Railroad Forums 

Discussion relating to the Penn Central, up until its 1976 inclusion in Conrail. Visit the Penn Central Railroad Historical Society for more information.

Moderator: JJMDiMunno

 #609796  by scharnhorst
 
lvrr325 wrote:Remember that a lot of PC people are who ran Conrail, too. I would expect no real major differences in the modern motive power roster.

What I see is a PC noodle with "Quality" in the same font, below.... which aught to be good for some laughs. Unless they could figure out a way to add a Q to the noodle.
How about the PC Mateing worms logo with a small Narrow Black, or red Q overprinted on the loco its self ??
 #704807  by Allen Hazen
 
Scotychaos--
I ***LIKE*** those schemes! Penn Central black dates from the 1960s-1970s: period when the railroad industry's fortunes were at their lowest, and cheap simplified paintjobs were common. Many railroads since have livened up their locomotive colors (Santa Fe restored the warbonnet, for example, and compare the complex striking of the current BNSF "heritage" scheme to BN's green-and-black), so it is reasonable to surmise that PC, if it had survived to see better times, would have added some color. Your schemes, with their straight horizontal stripes, are dignified, maybe a bit old-fashioned, but have a very traditional "railroady" flavor to them. Black on top and bottom might seem excessively austere to a modern "design consultant," but probably makes sense given that locomtives get dirty... and, for those who know their railroad traditions, is a nice artistic "allusion" to Penn Central and its two main predeccessor lines. (We may have stipulated that red/green hostilities were over, but... your designs DO look a bit more New York Central-is than Pennsylvania-ish. Do you think this is a problem?)
 #760417  by TREnecNYP
 
GulfRail wrote:Here's what I think Penn Central would roster if they were around today. Note the GP50 and GP60's inclusion. I think that the PRR's policy of six axle EMD's would dominate goods and heavy trains, while the NYC policy of four axles for intermodal and fast freight would be practiced.

SD40-2
GP38-2
GP40-2
GP50
GP60
GP60M
SD50
SD60
SD60M
SD60I
SD70ACe
SD70M-2
SD70M
SD75M
SD70MAC
SD80MAC

I think if PC survived Baldwin may have also, as well as alco etc..... Thoughts?

- A
 #760436  by Allen Hazen
 
Re:
"I think if PC survived Baldwin may have also, as well as alco etc..... Thoughts?"

Baldwin built its last locomotive in 1956, a dozen years before the PC merger. Alco built its last locomotives in 1968 (maybe one or two in 1969?), about the time of the merger but before the PC bankruptcy.

Lots of counterfactual suppositions leading to the survival of PC are possible, and some (Staggers Act analogue and beginning of revival of U.S. railroad industry in the early 1950s instead of the late 1970s, maybe?) COULD lead to survival of minority locomotive builders. The "most like the real world"(*) supposition, though, would be something like: history as it actually happened up to 1974 or so, government response to Northeast rail bankruptcies much as in real world EXCEPT for reorganizing PC separately instead of incorporating it into Conrail (& maybe merging the other bankrupts into "MARC-EL" to provide competition) wouldn't affect the locomotive builders.

(*) Philosophers who have thought about what the "If X had happened then Y would have" construction means (for instance, the late David Lewis, of Princeton University, in his 1972 book "Counterfactuals") tend to say it something like "under the counterfactual suppositions making X true that are otherwise most like the actual world, Y is also true. Lewis, in addition to being a distinguished logician, was an avid railfan and N-scale modeler: he would have enjoyed the example!
 #760440  by scharnhorst
 
dose anyone here think Penn Central would have had a good chance of lasting if they had not been forced to take the New Haven RR under its wing??
 #760466  by scottychaos
 
scharnhorst wrote:dose anyone here think Penn Central would have had a good chance of lasting if they had not been forced to take the New Haven RR under its wing??
I doubt it..PC would have still failed either way..New Haven was probably irrelevant..(although it didnt help! ;)

PC's main problem was that it wanted to consolidate to save costs, but it wasnt *allowed* to save costs!
Due to the labor unions, not being able to get rid of routes, and lots of other causes..

It was basically two large, antiquated bloated systems that couldnt deal with the times,
combined into one even larger antiquated bloated system that couldnt (and wasnt allowed to) deal with the times..
(thats a huge simplification of couse..but that was the basic the root of the problem)

Conrail ended up being what PC wanted to be, but Conrail was given the tools to do the job properly..

Scot
 #761194  by Matt Langworthy
 
TREnecNYP wrote:I think if PC survived Baldwin may have also, as well as alco etc..... Thoughts?

- A
Nope. Alco halted production in early 1969... over a year before the PC bankruptcy. As big as Penn Central was, having just one major customer was not going to save Alco.
 #761198  by Matt Langworthy
 
scottychaos wrote:PC's main problem was that it wanted to consolidate to save costs, but it wasnt *allowed* to save costs!
Due to the labor unions, not being able to get rid of routes, and lots of other causes..
PC also suffered from antiquated ICC rules that made it tough to abandon branchlines. Did PC need two branchlines between Williamsport, PA, and the Finger Lakes in upstate NY? Not at all... but it was a bear to shed that unwanted segment of the Elmira Branch between Southport and Williamsport. PC had thousands of miles of track that (sadly) needed to go in order to save the system as a whole.