If you like trains, infrastructure, the failure of either of the two, the Northeastern United States during the 1970s, or just have half an hour to kill, you need to watch this. Basically one of the biggest railroads of that region at the time made this movie to show the government to get money and the government ended up buying them and another shitty railroad to make Conrail, which they later sold to CSX and Norfolk Southern. One of the comments pretty much sums it up:
[QUOTE]Do your cars keep coming off the track? Maybe you should model Penn Central!•[/QUOTE]
[video=youtube;GHmyYqfNYnc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHmyYqfNYnc[/video]
that is so fucking unsafe what the fuck, im surprised it wasnt shut down regardless of how major it was, everyone's wellbeing was put on the line
[QUOTE=fruxodaily;51972513]that is so fucking unsafe what the fuck, im surprised it wasnt shut down regardless of how major it was, everyone's wellbeing was put on the line[/QUOTE]
Times were different back then. Nowadays it'd be shut down in a heartbeat, or ignored. One of the two.
Welcome to the old days of freight-hopping and why it's illegal. It wasn't so much that you are not paying for a ticket, it's because people would be found with limbs torn off and bleeding out because of how much the carriages shook back and forth.
Penn Central had exactly 1 year out of 8 when it turned a profit- 1969. I'm surprised Norfolk Southern even gave them a Heritage Unit, given that their paint scheme was just black with a pair of mating worms as the logo.
[T]https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8172/7923169648_11c60fdfd0_b.jpg[/T]
[QUOTE=Amfleet;51974441]Penn Central had exactly 1 year out of 8 when it turned a profit- 1969. I'm surprised Norfolk Southern even gave them a Heritage Unit, given that their paint scheme was just black with a pair of mating worms as the logo.
[T]https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8172/7923169648_11c60fdfd0_b.jpg[/T][/QUOTE]
They're still a piece of history, one of the oldest roads in the country, though if it was up to me there'da been a Pennsy heritage scheme and a NYCentral scheme.
[QUOTE=TestECull;51975633]They're still a piece of history, one of the oldest roads in the country, though if it was up to me there'da been a Pennsy heritage scheme and a NYCentral scheme.[/QUOTE]
There are schemes of both, which to me makes it all the more confusing that this short-lived road got one.
[T]https://akronrrclub.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/todd05.jpg[/T] [T]https://akronrrclub.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/nyc_055.jpg[/T]
All this talk of heritage units makes me wonder why CSX never did one. Imagine an AC4400 decked out with Chessie or Seaboard colors. That'd be fancy.
I knew that railroads​ had it tough in the US in the 60 and 70 but I never thought it was this bad.
[QUOTE=gnampf;51978887]All this talk of heritage units makes me wonder why CSX never did one. Imagine an AC4400 decked out with Chessie or Seaboard colors. That'd be fancy.[/QUOTE]
I wish BNSF would do Heritage units as well. I want to see a SD70ACe or ES44 with Frisco or Burlington Northern colors.
But yeah Penn Central was infamous for it's shitty tracks which was why it was eventually consolidated with other failing railroads into Conrail which was later split between CSX and Norfolk Southern.
Before the 70s-80s, there was over a dozen smaller railroads across the U.S and now there's only eight major railroads(Union Pacific, KCS, BNSF, CSX, NS, Canadian Pacific, Canadian National, and Amtrak) and a handful of short lines and Class IIs(KCS).
Penn Central deserved to die. The Pennsy should have stayed on its own. It would be thriving today.
[QUOTE=TheNukeNL;51987998]I knew that railroads​ had it tough in the US in the 60 and 70 but I never thought it was this bad.[/QUOTE]
Most railroads were actually pretty good in America during that time. It was just Penn Central and Amtrak [I](if you're counting them)[/I] that got the shit end of the deal.
[video=youtube;mbEfzuCLoAQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ[/video]
Here's a video I found about trains in America and why they suck.
[QUOTE=mcgrath618;51988622]Penn Central deserved to die. The Pennsy should have stayed on its own. It would be thriving today.[/QUOTE]
I also heard somebody say one time that Burlington Northern and Santa Fe could've survived without the BNSF merge.
Also fun fact, there was a point when Santa Fe was thinking about making a bid for Conrail.
[URL]https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1983/07/28/santa-fe-may-make-bid-for-conrail/d31017ad-731b-4ce2-b0c9-c64430f51757/?utm_term=.b030a93d583c[/URL]
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