn Central. This is something I'd argue is the "main show" to modern American railroad lore given how impactful its establishment and fall were.
Same. I’d argue to show this in US history books too, especially those in schools. Schools are so badly undereducated about trains these days, let alone Penn Central. So many millions of my fellow Americans don’t even know that the Northeast almost collapsed once because of Penn Central’s failure
@@AndrewTheRocketCityRailfan4014 what do you think would’ve happened if the northeast corridor had indeed collapsed from Penn Central and Amtrak and Conrail were not formed to save it
Good question. There’d be nowhere else to make high speed rail out of an existing line. That idea to Americans would have died and or taken years and so much more money and building to bring into the country.
There’s a ton more that could be said but that’s just what I know from the top of my head. I’m just glad the NEC didn’t collapse because too many lines in North America already have, especially the Lackawanna cutoff
@@AndrewTheRocketCityRailfan4014 I heard that some parts of the Lackawanna cut off we’re getting restored, although I have no idea about how much of the line that would equate to. In any case, the reason I asked about a worst case scenario for Penn Central, if Conrail and Amtrak never formed, and if deregulation never happened is that I had wondered these subjects for a possible alternate history about if the USSR won the Cold War in part because of severe infrastructure degradation in the United States and sustained social instability, starting from the 1960s onwards. The collapse of Penn Central, being far worse, and the cascading effect on other railroads is a key part of the story, because like how stuff like the Chernobyl disaster and other industrial failures in the Soviet union severely hurt the Soviet economy at a incredibly vulnerable time, I was going to have that the collapse of the railroad industry in much of the United States causes the break up of supply chains in large parts of the country and combined with chronic oil shortages that are far more severe than in real life. Roads and air travel are not able to take up the slack in shipping and transportation. many things happen to cause the collapse of the United States but the long and short of it is that by the 2020‘s, after a pro Soviet dictatorship is overthrown and a second United States begins There would be a large effort to rebuild the shattered and rusted infrastructure from the 20th century, and this would include rebuilding stuff like the northeast corridor, and the Lackawanna cut off. I am assuming that several new railroads are started because of this and Amtrak and Conrail get formed half a century later than real life from this effort. It would be a aspect of a far larger, bouncing back of America as a whole termed, the “American Renaissance.”
As part of this speculative hypothetical, I wanted to ask what other major railroads could’ve collapsed into insolvency in the period of the 1960s and 70s other than Penn Central and the other railroads that got taken over by Conrail? I am aware that the Milwaukee Road by this point was very bankrupt and could’ve collapsed so that was going to be a part of it , but I’m not sure what other roads could’ve fallen apart and I wanted to know if you had any suggestions
Penn Central would have fallen no matter what happened. Any good management from New York Central that tried to wrangle things was forced out, including New York Central's president, Alfred Perlman, who had dragged NYC out of dire financial straits once before. After PC collapsed, widespread corruption was found in the upper levels of the company.
Funnily enough, Perlman then went on to save the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, and the Western Pacific Railroad, before retiring. Both of those railroads survived long enough to merge with others and both are now part of Union Pacific.
What a gigachad Perlman was.
@@carltonleboss That is because unlike other railroad executives of their day (and now even) who were blue-blood, ivory tower, elitists who never had to work a hard day in their lives, Perlman started at the bottom working in rail yards as a regular scrub. He worked every shit job a railroad worker had to and earned his way to the top. Therefore, he knew how the railroads worked.
Almost like the people who eventually become managers and bosses should start from the bottom so they know how the business operates vs. outsiders who have no clue which ultimately lead to companies failing with tons of corruption on top.
@@carltonleboss I would agree with that if only he didn't scrap all of the NYC's Hudsons and Niagaras...
@@TheEldritchHyena exactly.
@@TheEldritchHyena I get it, railfans want to see the stuff we value as historically important saved and Perlman's lack of any nostalgia as he sent all the steam engines he had in-droves to the scrap heap is not how railfans think. It is the same attitude that has people banging on the name of Dr. Beeching in the UK, and I feel is somewhat inherited at least via the "Thomas foamers" among us from watching to many TV specials about "steamies vs. diesels."
But, separate out the nostalgia for steam power and look at it as a businessman balancing the books. Steam is just another "asset" on the railroad, and once it has outlived it's usefulness it is most logical to strike it from the company as quickly as possible. It is clean and efficient business practices, even if it leaves little room for nostalgia. Perlman was clearly an efficient businessman and he made the call that was the most practical from his vantage point in the company. Number goes up, steam goes down; good for the bottom line.
There are benefits to keeping steam for publicity's sake as Union Pacific, Canadian Pacific, Norfolk & Western and the Southern all did at various points in their lives (and as UP and CPKC still do to this day), but at that point those exist really because the steam budget was likely subtly shifted from the "operating locomotive expense" line to the "advertising" line. UP 844 and UP 4014 are basically rolling billboards for a company like Union Pacific, and even then the recent donations to Silvis show that when UP corporate wants to trim the fat they will kick locomotives like 3985 out of the stable still (I think UP Steam worked hard with Silvis to make sure those engines found a good home, but one can imagine the bosses in Omaha lacked the same nostalgia for say 3985 as the actual steam team might).
Now while penn central was a bust, the employees that stuck through it were the toughest men I’ve seen in years.
Hell my great uncle on my dad side was one of em.
Hired out in the late 30s as a Freight Conductor for the Pennsy and was around right up into early 80s Conrail. Why am I mentioning this? He was photographed and featured in the company’s Employee Magazine around early 1973. Good stuff man.
I will admit I love this railroad because of its flaws, an inconsistently painted roster is like a box of chocolates- you never know what to expect.
I like the non-BR Black locomotives at the likes of the KWVR.
That's why I love the early Burlington Northern because you had colors from five different railroads all mashed together. No wonder the BN's first few years were called "The Rainbow Era".
@@chehalisvalleyrailproducti8913this is the same case with Conrail, CSX, and bnsf
If you were railfanning Conrails early years, you wouldn't know what to expect
Alfred Perlman knew what he was doing because he worked his way up from a working scrub at the bottom of the railroad hierarchy working every job to understand how the railroads worked. Thus, when he entered management, unlike his peers like Saunders who never worked a hard day in his life, he actually knew how to run railroads. Had they given Perlman complete control he could have turned things around.
The ICC would have still killed them. It literally set rules restricting how much money railroads could charge to transport goods, and it didn’t really believe in the concept of inflation. What finally did the ICC in was the collapse of Penn Central. Once that happened, the federal government took over the northeastern railroads and made them into Conrail with the aim of fixing the bad management, axing the worst lines, making Conrail profitable, and re-privatizing it. Once the government was running the railroads, they realized that it was impossible to actually do that. Facing with the sudden realization that they’d be forced to spend taxpayer money to run Conrail at a loss basically forever, Congress decided that the ICC’s rules needed to go. Similarly to how the destruction of Penn Station saved Grand Central, the death of Penn Central probably saved most of the other railroads in the US.
100% SPOT ON 👍
*”THIS IS ONE O’ GREATEST RAILROADS IN HISTORY! THE PENN CENTRAL THE PENN CENTRAL BABY!”*
One other issue that caused problems was a difference in operating philosophy. The Pennsy concentrated on drag freights, serving heavy industry and coal mining. The NYC emphasized carload service and fast freight.
sounds like when me and a friend play railway corp. I'm of the opinion "might as well move half a building worth of freight and get paid a shit tonne on arrival. Minimizing overhead only using one engine" and he does the "moving freight fast means I'll be paid faster, cancelling out the overhead of using multiple engines" it gets interesting when we're using each others track.
Now, if someone fucks up something, say they did it "The Penn Central Way"
Like a certain black Class 08 shunter?
I can never get enough Penn Central content. I’m not even a huge rail fan, but the PC intrigues me because poor planning (or lack thereof), and horrible execution turned two once great railroads into a three ring circus. The merger was doomed from the start. Government overregulation was actively killing the railroad industry, the two railroads were also wholly incompatible. NYC’s president, Alfred Perlman, had intended on NYC merging with the C&O and B&O, while his design had the PRR merge with N&W. Perlman viewed the PRR as a house of cards about to fall, as did N&W. He also knew that there were too much duplicate infrastructure, and management styles too different for them to work together. However, obstinance from the ICC forced them into a match made in hell. Penn Central’s death, ironically was the event that saved the railroad industry in the US.
ditto
3:01 I answered someone in a reply but since there are a lot of people asking:
That's called a gauntlet track. Basically, it's a switch (points) configuration that slightly shifts the train when there's no space for another full track. For example, an express passenger or freight train can take the through rails that keep it furthest from a station platform. A local passenger train that needs to stop at the station can take the diverging rails that brings it right up to the platform.
In this case, the photographer is on a high level platform, the height of which could interfere with the passage of freight trains.
The story of Penn Central is a text book example of how overbearing regulation can kill an industry. It’s also been a bit of an enigma to me, like why merge with a company’s who’s trackage goes to same places you go to? Honestly, it probably would’ve been better if the merger hadn’t happened, and instead the PRR merged with the N&W, and the NYC with the B&O.
Which is ironically what would happen at the split of Conrail lol
Penn Central is the exact reason the KCS/CN merger was denied, parallel lines and management conflicts, CN only wanted KCS to screw over CP, like how the Pennsylvania threw a wrench in the NYC/B&O merger
In theory consolidating duplicate lines of competitors makes sense.
The merged company can take on all the customers while reducing overhead.
What killed that calculation was a regulatory board forcing them to operate redundant routes.
They really had no other choice. Going deeper into the merger era reveals a few things. The New York Central’s intended merger was a three-way merger between the NYC, Chesapeake & Ohio, and Baltimore & Ohio. Under that plan, the Pennsylvania Railroad and Norfolk & Western would merge. Ultimately, NYC execs and C&O execs couldn’t find common ground, the ICC denied all of those merger requests, and N&W wanted away from the PRR as it viewed the PRR as a house of cards about to fall. Curiously, NYC’s president viewed PRR in the same light. Left with no other options, NYC had to merge with PRR and the rest was history
@@Engine33Truck Outstanding one paragraph summary. One piece of additional color commentary, it was Robert Young ----- backed by Bass family Texas oil money that helped him to win a mid 1950s proxy fight with old guard NYC Vanderbilt leftover dumb-ass inheritor types ----- who together with PRR boss James Symes who were the sole big proponent instigators of the PRR-NYC 2-peas-in-a-pod-for-merger-savings. Young commits suicide and Symes eventually retired. Only Symes-Young were super gung-ho about the idea. PRR Saunders and NYC Perlman never were enthusiastic (esp if New Haven forced upon them), yet like a single minded drug addict Saunders kept on (including labor contract stupidity ---- his natural workforce attrition argument was crap) and Perlman felt he lost any other optionality. PRR-NYC guys hated each others guts, insolvent New Haven & extra bad labor agreements, unlike say BN merger where it was a Hill family reunion love-in (everybody likes Louis Menks!) and loserboy Milwaukee Road was told to get lost (fun fact: Menks was head huntered to become PC boss and he turned PC down).
It really is understated how much of a financial hit the PC Corp took in 1972 from Hurricane Agnes.
I'd go so far to label it the final nail in the coffin from which PC had no hope to dig itself back out of.
To this day there still lies abandoned sections of rail that were given up on because of the extensive and devastating damage sustained from the floods.
Oh the irony of the PRR half being shut down from merging into the N&W, and NYC not ending up in the B&O, when that's exactly what would happen 50 years later. But the two did work together in the past, namely with the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie. It's such a shame how we let our rail infrastructure go to crap back then, as we are still paying for the decisions that we made as a country back then. Rail is profitable again, but the cost cutting done by CR, despite how I loved them so, is really hampering traffic in the region now.
People love Conrail, but forgot they are the ones who abandoned so much trackage.... As long as the government is into tomfoolery, we should be eliminating as many costs/taxes on railroads building new trackage.
Video Idea: surely make a video on the Santa-Fe Southern Pacific failed merger, that would be pretty cool.
Note about Penn Central passenger service......
Amtrak only addressed part of Penn Central's passenger dilemma. All three component railroads had extensive commuter operations, none of which fell under Amtrak's intercity service mandate. Commuter fares were regulated by the various states' public service commissions, and these were often obstinately opposed to permitting fare hikes, even reasonable ones that would help to improve service. It's why commuter trains into the 1960s and 70s used such decrepit equipment and worn out locomotives. The commuter agencies we know today did not, for the most part, get formed until the 1980s and deregulation.
The funny thing is, this noose around the railroads' necks wasn't all bad. If there had been deregulation earlier, say in the 1960s or even the 1950s, long-distance and commuter trains might have vanished by the 1980s, and cities like New York and Chicago might now look like Los Angeles with 10, 16, or 20-lane ribbons of clogged highways full of the commuters handled by the LIRR, NJT, Metra, etc.
6:04 Yes, yes, yes! My grandfather retired from the PRR about the time the merger was finalized. He said then it wasn’t going to work out due to the incompatible signal systems.
Worked with a gentleman who was in account acquisition. He told me many times that he would almost have to bribe prospective customers to ship with PC. Things like vacations, air travel, and high-end golf clubs. Or maybe all three just to get a few cars of grain a week. He did say it was a fun place to work.
On the other side, worked with a diesel mechanic who worked out of Selkirk NY. He said once the merger happened all the good power disappeared, and they worked on "nothing but Pennsy junk." He hated working there and quit before the formation of Conrail.
"one of greaties railroad, 50 years of great railroading, the *Penn Central!* Penn centrail baby, you can count on us, *Penn Central!!*"
When the Government over regulates, you get Penn Central and the fall of the eastern railroads in the 70s.
Completely ignores why the government had to regulate in the first place and how the ignorance at the management level fueled the disaster. Here's your Von Mises trophy! Now go work your third job.
And under-regulation leads to Norfolk Southern.
The Penn-Central was a prime example of what Abraham Lincoln once said. "A house divided against itself, will never stand."
Abe was actually quoting Jesus of Nazareth. "Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, 'Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.'" Matthew 12:25 (ESV)
The good old PC, a lesson in the railroad business of what not todo when your running out of money
Honestly, it sounds like the Pennsylvania Railroad not only managed to destroy themselves, but every other railroad they touched too.
Yes, I know the commission didn't help, but I feel even without it, PR would have still found a way to mess things up for everyone.
You not wrong. Based on several videos I've watch on Penn Central, even though both parties were to blame, it sound like the managers of the Pennsylvania Railroad are largely to blame because the New York Central managers saw the state of the railroads and knew changes had to made, but the Pennsy managers were roadblocking them from doing so.
Essentially NYC was being smart, while PRR was being stubborn... in a bad way.
The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad had already been the victim of the scam run by Patrick B. McGinnis, making it a very poisonous addition to Penn Central.
And never forget that the competition to the railroads was subsidized: If the roads and air traffic control system had to pay for themselves, the railroads would have been in much better shape.
Penn central baby! You can count on us!
*spontaneously combusts
Bureaucracy: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Penn Central: *Dies.*
I worked for the Federal Railroad Administration in the mid 1970s, and I have to say this analysis is spot on. I would add three data points, however. First, the Penn Central's bankruptcy took down six other railroads in the Northeast and these railroads were combined with the Penn Central to form ConRail. Second, one of the causes of the railroad's financial problems was discriminatory taxation by state and local governments. This problem was mostly solved by the Staggers Act. Third, another cause of the Northeastern railroad bankruptcies was the construction of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The Seaway, along with introducing 180 invasive species into the Great Lakes, diverted traffic away from the railroads to ships in each direction.
The story of Penn Central’s downfall is nothing compared to Rock Island’s downfall.
Except the Rock Island actually had competent leadership for the most part. It was the inverse of Penn Central where Penn Central was the giant fish in a small pond, Rock Island was a small fish in a small pond surrounded by other small fish. Rock Island had unlucky routes that may have worked back in the day but became obsolete as time went on thus competition went to the other railroads around it. They were on the way to recovery when a strike happened so the unions killed the company even when they offered to show the books, the unions refused.
@@OriginalBongoliathThe ironic thing about the Rock Island is that their Choctaw Route, Amarillo-Little Rock-Memphis, was mostly abandoned, but nowadays would be very useful.
@@OriginalBongoliath yea
I feel like many of us train/railroad/railway TH-camrs are currently going through a phase where the main topic is Penn Central; The Railroad You Can't Trust With Your Potatoes. But, I'm not complaining as the 70s were really an interesting time for American rail and the Penn Central was a big player despite being the biggest loser of it all and how incredible it is to see how Penn Central and the old rivalry between the two former railroads pushed the rest of the rail companies in the country in the direction we have now.
Steam Engines Are Good
@@alicehodges9964 But the Penn Central never owned any steam engines.
@@lukechristmas3951I Like Steam Engines
9:18
Minor correction: It’s Norfolk Southern, not Norfolk & Southern.
*”THIS IS RODNEY KATORSKI-“*
It's funny how things work out in the end since when CSX and NS split Conrail, for the most part CSX got the remaining lines that had belonged to the NYC.
And now that the US is down to just four huge rail companies, we're back in a semi-monopolistic situation, at least for things that are best shipped by rail.
I'd argue CPKC makes it a Big Five.
@@MirzaAhmed89 CPKC is an invasive species, I'm not counting that ToT
Ah, The Penn Central. May it Rest in Peace (Piss).
Record-breaking in more ways than one.
I feel like the Penn Central could have survived had they given the New Haven to a more competent, coal funded railroad such as the Chessie System along with the CNJ, Reading, EL, & L&HR. While PC would still struggle with incompetent management, without the burden of the New Haven they could actually have a shot at maybe lasting until deregulation in the late 70’s. But yeah the double whammy of the New Haven combined with completely incompetent ex PRR management basically doomed the company before it even started.
ONE OF THE GREATEST RAILROADS IN HISTORY, FIFTY YEARS OF.. GREAT RAILROADING. THE PENN CENTRAL! PENN CENTRAL BABY, YOU CAN COUNT ON US!
Read Rush Lovings book, The Men Who Loved Trains
It goes into detail of everything the PC did to fail.
An excellent read. Covers the financial aspects and the players who were involved in the formation of PC.
Penn Central, one of the greatest railways in history. You can count on us baby. Penn Central Forever
Mark McCummins
A good idea, in hindsight, would have been to let both the PRR & NYC operate independently whilst pooling their profits. The two managements were too unlike each other for them to co-operate. It became a fiasco precisely because the two attempted to fully integrate. Both managements at the time recognised the folly.
3:08 What kind of tracks are those? Never seen that before. I'm assuming thats a very elongated set of points?
That's called a gauntlet track. Basically, it's a turnout configuration that slightly shifts the train in areas with no space for another full track. For example, an express or freight can take the through rails that keep it furthest from a station platform. A local that needs to stop at the station can take the diverging rails that brings it right up to the platform.
@@sharkymcsharknose2979 Ahhh, I see, thanks for explaining that! Cheers
I like how people talk about the business decisions of the rail companies but does anyone ever think, I wonder what the ICC has done to help any of this. It also doesn't help that the Pennsylvania and New York Central were basically fighting with each other and the Pennsylvania's attempt to sabotage the NY Central essentially destroyed themselves in the process.
Essentially this was sort of an even worse but very similar situation that led to the demise of the Rock Island. Too much competition in a declining market and being essentially forced into running lines that weren't creating any profit for the railroad to use in other areas. Though in the case of the Rock Island, they were mostly done in by a labor strike at the worst time possible.
Image your in a jigsaw challenge, and your final challenge is Penn Central 😅
3:00 what is the purpose of those 4 tracks in that arrangement?
thats a gauntlet track pretty much use for freight trains to have a larger height and space clearance
Does anyone know what tower or dispatcher office the big CTC machine is in at 10:52 ? Interesting arrangement of telephones and "stomp" pedals as well.
I love railways and it's a shame to see one fail.
I heard that Florida apparently has a quite-new railway company that is apparently doing well - good to hear!
Maybe lessons from that successful railway could be applied to Penn Central if anyone decides to resurrect what remains of it.
What's going on with those points / switches @3:11 ?
gauntlet track used pretty much for freight trains having more space
The NYC and B&O merger would have been a perfect match.
9:18 lol, he said Norfolk and Southern...
The prime example of private AND government incompetence
And we're on course to see a repeat with Norfolk Southern.
besides both NYC & PRR paralleled each other in the first place
Doomed right from the start
the PC logo has been called Hugging Worms
While Conrail's logo is called a Can Opener
Jan 1 1996 ICC went defunct
Funnily, if you look at one of their early promotional videos, the "Whiteworm" was supposed to resembled interlocked knuckle couplers. I like that much better
@@russellgxy2905 they also made the P red or the C red but they found out the red would fade quickly
Who is John Galt?
What I do know about the Penn Central Railroad is that it was a merger between the Pennsylvania and the New York Central Railroads. Also that it was a complete failure. Before the merger, the Pennsylvania Railroad operated the General Electric GG1 electric locomotives. I believe the best merger was between the Canadian Pacific Railway and Kansas City Southern Railroad to become Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC). It's a profitable win-win situation for the USA & Canada. Increased collaboration between two mighty countries.
Would've been funny if you included the "penn central you can count on us" clip.
A company merger was going to be inevitable for Penn Central
please do a video on
eletric trains (evaluation of them and some of the mechanics)
and evaluation of diesel and steam, atualy just evaluation of different types of trains
the porters steam loco
the Japanese class d5,
the Chinese QJ 2,10,2
or just exsamples of asian trains
how do gear trains work
something on saddle bolier and side tanks (like the big water boxes) tank engines
double ended diesel trains (and electric)
American and European switches other then the British class 07-09
what to do if the train stalls
one talking about the different types of steam funnles and there uses,
steam locomotive combination breaks (steam and vacuum brakes)
the breaks commonly on wagons that you turn like a valve/leaver mechanical breaks
a short video on how a Armstrong turn table works
a basic video on flagmen/break men who would ride with the train and any other "small" jobs
what did trains (mostly steam) do when going in tunnels, ive heard of gas masks or just useing a wet cloth, or did they bring in other engines like later on they used electric trains, or were there no big tunnels.
why are some trains wagion tops (the stream lining thing to boilers)
railway terms abd slang
one on the meaning of flag and lantern colors like green on rear engine means theres another one coming soon,
the different types of cut offs/reversers/Johnson bar
some are a big lever, some are a big valve wheel, and ive also seen some that are like rods, one exsample is train sim world 3 and im not sure where to find the other reverser
wet vs dry/saturated vs super steam,
Impressive. Most can't start a railway in 2 years, but all it would really take is one bad year to lose a lot of trust in people so they move away from it.
There's a great book written about this aptly titled "The Wreck of the PennCentral".
I have to ask, what was the management, working culture and ideology between the two companies? I have heard that but never saw explained.
The two contrasting styles of NYC and PRR can be illustrated by the way executives eat lunch in those days. NYC execs eat in a democratic manner, whatever the position. PRR execs eat in a hierarchical manner, with the senior executive present leading the others.
With millions of pictures of USA railways aviable, why using a European (Belgium) at 00:19 ?
Considering this failure, how about a video about a very successful railroad merger?
We call that the BNSF.
I knew Penn Central was struggling, but I didn't know it was that bad.
Ah yes the bankruptcy railroad
*PENN CENTRAL*
You can count on us!
*CENN PENTRAL*
I see Woolworths in Wakefield interesting
We now have a GE Genesis in the Navy Blue and Yellow Penn Central scheme.
I like the new York Central
An excellent book about this debacle is "Wreck of the Penn Central."
I've always wondered how differently the Penn Central story would've played out if McGinnis got his way and merged the Boston and Maine with the New Haven. Would Penn Central have been successful enough that Conrail didn't need to exist and the Lehigh, Erie, Reading, and Susquehanna Railroads that were also kept afloat by the Conrail takeover be bought out by Penn Central? Would the Boston, New Haven and Maine Railroad attempted to take over the Maine Central, Rutland, and Bangor & Aroostook railroads, leading to effectively a monopoly on New England railroading with the sole exceptions of CN to Portland and New London, CP through central ME, and PC through Mass?
They were once two of the best railroads in the USA.
It helps also not to merge with a company that is a fierce rival that you strongly dislike. They basically pulled each other down.
I think “commerce” usually pronounced COMM-erce, not c’merce.
I grant that it would make sense to pronounce it like the start of the word “commercial”, but I've never heard anyone do that.
Other than that, thanks for another interesting video 😀
Penn central: were the worst railroad in history.
Montreal Maine and Atlantic railway: hold my tank cars!
Kinda ironic the Conrail logo looks like a snail 🐌
I'm amazed Amtrak stuck around for so long... Our passenger service in Canada became VIA Rail under the gov't, same as Amtrak, but its even worse than Amtrak... Oh boy.
Apparently Penn Central even had stake in Six Flags at one point ... 0_0
Imagine if the Penn Central decided to go out of business and file a Chapter 7 Bankruptcy to do so. We probably would have seen a cascading collapse of the nation's railroads and a forced nationalization of all the railways under an interstate railway act.
Make sure Rodney Kantorski doesn't see this LMFAO 🤣🤣🤣
did the icc hate trains or something?
Hi Mistertoy 😅
Who?
As an aspiring railroad fan, I grew up thinking Amtrak was a company that did travel on rails. I equated it to being the Railroads United Airlines. I was today years old when I found out Amtrak was government owned. Now I know why American passenger services suck
You're obviously not very old then.
Dude, look up VIA Rail in Canada. Amtrak is a luxury service compared to what we have here. There is a train that goes to my home town, it's a 4 hour drive, taking 12 hours by train. It's a joke of a service.
This was a true soap opera.
i remember reading in traina a article about this merger with the title a marrage made in hell
How did you talk about the Penn Central and NOT discuss the potato's! lol
I wonder how an NYC - ATSF merger would have ended up
Ah yep
Can't speak for where you are located .... passenger service here in Virginia suck
Interesting fact, the name "Penn Central Coporation" is no more. Renamed "American Premier Underwriters"
What a shambles.
😎👍
NO TENGO DINERA
WOAH
I would think that they could use old carriages for people to sleep in for rent like put A stove in AND bed and bunks for the kids and A lounge room àt least they could be used for the homeless people and lower income worker's As long as they didn't have espestos or mould maybe then they wouldn't have gone bankrupt God bless you all and your families Warren and Ingrid Melbourne Australia 🦘😎😎😺😻😻👩👩👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍🙏🌞🐨🐨🦘🦘
That's one horror story!
Can you make a video talking about experiment engine who are based on Thomas theo or Lexie I don’t know if you have done one yet!
When 2 companies that are losing money murge, what do you think is gonna hapcan? You say Sears K mart. Duhh
🚂😢
The ICC is an absolute joke
Ah yes penn central the railroad that went down faster in of itself than my country national railway you think they would have planned out the merger during the 10 year much like Santa fe and Southern pacific
LET'S GOOOO YIPPIE
The Penn Central was just the Rio Grande Southern or Uintah Railway if they were Standard Gauge lines.