The Blizzard of 1918

Author: Kyle Montgomery
Category: History Railroads: ,

Much of Ohio is still digging out right now from a couple of major snowstorms that hit last week. In fact, the snow totals for February have broken the previous records over much of the state. That being said, harsh winters in Ohio are not exactly new. I dug out some photos from Narrow Gauge in Ohio showing how the struggled during the winter of 1917-1918.

The blizzard of 1918 struck on January 10th and covered Ohio in 10 to 15 inches of snow. Temperatures dropped to 15 degrees below zero and drifts were 10 to 15 feet high in some places. Things were tough for the railroads all around the state but it was important to keep coal, the predominate home heating fuel, moving to communities.

The area north of Lebanon around Lytle is generally flat territory and the snow formed deep drifts across the tracks. Rail traffic was at a standstill and some of the families in Lytle began to run short of coal and food. The , having acquired the in 1915, first tried to plow the line with a single locomotive. This worked until the engine got stuck in a snow-filled cut a bit north of town. Two more engines were brought in from the Little Miami district to form the triple-header seen above. A wooden plow was also attached the front. Together the three engines were able to make it through the cut and restore passenger service for the first time in eleven days.

Some of these photos are from private collections and printed in Narrow Gauge in Ohio. I apologise for the scanned quality. The others  are currently in the Silverton Railroad Station collection. I haven’t had a chance to visit when they’re open so I don’t know if anything is on display.

Penn Central Charts

Author: Kyle Montgomery
Category: History Railroads: , ,
pc_chart

Last week I posted my review of the The Wreck of the Penn Central but before I completely move on I wanted to post a couple scans from it. The book included a number of interesting pull-out charts.

The first chart, pictured above, was the organization chart for merger day (February 1, 1968). It includes every position from chairman (Stuart T. Saunders, ex-) through the President (Alfred E. Perlman, ex-) down to the managers and assistants of the various railway companies.

This chart is interesting because it shows the integration between the ex-PRR and ex-NYC people. The former Pennsy employees were known as “Red’s” while the former New York Central people were known as “Green’s”. These nicknames came from the common color of their company boxcars, and is represented in the chart. The two corporate cultures never truly became one and this was one of the well-known problems with the merger.

pc_chart2

The second chart was prepared by the US Congress to map out all the various holdings and investments of the Penn Central Company. Included are everything from trucking companies to a pipeline company to other non-railroad related investments.

The organization of the Penn Central was made even more complicated by all the acquisitions the PRR and NYC made over the years that were never fully merged into their systems but instead existed separately on paper.

For instance, the Little Miami Railroad Co. is still listed on the chart as being owned 74% by the Pennsylvania Company (an investment company for the ). The Little Miami was a railroad originally incorporated in 1836 and bought by the PRR in 1870. However, as was the typical railroad way of doing things, it wasn’t outright bought but instead leased in perpetuity by the Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and St. Louis Railroad (a PRR subsidiary). This is why the Little Miami and many other smaller railroads like it still existed as a separate corporate entity on the chart, even though their lines were part of the massive Penn Central System. Many were not completely merged out of existance until the formation of Conrail in 1976.

These scans aren’t perfect and are a little blurry in the middle, but you get the idea. If you need a detailed study I would recommend purchasing the book or borrowing it from your local library.

I only have a couple of pieces of rail news for the past week. There is an article in the Dayton Daily News about local towns competing for a stop on the 3C Corridor. There’s also an article about highlights form the past week’s hobo festival in Bucyrus, and the LM&M is running their Civil War train this weekend in Mason.

Also, don’t expect a post tomorrow. Instead I’ll be devoting my time to a post Friday featuring an old PRR Lebanon Branch track chart.

The Wreck of the Penn Central

Author: Kyle Montgomery
Category: Book Reviews Railroads: , ,

After researching the history of Buckeye Yard the other week I’ve been on a bit of a Penn Central kick. There’s not a lot of people out there who model the Penn Central, but it has a certain mystic. There’s something morbidly fascinating about the great railroad that managed to implode in only 867 days.

The The Wreck of the Penn Central by Joseph R. Daughen and Peter Binzen provides an interesting look at that railroad monolith created back on February 1st, 1968. The book starts out with a brief history of the respective companies. The and the are compared and contrast while the reader begins to understand how their respective ideologies developed. This becomes important later when you witness some of the well-known corporate culture clashes that developed in the railroad at all levels.

Eventually the book transitions in the actual merger and some of the reasons it failed. The Penn Central’s problems were many and varied. They ranged to everything from railroad operation problems (the non-compatible computer systems are a famous example), to high labor costs, to factors beyond the railroad’s control (the ICC, the state of the industry, ect).

While the first few chapters kept me on the edge of me seat reading, the book drags a bit in the middle. Too much time is spent describing every point of the Penn Central’s “Diversification Program” and every investment or perceived conflict of interest within the management is emphasized. There comes a point when you realize there is no way this railroad will stay in business and that it will all fail spectacularly. The book overemphasizes just how bad things were and for a while you have to trudge through it in order to see the fireworks at the end.

When the house of cards finally collapses however, it does so with great interest. Even though history tells you all you need to know about the end, there is a while when it seems as if the government would step in with a bailout to save the day and you almost think they will pull it off. Yet as everyone knows it was not to be and the Penn Central would fail as the largest bankruptcy to that point in American history.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the book is not the manuscript itself but the time it was written. The book was published in 1971, just one year after the Penn Central bankruptcy. Conrail wasn’t formed for 5 more years. People still viewed the nationalization of the railroads as a possible doomsday option. The Staggers Act and many of the things today’s modern railroad takes for granted all happened after this book was written. As a result a very bleak picture is painted for the future of the railroad industry.

It’s interesting to look back with hindsight and compare their predictions of the future with today’s modern efficient railroad system of today. Now only 2 companies compete East of the Mississippi and much of the Penn Central’s track is long-gone. However, after reading this book I think the collapse of the Penn Central may have been necessary. The abandonments and deferred maintenance hurt in the short term, but in the long run the fallout from the Penn Central (deregulation of the railroads, Conrail, Amtrak, ect) may have saved the entire industry.

At its core, The Wreck of the Penn Central is written as a warning that this is no way to merge and business, and certainly no way to run a railroad. Its message of bailouts and “too-big-to-fail” companies is surprisingly relevant in today’s political and economic climate. Railroad buffs and business majors alike can find something to learn in this book, and overall I think it was worth the read.

If you would like to purchase a copy of The Wreck of the Penn Central you can support this site by using the link here.

In other news I have an article on the 3-C Corridor in Middletown, an old stock for sale on ebay, and some rail stimulus projects being considered for Toledo.

Exploring the CL&N System

Author: Kyle Montgomery
Category: Administration Railroads: , , ,

Today I’m proud to announce a new feature for this site. Over to the left under Introduction to the CL&N there’s a new link sharing the title of this post. This links to the Microsoft Live Map pictured above.

On this map I have used the ‘Route’ tool to draw the lines of the CL&N on top of the map. It includes the road of the CL&N, DL&C, M&C, and the various branch lines that were built and later abandoned. All this fits in with the modern roads and fields of today, making it easy to find and explore old areas of the line.

In the future I’ll be adding some more points of interests complete with photos from the past. The route will also continued to be refined. Right now it is based off a great deal of research and is accurate to the best of my ability, but I cannot guarantee every piece of track is located in the right place. In the last 50+ years a lot of development has happened around and sometimes over the tracks, so things can be a bit difficult to place.

The map isn’t based on any specific time. It features all the components of the ’s CL&N system but also includes tracks abandoned before then. I have tried to write notes on when additions and abandonments were made. I encourage anyone interested to spend some time with this tool. It’s truly fascinating to see the development and change of the old CL&N system.

The Decline of the Penn Central

Author: Kyle Montgomery
Category: Uncategorized Railroads: ,

This video was found by a member of the ModelRailroader internet forum. Originally it was posted on this blog. It was created by the Penn Central Bankruptcy Trustees to present to Congress. Much like today’s auto industry, the Penn Central was looking for a bailout from the federal government. A short 2 years later Penn Central was nationalized by the government and restructured into Conrail (Consolidated Rail Corporation).

I thought this video would be interesting to readers of this blog because Penn Central was operating the remnants of the CL&N. By the 1970′s Penn Central served the industrial area of Norwood and the Blue Ash Division on the former CL&N mainline. It also served Mason and Lebanon out of Middletown. Finally, the Penn Central served the line down to Centerville on the former DL&C. The 3 mile break around Brecon was just recently made.

The video shows the poor condition of track in Penn Central’s yards and mainline. As bad as it is, you can imagine the poor condition of the CL&N which was at best a secondary branch line. Speeds were reduced down to 8 or 10 miles an hour on similar lines. The deferred maintenance by the and later Conrail took a toll on the tracks that the City of Lebanon is paying for even today.

When Conrail took over these unprofitable lines needed to be practically rebuilt. The Lebanon branch narrowly avoided abandonment thanks to action by the Lebanon industries. The line down to Centerville wasn’t so lucky, and was quickly abandoned. Additionally, the poor performance drove many industries to truck transportation, deteriorating the economic strength of the line even further. This video provides an almost uncomfortable look at just how desperate things were on the Penn Central.