I have to agree with most of the posts I've read here. But there's more to the bankruptcy. Fed, state and local gov't agencies were very loathe to allow ANY abondonments or discontinuences of service. For example, the PRR Elmira Brandh was redumdant (except for a few segemnts) because the ex-NYC Fall Brook Secondary offered a similar routing with better grades and more customers. It took the flood of '72 to get the most redundant sections of track removed. And that's only 100 miles or so of track in a system that had THOUSANDS of miles! Funny how some of those same fed regulators that wouldn't let PC abandon any track in the '60s and '70s were the same jokers who happilyripped up track during the CR era...
Sanders and PRR's management certainly have to shoulder alot the blame for what happened, but let's not forget NYC's pre-merger debacle. NYC had scopped up the very capable Bill White from DL&W in the early '50s. He modernized the entire NYC system. CTC became widespread and the Water Level Route was reduced from 4 tracks to just 2 or 3 in many places. Then Robert Young wins a proxy fight with NYC and ousts White. NYC was never the same- Young committed suicide after the stock failed to produce a quarterly dividend in 1958. Young killed the goose that was laying some golden eggs, leaving NYC in very weak financial shape. N owonder merger looked so attractive.
I've heard rumors that NYC tried to court C&O during the '50s. but I don't know if it's true.