1976 Route Possibilities

Hey all - do you think Congress could have done something else with the rail situation in the early 1970s? Granted, I love Conrail, but it's always fun to think 'what if'! Anyway, here's my idea --> I'd love to hear feedback from people on the viability of such an option.

- 2 RR system - 1 in the north, 1 in the south
Northern System
- All lines from Chicago-Buffalo-New York City
- This is basically PC (ex-NYC) and EL
Southern System
- All lines from St. Louis-Pittsburgh-New York City
- This is PC (ex-PRR), RDG, CNJ, LV

I have a more complete map in my head, but essentially, could Congress have created a two railroad system in the Northeast that would have remained competitive? Although the two lines are in the same general location, and both serve the Northeast, they are largely seperated and serve different cities (maybe both have connections to Cleveland and a few other cities along the way).

Maybe you have another idea on how Conrail could have been split up? Share it here! Thanks for the input (this idea could lead to a new model railroad...!!!)

Chase Z.

Of course, as you well know, this is close to the way it ended up today, but with mergers with larger systems in the East.

There are some interesting books out there about the way USRA came up with the recommendations that they made. Look for a copy of the USRA Preliminary System Plan. Much of their modeling and projected traffic flows were ultimately incorrect -- but things sorted themselves out in the end (as they always do).

Mostly I believe USRA was not looking to take any one system apart in order to form new ones, though there was a Lines East/Lines West plan that was floated at one point, I think. Splitting PC would have been as difficult (or more) as it was for CSX and NS in the late '90s.

I believe you are looking for the MARC-EL/ConRail plan

the concept of "MARC-EL," an acronym for Mid-Atlantic Railroad Cor-
poration-Erie Lackawanna. It would consist of the Central of New Jersey,
Lehigh Valley, Reading and EL, and seemed viable. EL liked the idea, too, although Gregory Maxwell wanted to add Penn Cen-tral's "Big Four" line from Galion, Ohio, through Indianapolis to St. Louis.
In reality MARC-EL would become "Little Conrail" with "Big Conrail"
consisting of the Penn Central (less its Galion-St. Louis line) and the
Ann Arbor, a mostly Michigan carrier that had failed in October 1973.
Even though "MARC-EL would have worked," pressure became great
for "three systems east" (Conrail, Norfolk & Western and Chessie) rather
than four, and so MARC-EL was stillborn

How can I find out more about MARC-EL? I tried searching on google, but had no luck there.

rrfoose wrote:How can I find out more about MARC-EL? I tried searching on google, but had no luck there.

Yeah, I can see that - it's a bit of a pain (and Google keeps asking "Did you mean Marcel ). I used "MARC-EL" Erie Railroad (quotes are important) and only got a few hits, including the one I quoted in my previous post. I have seen many a mention about MARC (usually in passing), including I believe in the 'Trail of the Blue Comet', usually in those infuriating teaser paragraphs which just touches upon an interesting topic and then flits away.
The full name is Mid-Atlantic Rail Corporation - that doesn't help either.
Even worse, Wiki seems blissfully unaware of MARC in it's EL entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_Lackawanna_Railroad
Oddly, Wiki does seem to be aware of Gino's Hamburgers, which was merged into Roy Rogers (itself a near gonna) in the early 1980s

This is another, more detailed what if post http://www.railfan.net/cgi-bin/lists/wi ... 00491.html

I'm sure there's lots more useful info, good luck in your search.

IIRC, didn't the Wall St. Journal have a feature article by Jervis Langdon c. 1975 in which the premise was "Who Needs Conrail?" and in which he divided the eastern rail network among the western and southern lines.

The result was expansion of those carriers, creation of an eastern terminal and swithcing company, and no Conrail.

rrfoose wrote:How can I find out more about MARC-EL? I tried searching on google, but had no luck there.

A good source is Erie Lackawanna: Daeth Of An American Railroad 1938-1992 by H. Roger Grant. It explains the proposed MARC-EL quite well, and the forces which led to discarding the idea.

I always felt, if the railroad had been double tracked, from Oak Island, to Allentown, on to Wilkes Barre, then on to Sayre, up and over the Finger Lakes Region, then finally on to Buffalo, that would have been all the mainline needed. The rest could have been secondary, or branch lines, or sold as short lines, excepting a double track run, from Buffalo, to Chicago. Seems like the Valley gets the nod, on this one.........

Matt Langworthy offered a great resource to MARC-EL:

A good source is Erie Lackawanna: Daeth Of An American Railroad 1938-1992 by H. Roger Grant. It explains the proposed MARC-EL quite well, and the forces which led to discarding the idea.

I just finished reading that book a few days ago and I must say it is unbelieveable to me how idiotic the railroad operating unions and the ICC were back in the 1970's. After reading Mr. Grant's book he indicates numerous times throughout the book that the EL, along with most all the other railroads, attempted to reduce costs by requesting higher freight rates. Of course the ICC refused everytime. I've heard numerous reasons as to why the ICC never raised the railroad rates, I don't really want to open that can of worms here and now. However I fail to believe it was purely politics that drove the ICC to not allow higher rates. The ICC had to be blind, stupid, and ignorant of the financial conditions of the northeast railroads to not allow higher rates. Was it an actual plan to try to stop all rail freight service into the northeast? Those gentlemen in the ICC were supposedly educated at the college level. Did they not read the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, or any newspaper or business publication at all? Their inactions almost seem criminal.

The operating unions were no less guilty. They knew the railroad had to downsize to survive. Reduction of facilities and routes was not enough. Management knew the workforce had to be reduced as well. EL reduced its management staffing. Labor wasn't so easy. Eliminating firemen on diesels alone would have produced significant savings. Maybe not enough to make a big difference but it still would have been saving money. Instead, the unions firmly refused any outright job eliminations or required that x-number of years had to pass by before anyone could be terminated. I know the primary responsibility of a union is to protect their members jobs but were the operating unions also that blind, stupid, and ignorant? They had to know the railroad was in dire straits financially. If the railroad went bust there would be no more jobs to protect. If the EL had to merge into another railroad there would almost certainly have to be some sort of concessions made by labor.

Obviously it's not all the ICC and unions fault. There were too many carriers in the northeast, serving many of the same destinations, and not enough traffic to support them all. I only wonder what the northeast rail map would have looked like if the Staggers Act was passed in 1974 or 1975 instead of 1980.......

Anyway... H. Roger Grant's book is a great read! Highly recommended!

We all had our "pet or favorite" railroads. The matter of what stayed and
what did not was thoroughly researched and the facts are that the former
New York Central had the very best physical plant, in the best condition
and with the best connections. The sad fact was that in 1976, there was
too much physical plant for the available traffic.
The former New York Central had the double track with CTC besides, the
most favorable grades or should I say the fewest of them, the most
modern yards, the connections to New York City and New England via the
B & A and the B & M.
Both the former NYC and the former PRR served big revenue areas such
as Pittsburgh, Johnstown the north country and Canada and the areas
like Buffalo, Niagara Falls and other big generators of traffic.
The Lehigh Valley at least the western part of it was simply not needed.
Noel Weaver

Sir Ray wrote:

rrfoose wrote:How can I find out more about MARC-EL? I tried searching on google, but had no luck there.

Yeah, I can see that - it's a bit of a pain (and Google keeps asking "Did you mean Marcel ). I used "MARC-EL" Erie Railroad (quotes are important) and only got a few hits, including the one I quoted in my previous post. I have seen many a mention about MARC (usually in passing), including I believe in the 'Trail of the Blue Comet', usually in those infuriating teaser paragraphs which just touches upon an interesting topic and then flits away.
The full name is Mid-Atlantic Rail Corporation - that doesn't help either.
Even worse, Wiki seems blissfully unaware of MARC in it's EL entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_Lackawanna_Railroad
Oddly, Wiki does seem to be aware of Gino's Hamburgers, which was merged into Roy Rogers (itself a near gonna) in the early 1980s

This is another, more detailed what if post http://www.railfan.net/cgi-bin/lists/wi ... 00491.html

I'm sure there's lots more useful info, good luck in your search.

You can make WIKI aware of anything you want it to be aware of!
Wiki's are changable by anyone..thats the whole WIKI concept.
anyone can edit, add or remove anything from a WIKI page..
so if the WIKI is missing something, just add it!

Scot

I just made a change to the EL wiki.
the dates of operation said 1960 - 1976.
I changed it to October 17, 1960 - April 1, 1976.

Scot

It's a bit too simplistic to lay blame scattershot around the industry. After all, CSX, in one example from the not too distant past (and UP and BNSF, too, I believe) raised rates on some traffic simply because it either didn't have the capacity, or wanted operating room. Raising rates wouldn't have been the panacea that so many people, here and elsewhere, have suggested. The situation required a major change in thinking, and Conrail was that. I don't think we need to argue that Conrail could have been better, etc., or that MARC-EL could have worked...we'll never know. It truly would have been interesting to see what could have come, but remember we are viewing things through 2006 eyes in many cases, where intermodal and long-haul are the primary focuses. I don't pretend to know what railroads were looking at doing in the 60's and 70's, other than staying alive, but aside from perhaps EL, intermodal likely wasn't thought of as the driving force. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

As for the unions, I am certan that the unions were horrifed at what was on the way, and looked to delay the inevitable as long as they could. If you know layoffs are coming, perhaps you delay it to help allow members to pay off their personal debts, or look for alternative employment while they can. I don't know for sure, as this is all just a guess, but we aren't too far away from a similar reduction in other places. Think airline pilots. Think autoworkers. Think teachers. Unions, right or wrong, aren't staffed by stupid people, even though their actions may appear to be so (or be just plain stupid regardless of perspective...) Railroad unions were a part of the problem, no doubt, but don't be so hard on them; for every lazy old hand that hurt the bottom line, there was at least one more that cared about their job, and their railroad.

Dave Becker

I remember reading that the Lackawanna was eyeing a merger
with the Nickel Plate back in the '50's as a way to get to Chicago.
But the idea failed and the DL&W merged with Erie instead.

scottychaos wrote:You can make WIKI aware of anything you want it to be aware of!
Wiki's are changable by anyone..thats the whole WIKI concept.
anyone can edit, add or remove anything from a WIKI page..
so if the WIKI is missing something, just add it!

Yeah, I know, I've updated some Wiki pages in the past, and have a registered name also... but I want to add something more meaty than 'MARC-EL' was considered, as I just don't have all that much info except for what I posted in this thread (and some people added).