B&M Portland Discontinuance

For many years I wondered, "Just how bad was it at the end?"

One of the very last pages of the ICC Finance Docket gives a truly revealing look at the very sad state of the B&M's passenger rail service to Maine in the 1960's.

Appendix D seems to indicate that the trains were running at no more than one roundtrip on weekdays with additional service on weekends.

Further correspondence gave a bleak picture indeed but also buried within some of the numbers were signs of stabilization. For the time being ridership on the Maine service remained below what was necessary to fill a single RDC car.

Thanks for posting that link, Mr. O'Keefe. That's a fascinating historical document that I hadn't encountered before. For your reference, here's the full Boston-Portland timetable that was in effect for the fall/winter 1963-64 season, a year before the January 1965 discontinuance of passenger service north of Dover. Portland trains 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 ran daily (with #9 having a different schedule on weekends), train 4 ran daily except Sunday, and train 12 ran Sunday only. In terms of ridership this was of course the low point for B&M intercity service before it crashed altogether, and the idea of a future restoration of service to Portland and beyond would have been considered silly.

The RDC's were capable of 90MPH as built due to the twin Detroit diesels which powered each truck respectively.

The MBTA converted many of the RDC-1's to single engine configuration in part because they weren't running at that speed.

MEC407 wrote:What was the top speed of B&M's RDCs? And what were the track speeds like in those days?

Per the B&M employee timetable effective January 4, 1964, the basic speed limit between Boston and Portland via Reading was 70 mph with various curve and junction restrictions. For the Budds there was no equipment-related limit on top of that. The situation was the same in the 1950s as RDCs took over from standard equipment. At one time the New Haven's Budds could legally hit 90 mph between the Readville and the MA/RI state line, and I remember seeing the cab speedometer of an NH car touch 90 once during an unofficial cab ride back when such things happened. But as far as I know the B&M never had any stretches where the maximum authorized speed exceeded 70 mph, not that engineers didn't occasionally push that limit. It was mainly the supurb acceleration of RDCs versus standard consists that enabled good point-to-point timings.

I was in the cab of one doing 80mph between Lowell Jct. and N. Reading. A little over the posted limit!

TomNelligan wrote:Thanks for posting that link, Mr. O'Keefe. That's a fascinating historical document that I hadn't encountered before.

You are most welcome Sir. I remain astonished even considering the impact of the highways at the terrible ridership levels experienced by the B&M during that time. Far worse than I could have ever believed. Note that intrastate ridership in Maine simply did not occur. Shocking stuff. Anyone who says the B&M didn't hang on "as best they could" clearly was not aware of these figures.

TomNelligan wrote:In terms of ridership this was of course the low point for B&M intercity service before it crashed altogether, and the idea of a future restoration of service to Portland and beyond would have been considered silly.

As it turns out that is not necessarily the case. State government officials in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine all kept up the fight even after service was terminated. They appear to have held a genuine and sincere belief that their requests for service were not only reasonable but were a potentially profitable undertaking for the B&M.

I was surprised as anyone else here would be to see the extent of the efforts that were made to cajole, coerce or otherwise convince the B&M to immediately restore service.

You can see in the above linked documents how the opacity of the ICC cost allocation formulas led public officials to disbelieve the railroads when they claimed they were losing money.

The scenario played out with respect to the B&M's January 1965 discontinuance of intercity passenger service out of Boston was played out again and again across the country as most railroads attempted to drop as many passenger trains as the ICC would allow in the years before Amtrak. Railroads claimed massive losses, states and other interested parties would oppose train-offs, and the ICC would eventually rule, usually in favor of the railroads. While accounting methods are always subject to debate, the near-universality of the railroad position across the country suggests that the claim of losses had merit. Even "pro-passenger" railroads like the Santa Fe and Seaboard Coast Line were dropping branchline services as they maintained a high standard on their premier long distance trains.

It was pretty much universal for concerned governments to fight to keep trains. The last days of the B&M's final intercity trains, the daytime Ambassador and the overnight Montrealer on the Connecticut River Line, were marked by a series of last-minute court orders initiated by the states that kept the trains running on a day-to-day basis until their final end in September 1966. I remember photographing the Ambassador at Bellows Falls station one day a month before the end when the fireman dropped down from the locomotive to ask me whether I had heard any news about the court case that was in progress that day. Incidentally, neither of these trains carried many passengers at the end. The Ambassador typically ran with just one of two uncrowded coaches plus an RPO, and the pre-Amtrak Montrealer's passenger accommodation was usually just a single sleeper and a couple coaches that were similarly uncrowded except at holiday peak travel times.

I strongly agree that there is plenty of reason to believe the railroads that they were losing money. B&M was clearly no exception.

I feel that the controversy surrounding supposedly unfavorable cost allocations in the ICC formulas created a wide breach in trust between public officials and the railroads.

No one could be sure what the truth really was because there was a suspicion on the part of so many that the railroads were able to pad their losses.

Amtrak in many ways has been a revelation in transparency for the industry. It has largely proven that the railroads were every bit as unprofitable as they claimed they were.

The RDCs' acceleration was a big contributor to fast schedules with relatively frequent stops. The B&M's last (and maybe only) appearance on Don Steffe's Speed Survey was 12 RDC trains averaging 65 MPH start-to-stop over the 17.5 miles between Haverhill and Exeter. I'll have to dig up that issue, but I recall it as 1959-60 or so.
[edit] Not the only, a half dozen Western Route timings are listed in the 1952 survey. But a quick search doesn't turn up the RDC-era issue of Railroad Magazine I recall.