Seeing the Penn Central retro pack (I haven't gotten yet, but I intend to), I can't help but think about that particular era in railroad history, from the late 60 through the 70s to about 1980 when the Staggers Act was enacted, an era I personally call "The Dark Ages", dark not because of a lack of knowledge or technical innovations but dark because the entire North American Rail Industry looked like it was walking a tightrope. I'll give a bit of background that set the stage for this "Dark Age" of railroading: During World War II passenger numbers swelled due to increased demand as citizens were advised to save every drop of gasoline they could for our boys fighting in the European and Pacific theaters and entire armies and equipment had to be moved around the country for deployment. In order to save on gas, fewer people drove their cars so they traveled more on the rails. Soldiers heading for deployment were practically crammed into older reserved pullmans and coaches to get the most use out of each coach, with crude kitchens having to be set up in baggage cars near the middle of the train to feed the soldiers mid-trip. I can't speak as to the quality of food served on a typical military train but I get the impression that the food was eaten less because you wanted to eat it and more because you had to eat it because there was nothing else. Soldiers sent to Europe would get similar treatment after deployment whenever they had to be moved around either in Great Britain or in Europe on the continent, and it was probably a nice change to be able to drive around in the open in a military jeep even given the circumstances whenever the opportunity arose. As passenger numbers surged in the US, many railroads thought they would be able to hold onto that traffic into the postwar era and so they made rather sizeable investments into their passenger-handling infrastructure, the largest of which was the Pennsylvania Railroad who made massive investments including inaugurating new trains with all-new equipment, nearly re-equipping the entire existing passenger fleet with new equipment, purchasing new passenger locomotives, etc. Some roads like the New York Central followed suit, though not as extreme as the Pennsy. These intentions largely backfired after hostilities ended and to say those investments failed to pay off is putting it mildly. With hostilities ended there was no longer a need to save gas for the war effort (remember, we're talking about the 50s when gas was cheap and people didn't think as green as we try to do today). Soldiers home from the war, by now probably having their view of travel by train marred by cramped, crowded, and uncomfortable accommodations with lack-luster food were more than happy to take to the road. On the road you could leave whenever you want, go wherever you want, and not have to worry about schedules. Dependent on where you were going and with how cheap gas was back then you might actually get to where you wanted to go a bit faster and a little cheaper, too! Air travel had proved to be faster and priced competitively compared to railroads, and passengers wanting to make the most of their time at resorts and spend less time in transit began traveling by plane. Passengers left the rails in droves it seemed and from then on railroads were hard-pressed to try and make their services appealing to passengers. This is when streamlining and higher passenger train speeds became the order of the day, and while some roads like the Santa Fe proved more successful than others, some roads' finances were broadsided by the mass exodus of passengers to the road and the sky like the Pennsy and New York Central. The Pennsy was the nation's largest passenger carrier, so any drop in passenger traffic already hurt more than it did most roads. Factor in all the investments the Pennsy made to expand its passenger fleet that would wind up not paying for themselves and the situation went from inconvenient to catastrophic for the Pennsy's earnings. Even before the Penn Central merger the passenger fleet was reduced to a shadow of its former self. New York Central's cross-country passenger service was almost non-existent when compared to the Pennsy's before the merger. Going back to the war, the railroads were pushed to the breaking point to hold up to demand both from civilian needs and military obligations. The freight and supplies had to move, no matter what. Equipment, rolling stock and the roadbed were given maintenance only when needed and were likely "patched up" rather than fully repaired for the purpose of getting things rolling sooner. After the war the railroads were in a rundown state and would need equipment and stock either properly repaired or replaced dependent on its condition. The track, meanwhile, definitely needed repairing and upgrading which was an expensive proposition. The roads and the airways cut into passenger traffic and soon after into main contracts. Roads have the flexibility of having the mail delivered from the regional sorting centers directly to customers rather than sorted, taken to a rail depot, put on a train, unloaded from the train at another depot, taken to the post office, and sorted again before final delivery while the airways offered incomparable speed to move mail and high-priority shipments literally from one end of the country to the other within a day. Once mail contracts moved to the roads and the planes passenger traffic country-wide was on its last legs, the last bit of possible profitability gone. With passenger trains by this point nearly guaranteed to not make a profit after the loss of mail contracts railroads saw passenger trains less as a source of pride and status and more of a liability, and thus most railroad companies sought to either reduce their passenger traffic or all-out get out of the passenger game. Road and air hurt rail traffic beyond passengers and mail. Trucking companies took advantage of a road's inherent flexibility to offer service more places with more direct connections from producer to consumer at lower rates compared to a comparable railroad service, and so more and more freight began to leave the rails, too. Less income from all sides left the railroads less able to invest much into maintaining stock and equipment, and track maintenance was deferred even further which led to more speed restrictions, which slowed down transit times, which led to even less profit, and so on and on and on and on in a downward spiral. Now we get to Penn Central. The New York Central and the Pennsylvania Railroad were historically bitter rivals with parallel routes and services trying to one-up the other. Neither company was doing well financially at this point, but of the two the Pennsy was hurting the most. With the large cuts in its passenger service, ageing rolling stock and by now antiquated infrastructure it was in a sorry state. The New York Central had at least made investments into upgrading its roadbed and physical plant but it was not in a sustainable state either. The only way of surviving this crisis, it seemed, was to attempt to put aside their differences and merge into a new company. So in February 1968 Penn Central was formed, with the New Haven Railroad added into the merger by the end of the year. Now we talk about the lack of proper integration and infighting amongst the companies with the companies practically split along the red team (former PRR) and green team (former NYC), and this lack of organization did hurt it in the long run, but the long-term problems of deferred maintenance of track and rolling stock kept the Penn Central from ever turning a profit and only 2 years later Penn Central filed for the largest bankruptcy in corporate history at the time. It's one thing to talk about the problems that plagued the Penn Central for its entire existence, it's another to actually see it. In 1974 Penn Central made a video addressed to the federal government in an attempt to acquire federal aid, and this same video is currently on youtube entitled "Penn Central 1974 - Movie used to get federal funding" on the channel Steve Lubetkin. I will post the video link here for convenience, though you can just look it up on youtube on your own: ...Yeah, Penn Central certainly was a thing, wasn't it? Like I said earlier, this was a dark time in North American railroad history. I think anything we do in Train Sim Classic will probably make things look better for the Penn Central than they ever were. I wonder if it is actually possible to build a route that properly depicts Penn Central's dark days, poor track, low speed orders, and potential derailments included?
Makes an interesting comparison with the Beeching years in the UK. It is easily overlooked, after all the wailing about Beeching, that the UK Govt never did follow through on all the Beeching recommendations - especially those relating to freight. Beeching recommended heavy emphasis on bulk freight between major nodes ('Block trains', where rail was very competitive), leaving local freight to road and fairly pricing the cost of infrastructure, instead of which the Govt encouraged long distance road freight by biasing the real cost of infrastructure in favour of road and forced railways to provide local service, where they were more inefficient. By the way- the Govt also failed to provide the major improvements in bus services which Beeching included in his report (although it has since been shown that, unfortunately, local bus services are no more financially viable than trains).
