Mouse, you might want to take a step back and put things in perspective.
deandremouse wrote:After Watching Penn Central the movie, I was shoked at all the freight cars needing repairs and being metal patched.
Ever been to a railroad shop? At any given time, there's hundreds of cars waiting to be repaired. Second, the Penn Central was the combination of three of the largest eastern railroads... think they might have a very large freight car roster to start with? If your fleet numbers in the tens of thousands, having a couple hundred cars out of service is not too unusual. Of course, the problem was aggrivated at PC, where many repairs were put off until the last possible moment, it seemed. Also, Penn Central was running out of money, and could not make repairs- which is why cars started to pile up in the yards.
Anyone know what the PCs oldest freight car was?
Kinda misleading, since there were plenty of old cars in "company" or "work" service. I assume you're talking about revenue freight cars? Couldn't be that old since there were rules regarding steel frames, the type of trucks and couplers, etc. Maybe the oldest car on the road was 30 years old? There's a certain limit before you have to retire a car from revenue service, I dont have those numbers in front of me.
and how many FRA violations they caused?
The FRA didn't exist yet. And why do you think car inspectors were allowing "illegal" equipment out on the road? If it didnt pass inspection, it wouldn't go out on a train.
Look, we know Penn Central was "bad," but let's not blow things out of proportion. You had many hard working people who cared about their jobs who didn't have the funds and resources to fix the problems at hand. Also, the scenes in "Penn Central - 1974" was over-dramatized for the benefit of the Congressional committee deciding the fate of the railroad. These men most likely did not have a grasp on how bad the situation was, and this movie was created to highlight "the worst of the worst" but also show what Penn Central can be like at its best (ie, fully-funded).
-otto-
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