How many bosses ran the PRR?

Hi: I'm a block operator for the LIRR. Our parent is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The MTA is quite a large organzation, not even including Meto-North, the LIRR, The NY subway, etc. According to a reference I found on the Pennsylvania Railroad museum site, the Pennsylvania Railroad employed as mnay as 280000 people. How many of those were management, office and clerical? I'd be curious to compare that number to how many work for the MTA.
Thanks

Rob

From 1888 until well after the PC merger, the Interstate Commerce Commission published annual reports (6x9", hardbound, blue cover) containing virtually all information submitted to it by the railroads, very finely broken down. I don't know how many libraries have those reports, but if you can find one that's accessible I think the employment figures were broken down by management & administrative, operations, and so forth. The ICC itself was sunsetted in 1995, and all their records were acquired by the University of Denver, but I don't know whether they're catalogued and available for reference, or still in cardboard boxes waiting for volunteers to deal with them. I checked the Centennial History of the PRR 1846-1946, but it gives only the total employment for each year. I took a quick look at the PRRT&HS website
(http://www.prrths.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) but couldn't tell whether they have that information.

Dear ExCon90:

Thank you for the reply. I'll check it out.

Rob

I have a 1957 Moody's Manual which gives PRR employment by department. I can't go back to 280,000 but this is how it stacks up.

Dept. 1947 1956

Executive 873 863
Professional & Clerical 20,801 17,485
Maint of Way 19,646 12,908
Maint of Equipment 48,136 30,120
Transportation 59,065 42,248

1947 totals is about 148,000 and 1956 is about 103,000

Some of those Executive positions, President, Vice Presidents, Treasurer and others may have been shared with subsidiaries, Long Island, NY & LB, and PRSL. Not all VPs were probably in Philadelphia either. Some may have been in New York, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Washington or Baltimore. When the Long Island was taken our of bankruptcy in mid-1950s, PRR retained its ownership stake, but LIRR assumed independent operatios, LIRR's Executive ranks increased by about 30 positions overnight.

Interesting numbers, Ed Bear! Particularly since the dates are for the beginning of PRR dieselization and near its completion.
Just eyeballing the numbers… Maintenance of way dropped by about a third, maintenance of equipment by about three eighths, transportation by rather less than a third. Does this mean that by 1956 the PRR was letting its track go to hell, or did mechanization of track-work (etc) lead to increases in labor productivity as dramatic as those from dieselization?
(I think Perlman, the president of the New York Central, the Penn Central for a short time, and then the Western Pacific because you couldn't keep him away from the railroad business, once said something like "Any railroad profits after the second world war were due to the diesel locomotive and the treated cross-tie.")

In the1947-56 period, PRR retired 535 miles of 2nd, 3rd & 4th main track. Miles of track with passenger service went from 6,063 to 4,318. With reduction in pass. service, station maintenance would have been reduced. On the Boston & Maine, even where pass. service continued, lots of low volume stations were torn down or sold and non-agency facilities constructed in the freight house. Reduction in pass. service on a line usually resulted in reduced maintenance too. It all adds up.