Will CSX become like Penn Central?

crazy_nip wrote:

oregontrunkline wrote:Also: I'm surprised no one has mentioned:

• The notorious "red team/green team" infighting between former PRR and NYC personnel that plagued Penn Central.

except now you have the "light blue" vs the "grey" (or dark blue) infighting by the former conrail people not accepting their place

I haven't figured out this individual yet (Nip), he/she is either a know it all
railfan, a high management figure with CSX or a moron or something
else.
You pretend to know a lot about Conrail which leads me to believe that you are either a part of CSX management or a stoolie for CSX.
The CSX takeover of a major portion of Conrail benefitted nobody, not the
stockholders, not the regions served, certainally not the freight customers
and not the employees.
It is not about the blue and the gray or the light blue and the dark blue, it
is about common sense and the CSX has done a number on the former
Conrail territory.
I take NO joy in what is happening all over the CSX system, maybe a
change in management and a change in policies would accomplish a
better operation than is taking place at present.
It isn't about culture, it is about how to run a railroad.
Noel Weaver

LCJ wrote: As if former Conrail people were solely responsible for the management policies and strategies that have resulted in the problems encountered recently on the property. (They aren't.)

Very good point, but you know what? Too bad there aren't more Conrail people running CSX. Maybe CSX wouldn't have all the problems they do today. Conrail people knew how to run a railroad.

Too bad L. Stanley Crane isn't alive anymore. He could have (and would have) whipped CSX into shape so fast their heads would have been spinning (not to mention "rolling").

funny how csx didnt seem to have many of these problems before the merger

crazy_nip wrote:funny how csx didnt seem to have many of these problems before the merger

Correlation does not equal causation.

Such faulty logic as: I've never seen a lion around here when I wear this pith helmet -- therefore this pith helmet must be keeping away the lions. Truth is there are always confounding factors -- unless you have a strictly controlled, experimental environment.

Maybe CSX overextended themselves. Or maybe their managers can't handle a system this large and complex. Or maybe they can't manage people who don't just roll over when they are whipped.

crazy_nip wrote:funny how csx didnt seem to have many of these problems before the merger

I think that's because CSX had nowhere near the responsibility they do now (post 6/1/99). CSX did well with what trackage they had before the Conrail split. Their way worked on that system. Then they added 42 percent of Conrail's trackage. I think LCJ hit it on the head, they over-extended themselves. With the 42% of trackage they added (St. Louis line to Indianapolis to Cleveland, and ex-NYC Cleveland to Buffalo to Selkirk and Boston, etc. and all WELL MAINTAINED), CSX should have been thriving. Somehow, they screwed it up!

I think the whole meger idea was a bad idea to begin with. Conrail was runing just fine in my opinion trains ran on time. Rails and Ties were a hell of a lot beter maintained i.e. vary few slow orders Locomotives worked vary few derailments.

CSX took a land slide crash into the first place slot after the Southern Pacific was eaten up and they had the worsed delivery time of any railroad near the end befor the UP ate them up. Perhaps some day the big wigs in the CSX Office will wake up and smell the coffie and say hay lets fix this road and get it back on line.

A lot of what happened here in New York with the poor maintaince of track could have been prevented if things had been maintained on a reguler manner insted of it being a little to far over due.

Anouther thing that could be looked at for all these problums could be the economy as well. We seem to be in a slump as far as real good jobs go.

I am no expert when it comes to CSX versus Conrail but I would like to venture the opinion that much of the railroads' business practices had to do with geography. Conrail chose to have Phila. as its corporate headquarters and I think that this had much to do with their efforts to make the freight lines of the old Northeast predecessor rail lines work, something that eventually they did quite well. I have always thought that CSX was primarially a Southern railroad. They did not understand the Northeast that well and never really developed the prorietary interest in the Northeast freight lines that Conrail did.

charlie6017 wrote:

LCJ wrote: As if former Conrail people were solely responsible for the management policies and strategies that have resulted in the problems encountered recently on the property. (They aren't.)

Very good point, but you know what? Too bad there aren't more Conrail people running CSX. Maybe CSX wouldn't have all the problems they do today. Conrail people knew how to run a railroad.

Too bad L. Stanley Crane isn't alive anymore. He could have (and would have) whipped CSX into shape so fast their heads would have been spinning (not to mention "rolling").

Charlie.
You make some great points. CSX needs more CR people running the RR but Mike Ward is making Progress unlike Mr. Snow. Maybe CSX needs to call Rob Kerbs in.

Who is Rob Kerbs?

Rob Krebs, retired (I think) head of BNSF, formerly of ATSF.

SRS125 wrote:I think the whole meger idea was a bad idea to begin with. Conrail was runing just fine in my opinion trains ran on time. Rails and Ties were a hell of a lot beter maintained i.e. vary few slow orders Locomotives worked vary few derailments.

It was never intended ( by the U.S. Congress) for Conrail to last any longer than it did. Conrail was created to rescue eastern freight operations and to prevent a PC type failure, which it did admirably. Whatever is happening now, Conrail's life was never intended to be anything more than temporary.

walt wrote:

SRS125 wrote:I think the whole meger idea was a bad idea to begin with. Conrail was runing just fine in my opinion trains ran on time. Rails and Ties were a hell of a lot beter maintained i.e. vary few slow orders Locomotives worked vary few derailments.

It was never intended ( by the U.S. Congress) for Conrail to last any longer than it did. Conrail was created to rescue eastern freight operations and to prevent a PC type failure, which it did admirably. Whatever is happening now, Conrail's life was never intended to be anything more than temporary.

I totally disagree with this one, once the feds sold out and Conrail became
a stockholder owned company, it was very successful in what they did.
They ran a well maintained, well oiled machine.
Trains ran on time, customers got their shipments when they were
supposed to get them, management respected their employees and
employees respected management and their superiors too.
Funny thing, while all of this was happening, the taxes were being paid,
the stockholders were receiving their dividends and things worked.
Along came CSX and their we can do it better attitude and look at what
happened.
I really expected things to detiorate but I never thought that they would
get as bad as they did.
Things may have cooled off in Selkirk but I think there will be more
problems before there are less, hope I am wrong on this one.
Noel Weaver

crazy_nip wrote:funny how csx didnt seem to have many of these problems before the merger

Really? I never knew CSX was that perfect prior to 1999. No derailments, delays or any other kind of problems ever? Hmmm...

There's been quite a stir in the Rochester (NY) area, regarding crossing signal malfunctions on CSX, including one situation that led to the death of an elderly couple in Henrietta last year. Now, these crossings occasionally had problems during CR's tenure, but Big Blue was much more proactive in maintaining the signals so fatal accidents of that type were nonexistant. Our local newspaper, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle has publishd a series of articles about the tracks in our area since that accident (2/4/2004) and they had records of alot more derailemnts under CSX ownership, than CR.

IMO, the problem at CSX was caused by a complete lack of preparation for the CR un-merger. Then-CSX President John Snow was quoted in 1995 as saying that CSX had no merger plans with CR. Yet one year later, Snow announces CSX plans to merge with CR to help out his "pal" John Goode, who was allegedly tied of having to fight off takeover attempts from David LeVan and NS.

Snow was probably being quite disingenuous when he made his statement in 1995. Corporate strategies don't unfold overnight, so it really perplexes me as to why CSX wasn't better prepared for such a scenario. By contrast, NS had $1 billion (!) in cash reserves for a pssible takeover/merger of NS. CSX didn't plan their moves very well- Snow was actually suprised that NS would make a counter-offer and start a bidding war for CR. Thus CSX wound up paying a price it couldn't really afford...

Flash forward to 2000. Even though CSX grossed $900 million and paid no federal income tax (yep, that's $0), the company had little funiding for maintence. Derailments began to increase, including an Amtrak derailment on bowed rails that were not ex-CR property. So even though John Snow had moved on to become Secretary of the US Treasury, his corporate heirs have been of like mind. Just look at results of their so-called leadership- crumbling infrastructure, frustrated union members, fatal accidents etc. None of this needed to happen.

Don't get me wrong- I think the physical split of CR was the right choice. However, CSX is proof of the old military saying that there is no substitute for lack of preparation. A little forethought and common sense on the part of John Snow and his immediate subordinates might have prevented this frustrating series of fiascoes. Oops- that would make sense!

I rember reading in a few books on Conrail that talked about the Feds wanting to sell Conrail. Santa Fe was the first to express intrest in the complete buy out in the in the early to mid 80's Norfolk Southern being the cry baby company that it is started a biding war to try and get its hands on Conrail as well. Norfolk Southern did not back off the bidding wars till The Santa Fe lost intrest and went into the failed SF-SP Merger that never happened.

Ever sents CSX Took control of things up here crossing gates in the following countys Cayuga, Onondaga, Madison, and Oswego countys have been failing a large list of I think 30 crossings were prublished in the Post-Standered about a week after that horrable Metrolink train accdent in California a few months back. The News Paper talked about how the gates are down for days and some times weeks at a time befor someone gets around to fixing them.

Now zip back befor the merger when a crossing gate failed a simple call would be relayed to someone who speeks english who knew the area and would try to have a repair guy on the spot with in an hour.

Fast fraward to today Phone calls are picked up in Jacksonville, FL where us people here up North can't under stand anyone down there in the south and everything has to be spelled out to them letter by letter just to make a simple report over a failing crossing gate.

Noel Weaver wrote:

I totally disagree with this one, once the feds sold out and Conrail became
a stockholder owned company, it was very successful in what they did.
They ran a well maintained, well oiled machine.
Trains ran on time, customers got their shipments when they were
supposed to get them, management respected their employees and
employees respected management and their superiors too.
Funny thing, while all of this was happening, the taxes were being paid,
the stockholders were receiving their dividends and things worked.
Along came CSX and their we can do it better attitude and look at what
happened.

Noel Weaver

The intent of Congress regarding the duration of Conrail's existence is actually pretty well documented. However, this history actually amplifies the point that Mr. Weaver is making. Conrail was very successful as a government operation ( unlike Amtrak) and its always intended sale actually returned funds to the U.S. Treasury. It was because it was so well run that it was able to do this. Given this history, there is no real excuse for what is happening now. One would never think that the government could run a railroad better than a private entity, but this appears to be what has happened here.