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End of an Era: General Motors is selling its LaGrange, Ill.-based Electro-Motive Division to an investment group led by the Greenbriar Equity Group of Rye, N.Y., and Boston-based Berkshire Partners LLC. This is a historic milestone.
 Electro-Motive produced many of the famous diesel 'streamliner' diesels for railroads across America. Famous passenger trains like the California Zephyr, Super Chief, Trail Blazer, Capitol Limited, Empire Builder, North Coast Limited, Southern Crescent, City of New Orleans and Texas Special were at some time or other headed by an Electro-Motive E or F-Series diesel. An Electro-Motive diesel powered the futuristic GM Aerotrain of the 1950s.
In the early days of locomotive-building, the chief engineer of each railroad has his own idea of how a steam loco should be made. And wrote his personal specifications for every purchase. This drove locomotive manufacturers nuts (or loco?) because it was impossible to offer a stock line of locomotives or build for inventory during slow times. (A very good book, 'The Baldwin Locomotive Works, 1831-1915: A Study in American Industrial Practice' by John K. Brown, offers details.) Baldwin, the largest builder of steam locos, made over 25% of its sales outside the U.S., because foreign railroads didn't have such egotistical engineers and were willing to purchase standardized, more-profitable products.
In the 1930s, GM's Electro-Motive Division developed diesel-electric locos which they offered to various railroads. The chief engineers harrumphed, demanding modifications to their custom specifications - just like they did with steam locos. General Motors - accustomed to building standard products - refused, limiting customization to minor items like marker light location and paint schemes. The diesels were so superior in performance and cost of operation compared with steam that railroad managements ignored their engineers' advice and purchased off-the-shelf diesel-electrics from GM. The steam locomotive soon became a thing of the past. General Motors changed the locomotive industry forever. But now, the worm gear of progress has turned again and GM is exiting the locomotive business. (Sigh.) Time changes everything.
Book Review: I recently read 'Crosswords of Commerce - The Pennsylvania Railroad Calendar Art of Grif Teller' by Dan Cupper. A description: "Each year, starting in 1925, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) commissioned a striking oil painting of a PRR engine in a dramatic setting, which was featured on a large wall calendar that the company distributed by the hundreds of thousands to customers and the public. Grif Teller painted 27 of the 33 scenes. This book reproduces his paintings in full color and recounts his life and career." Teller also did work for other railroads and transport companies and did privately-commissioned paintings on various subjects. Surprisingly (since the conventional wisdom is that the 1940s and '50s were times of great job stability working for benevolent, womb-to-tomb employers), he was unemployed several times in his life because the companies he worked for would go out of business. He made ends meet during those times by free-lancing, sometimes using non de plumes on his paintings.
There are a couple of stories about fussy, hard to satisfy customers. ("The box cars need to have more rivets painted on them." ... etc.) We sometimes think that such jerks are something unique to today's economy. Nope. They've been around forever. There were probably minor functionaries in ancient Rome who got their jollies from hassling some poor chariot maker about the shape of the wheel spokes. Anyway, I found this book to be most enjoyable. If you like trains even the slightest bit ... go buy it.
PRR Rail History: The above book review has prompted comments bemoaning the decline of "old-time railroading." Unfortunately, America is a land of change and, when changes happen, industrial icons sometimes can't adapt - they wither and disappear.
The Pennsylvania Railroad suffered from declining health for many years. Passenger operations never contributed much to profits and the Pennsy never made a dime on passenger service after 1946. Passenger trains were killed off by better highways which made automobile travel more practical for distances up to 300 miles and by air travel, especially after jet airplanes became commonplace.
Freight revenues declined too, especially after the proliferation of Interstate highways facilitated fast delivery of goods by truck. LCL (less-than-carload) shipments by rail peaked at 50 million tons in 1919; by 1958, it had declined to 4 million tons. Trucks were faster and more cost-effective for trips of two days or less, especially for LCL shipments. In the 1960s, Pennsy management attempted to diversify into more profitable markets - investments in commercial real estate, theme parks, oil producers and even acquiring Strick, a manufacturer of truck trailers. But, it was too little, too late. By the time they merged in 1968, the Pennsylvania Railroad, New York Central and New Haven were all on the ropes. The merger was a marriage of desperation. And it never worked because each participating company had different cultures and values and the merged entity fought with itself all the time. The Penn Central Railroad entity declared bankruptcy in June of 1970.
In May of 1971, quasi-government entity Amtrak took over Penn Central's passenger service. In April, 1976, Conrail was formed as a for-profit freight railroad. Owners were the creditors of the seven bankrupt railroads within Conrail - Penn Central, Erie-Lackawanna, Reading and others. Conrail eventually became profitable by dumping unprofitable routes and services. In 1999, Conrail was split in two - half went to CSX (Chessie); half went to Norfolk Southern. Almost all large U.S. railroads now focus on long-mileage, point-to-point haulage of carload lots of merchandise. They leave the shorter routes, smaller shipments and intracity delivery to the truckers.
Amtrak: We rode the Acela from Boston to Washington in October 2004. It was a most pleasant experience. The rail upgrades are still in progress, so the train has to go slow in spots and the ride is not nearly as smooth as the Eurostar Chunnel Train, but the staff were friendly and the service was very prompt. (Special thanks to Manny the Boston ticket agent who got us on an earlier train with only minutes to spare and made all the changes with a smile.) It was a thrill to go up and over the Hellgate Bridge into New York City.
The four-track section of the old Pennsy line (south of NY) has been mostly upgraded and we flew through New Jersey. I got jolts of nostalgia from seeing the familiar Philly railscape roll past - Holmesburg Station, Frankford Junction, the Zoo, the stately Art Museum and the spectacular 30th Street Station. The beautifully restored Union Station in D.C. is a sight to behold. And to wander around. By the way, Acela trains also offer a "quiet car" where cell phone use and loud talking are prohibited.
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