I really enjoyed this video. My Dad retired from Conrail in 1991 after 36 years of service to the NYC, PC and Conrail. I'm certain He'd tell you that the most frightening years He spent on a caboose were the Penn Central years. Up till then He always took full advantage of the rail pass provided him by the company and would take all eight of us to Florida every year on the train. During the PC years he was too concerned about "going on the ground"
Although stubborn railroad managers and union leaders contributed to the demise, don't forget that the railroad's biggest competition was the government on the local, state, and federal level. After the New York Thruway was built, freight traffic on portions of the New York Central and the New Haven Railroad was decimated. Another nail in the coffin was Lyndon Johnson's push (at the behest of his buddies in aviation) to switch the US Mail runs from rail to air. Yet, the same government refused to allow the railroads to cut out money losing services. Was a lose-lose situation.
This video cracked me up!! Love the sense of humor - thanks for posting. My Dad, Uncles and a cousin "survived" the NYC break-up, PC and CR/Amtrak transitions so family stories tie in well with the rocking freight cars.
We can only imagine that when we view videos of the New York Central and the Pennsy of the mid 1940s, the young 20-something age workers of those then prosperous railroads had no idea what was in store for them by the time they hit their 50s.
phillyslasher Good point, Philly. I should have been more detailed. I meant in the context as far as that group seeing their railroads deteriorate. I remember seeing a vid where several age 50+ railroaders were lamenting that just years earlier passenger train travel, high speed freight, and well maintained mainlines were the norm and now at that moment (late 1960s) they were very saddened in seeing their mainlines, locomotives and rolling stock falling into disrepair with management teams that seemed cold and apathetic. I had an uncle who worked for the New York Central. He left just before the PC merger and went to work for the New York City transit system, eventually becoming a motorman. He had seen the writing on the wall and left.
But you know......an argument can be made that the Penn Central did a better job of promoting itself in bankruptcy than the class ones of today. Great video!
yep thats the penn central alright i use to live right across the street from the railroad crossing and back in the 70's the trains would crawl through town,the cars wildly swaying.track maintenance was non existing!im amazed we didnt have a derailment every day!
I can only imagine how incredibly alert brakemen were when switching cars that rocked like earthquakes when rolling along! That had to be a scary feeling thinking that in a split second a freight car could topple over onto its side and crush anything or anyone standing in the way!.
I halfway wonder if the executives at the Pennsy had chosen not to try to acquire the NYC, that both roads would still be operating as class I's today (and might have acquired other roads in the process -- making for some interesting what ifs).
I love this video on Penn Central.........could easily be used this way....."Having problems keeping your model trains on the tracks, Here's a real railroad you can model! The Penn Central....the bankrupt railroad!"
@CountVonBoco You're wrong about the merger plans. Merger plans started in the late 1940's. However, strict government regulations prevented it until it was absolutely necessary. It was piss poor planning, the NH being forced on them, years of bitter rivalry, and many other factors that caused the PC to fail. Read the book "The Wreck of the Penn Central." It details everything from the earliest talks of the merger to the creation of Conrail.
When Shareholder Value exceeds Right of Way investment, the path to excessive losses begins to appear. Tamping and Tie Replacement was common in the 1960's, as Section Gangs were assigned problem areas to maintain. The concept of occasional rebuilding of Cars and Track, appears to be Red Headed Stepchild that has been sent off to pick up the pieces? We had an effective Transportation System, at one time before we began to feed the Oil Company Investors.
Don't blame just the NYNH&H, the PRR was the epitome of deferred maintenance for years previous, and the Young/Perlman team had loaded up the NYC with incredible debt. Then there was Dick Lassiter and Executive Jet...I could go on and on...
@jm0lesky Makes sense. This was right around the era when the NKP/LV Merger was drawn up. It was the STB that also prevented that. I find it very ironic that it was actually the STB / ICC that had a lot in creating the mess in the north east in the 60's and 70s. Had they approved some of those eariler mergers, NKP & LV for example, Maybe things would've been different, then and even today. I'm one of the Valley fans, so I tend to burn on PRR for ruining what the LV had.
You've also got too understand after the arrival of the cars and planes interstates money went other directions that greatly affected the revenue railroads relied on but they moving more freight by rail today things have gotten so much better the railroads have made a progress directed to deliver goods at a lower shipping cost to the lumber yards and grocery stores saving you and everyone dollars we have to have them and we need them
When I model the time period of when all the US railroads merge togther I will model the eastcoast first and have some of the old Penn Central tracks still used plus with some old CSX and NS track used and it will be just like this video...eexcepte modeled in the summer...not winter.
Does it seem to anyone else like they were shoving those cars at 0:30 mark pretty fast for the admittedly (and obviously) poor conditions of the track? These scenes look like they are from a film made by PC to apply for gov't help and I can't help but think they needed to derail a car or two for the camera (although, please don't get me wrong, I know they were in seriously sad shape and needed all the help they could get).
In reality the car detainment was not staged. The camara crew happened to be filming when the derailment took place. it was descided to include this in the final edition of the film.
+Conductor7706 Thanks for the explanation - I guess Penn Central was just that bad (as in, wait around a few more minutes and you can catch another one on film). I know that statistically they had a lot of derailments during the end of the bankruptcy years. A good railroaders would not stage a derailment for the camera, though. That goes against everything they stand for, so I am actually glad to learn it was legit.
+Erik McCottrell That's not really what happened, if they were putting the money in their pockets it wouldn't make sense to not maintain the thing that makes the money in the first place
+Erik McCottrell It was really doomed from the start. Everything from the management styles and business models to the computer systems were incompatible. They tried to run two railroads as one and they HATED each other. Add that to the ICC force-feeding the New Haven into the merger... Yeah, it was DOA. There was no hope for the Penn Central.
No, No, No, the rails and wheels were the right size. Penn Central was hemorrhaging money from day one (as were its predecessors PRR, NYC and NYNH&H). It was a horrible, horrible lack of maintenance due to a lack of money. And yes, they were cooking the books in a big way. But even if they hadn't, the money just was not there. The business of railroading changed dramatically in the decades following WWII and the changes hit the Northeast railroads the worst because of their high passenger volume and their huge terminal operations which were both the worst in the country of any major railroads. The two biggest Northeast railroads were the Pennsy and the New York Central (plus the New Haven) which merged to create Penn Central. If you really want to know the whole story read: The Men Who Loved Trains: The Story of Men Who Battled Greed to Save an Ailing Industry (Railroads Past and Present) Paperback - September 11, 2008 by Rush Loving Jr. You can probably get the gist of it by reading a good review of the book.
@Moltixar actually if you actually worked for the railroad& knew a thing or two about it instead of "railfan far& few knowledge" You would have know that we have just passed Norfolk Southern for first place in safety& track maintenance. Please have an intelligent reply when talking to me please.
@Moltixar Wow, a truck driver with vast railroad knowledge. Before you comment on derailemt's please make sure you are educated in track engineering. Just becuase your company has a contact with CSX doesn't make you an expert or knowledgeable.
Model railroads always have the most perfect track. If you lived in the northeast you would see movement of box cars side to side as a natural course of action even before Penn Central. So to all the anal retentive track layers you are living in a dream world if you think your trains should track perfectly..feed your OCD by the way your wife divorced you cause you were at the train club endlessly. LOL
It didn't go bankrupt because of the deferred maintenance. The deferred maintenance was the result of too many years of losing money, even during the years that showed a paper profit, and yes, they were cooking the books, but even if they weren't the money just WAS NOT THERE. See some of my other replies.
And I tought the Rock Island in the 1970s had problems..... I think the PC merger was wrong to the simple face you really didn't gain any ground merging, both roads were pretty much going the same areas already. It would be like the SCL merging with Southern still going in the same areas. That saying, there was still no excuse for the railroad to have severe deferred maintenance.
I really enjoyed this video. My Dad retired from Conrail in 1991 after 36 years of service to the NYC, PC and Conrail. I'm certain He'd tell you that the most frightening years He spent on a caboose were the Penn Central years. Up till then He always took full advantage of the rail pass provided him by the company and would take all eight of us to Florida every year on the train. During the PC years he was too concerned about "going on the ground"
Although stubborn railroad managers and union leaders contributed to the demise, don't forget that the railroad's biggest competition was the government on the local, state, and federal level. After the New York Thruway was built, freight traffic on portions of the New York Central and the New Haven Railroad was decimated. Another nail in the coffin was Lyndon Johnson's push (at the behest of his buddies in aviation) to switch the US Mail runs from rail to air. Yet, the same government refused to allow the railroads to cut out money losing services. Was a lose-lose situation.
This video cracked me up!! Love the sense of humor - thanks for posting. My Dad, Uncles and a cousin "survived" the NYC break-up, PC and CR/Amtrak transitions so family stories tie in well with the rocking freight cars.
We can only imagine that when we view videos of the New York Central and the Pennsy of the mid 1940s, the young 20-something age workers of those then prosperous railroads had no idea what was in store for them by the time they hit their 50s.
phillyslasher
Good point, Philly. I should have been more detailed. I meant in the context as far as that group seeing their railroads deteriorate. I remember seeing a vid where several age 50+ railroaders were lamenting that just years earlier passenger train travel, high speed freight, and well maintained mainlines were the norm and now at that moment (late 1960s) they were very saddened in seeing their mainlines, locomotives and rolling stock falling into disrepair with management teams that seemed cold and apathetic. I had an uncle who worked for the New York Central. He left just before the PC merger and went to work for the New York City transit system, eventually becoming a motorman. He had seen the writing on the wall and left.
If my trains on my layout where dancing like that on my layout I guess I did a real bad job on my cork bed LOL. I love the Penncy!!!!
But you know......an argument can be made that the Penn Central did a better job of promoting itself in bankruptcy than the class ones of today. Great video!
Empties east, empties west!
I was expecting rodney kantorsky!
yep thats the penn central alright i use to live right across the street from the railroad crossing and back in the 70's the trains would crawl through town,the cars wildly swaying.track maintenance was non existing!im amazed we didnt have a derailment every day!
I can only imagine how incredibly alert brakemen were when switching cars that rocked like earthquakes when rolling along! That had to be a scary feeling thinking that in a split second a freight car could topple over onto its side and crush anything or anyone standing in the way!.
I halfway wonder if the executives at the Pennsy had chosen not to try to acquire the NYC, that both roads would still be operating as class I's today (and might have acquired other roads in the process -- making for some interesting what ifs).
That is Cedar Hill yard in New Haven CT, its all covered in weeds and stuff now, CSX uses a small portion of it.
This is like watching my Con-cor stuff run on Peco track it dont !! great vid
Meanwhile Dick Lassiter at Executive Jet was living it up on investment money from PC.
The more things change, the more they don't.
I love this video on Penn Central.........could easily be used this way....."Having problems keeping your model trains on the tracks, Here's a real railroad you can model! The Penn Central....the bankrupt railroad!"
1:55 to 2:18 gives a new meaning to the term rock n roll
@CountVonBoco You're wrong about the merger plans. Merger plans started in the late 1940's. However, strict government regulations prevented it until it was absolutely necessary. It was piss poor planning, the NH being forced on them, years of bitter rivalry, and many other factors that caused the PC to fail. Read the book "The Wreck of the Penn Central." It details everything from the earliest talks of the merger to the creation of Conrail.
Hey, I would like to see the link to this movie. As a trackworker, I am interested in this kind of stuff.
Sadly, that the way it was!! Great vid...Awsome music!!!!! Have more?
When Shareholder Value exceeds Right of Way investment,
the path to excessive losses begins to appear.
Tamping and Tie Replacement was common in the 1960's, as Section Gangs were assigned problem areas to maintain.
The concept of occasional rebuilding of Cars and Track, appears to be Red Headed Stepchild that has been sent off to pick up the pieces?
We had an effective Transportation System, at one time before we began to feed the Oil Company Investors.
PENN CENTRAL BABY! YOU CAN COUNT ON US!
I am a fan of Penn Central, and I don't know why!
Cool logo, cool equipment, everything else sucked.
Ha Ha, what song is this playing in the video? Does anyone know. It goes perfect with the disaster that was penn central!
Those cars are swaying... swaying with liberty!
Don't blame just the NYNH&H, the PRR was the epitome of deferred maintenance for years previous, and the Young/Perlman team had loaded up the NYC with incredible debt. Then there was Dick Lassiter and Executive Jet...I could go on and on...
2:32 it looks like that rail is about to split in half
Hmmm these clips are from the Video Penn Central 1974.A video PC made for congress to try and save their railroad.
@MilwaukeeSDman He is puting wood under the car to help keep it on track I think.
HELL Yeah im intrested but is it the one on youtube where the sound lags cause that is annoyin
Why were the tracks so bad?
This was 1974 the railroads have made great progress since then I know thirty years on the KATY
Yikes! If rail cars swayed like that I'd stay the hell away from the tracks!
Look like my model trains maybe I should model Penn Central.
when my model train set goes off the tracks its not because of the shoddy work it was just designed to emulate the real trains?
Is it?
@jm0lesky
Makes sense. This was right around the era when the NKP/LV Merger was drawn up. It was the STB that also prevented that. I find it very ironic that it was actually the STB / ICC that had a lot in creating the mess in the north east in the 60's and 70s. Had they approved some of those eariler mergers, NKP & LV for example, Maybe things would've been different, then and even today. I'm one of the Valley fans, so I tend to burn on PRR for ruining what the LV had.
what overregulations can do to enterprise like pc
You've also got too understand after the arrival of the cars and planes interstates money went other directions that greatly affected the revenue railroads relied on but they moving more freight by rail today things have gotten so much better the railroads have made a progress directed to deliver goods at a lower shipping cost to the lumber yards and grocery stores saving you and everyone dollars we have to have them and we need them
I shouldn't, but I do find this funny.
I have the most accurate PC layout hands down
When I model the time period of when all the US railroads merge togther I will model the eastcoast first and have some of the old Penn Central tracks still used plus with some old CSX and NS track used and it will be just like this video...eexcepte modeled in the summer...not winter.
Does it seem to anyone else like they were shoving those cars at 0:30 mark pretty fast for the admittedly (and obviously) poor conditions of the track? These scenes look like they are from a film made by PC to apply for gov't help and I can't help but think they needed to derail a car or two for the camera (although, please don't get me wrong, I know they were in seriously sad shape and needed all the help they could get).
In reality the car detainment was not staged. The camara crew happened to be filming when the derailment took place. it was descided to include this in the final edition of the film.
*derailment
+Conductor7706 Thanks for the explanation - I guess Penn Central was just that bad (as in, wait around a few more minutes and you can catch another one on film). I know that statistically they had a lot of derailments during the end of the bankruptcy years. A good railroaders would not stage a derailment for the camera, though. That goes against everything they stand for, so I am actually glad to learn it was legit.
Scary tracks
any reason why it happened so much to the penn?
Constant looming debt and seemingly never ending list of problem with no money to fix.
This video had me howling with laughter. It just showed how stupid and careless they were towards the simplest things of railroading.
I dont get the 1:01 What is he doing?
Its sad Penn central might have been a great road if they would have taken better care of it instead of the money going into their pockets
+Erik McCottrell That's not really what happened, if they were putting the money in their pockets it wouldn't make sense to not maintain the thing that makes the money in the first place
+Jagged bacon these so true thanks
+Erik McCottrell It was really doomed from the start. Everything from the management styles and business models to the computer systems were incompatible. They tried to run two railroads as one and they HATED each other. Add that to the ICC force-feeding the New Haven into the merger... Yeah, it was DOA. There was no hope for the Penn Central.
really? cool! I wondered how anyone could gather this amount of footage of bad tracks.
They should have adopted taler rails and massive wheels to help stay on track
No, No, No, the rails and wheels were the right size. Penn Central was hemorrhaging money from day one (as were its predecessors PRR, NYC and NYNH&H). It was a horrible, horrible lack of maintenance due to a lack of money. And yes, they were cooking the books in a big way. But even if they hadn't, the money just was not there. The business of railroading changed dramatically in the decades following WWII and the changes hit the Northeast railroads the worst because of their high passenger volume and their huge terminal operations which were both the worst in the country of any major railroads. The two biggest Northeast railroads were the Pennsy and the New York Central (plus the New Haven) which merged to create Penn Central.
If you really want to know the whole story read: The Men Who Loved Trains: The Story of Men Who Battled Greed to Save an Ailing Industry (Railroads Past and Present) Paperback - September 11, 2008 by Rush Loving Jr. You can probably get the gist of it by reading a good review of the book.
Deferred
Maintanance
This clip is from the 1974 PC film for federal funding. Music is not original.
@Moltixar actually if you actually worked for the railroad& knew a thing or two about it instead of "railfan far& few knowledge" You would have know that we have just passed Norfolk Southern for first place in safety& track maintenance. Please have an intelligent reply when talking to me please.
@Moltixar Wow, a truck driver with vast railroad knowledge. Before you comment on derailemt's please make sure you are educated in track engineering. Just becuase your company has a contact with CSX doesn't make you an expert or knowledgeable.
@darkyoda just like the canadian national!
Yes it actually was staged, however it only took them a few runs to get the derailment--yes it was that bad.
Model railroads always have the most perfect track. If you lived in the northeast you would see movement of box cars side to side as a natural course of action even before Penn Central. So to all the anal retentive track layers you are living in a dream world if you think your trains should track perfectly..feed your OCD by the way your wife divorced you cause you were at the train club endlessly. LOL
No wonder it went bankrupt! lol
It didn't go bankrupt because of the deferred maintenance. The deferred maintenance was the result of too many years of losing money, even during the years that showed a paper profit, and yes, they were cooking the books, but even if they weren't the money just WAS NOT THERE. See some of my other replies.
Smh
See what happens when you leave private enterprise in charge of infrastructure....
This all was STAGGED. THis is a PC promotional film to get money. TOo bad they hasd all this crappy rrack to use though.
And I tought the Rock Island in the 1970s had problems..... I think the PC merger was wrong to the simple face you really didn't gain any ground merging, both roads were pretty much going the same areas already. It would be like the SCL merging with Southern still going in the same areas. That saying, there was still no excuse for the railroad to have severe deferred maintenance.
The excuse for the deferred maintenance was that they didn't have the money for it. Just like the Rock Island didn't have the money for it.