Skip to main content

Reply to "Erie Lackawanna 60 Year Anniversary"

          EL was indeed a product of the combining of two great roads. In the decade prior to the 1960 Erie-DL&W merger, Erie had taken an aggressive approach on fast freight traffic, moving its first TOFC load Chicago to Croxton in July 1954 on their regular scheduled freight train #100, known as the Flying Saucer . By 1970, EL made intermodal news by launching a dedicated UPS trailer train between Chicago and Croxton, with scheduled service of 5 days a week, setting the standard for UPS trains today, but unheard of at the time. Previous to this, UPS had moved away from rail TOFC account of some bad experiences related to moving their trailers on existing (non UPS dedicated) Penn Central trains. (one can only imagine)

           Before their ultimate last minute inclusion in the 3R Act and Conrail, other railroads had expressed an interest in acquiring EL. N&W and their innovative "protective holding company" Dereco was formed as result of conditions put forth by ICC for approval to their N&W-NKP-Wabash merger, to oversee and operate EL, who opposed the merger unless it was included. Through this arrangement N&W became intimate with EL operations and a few years later concluded it wanted no part of the terminal complexities, high property taxes and other issues associated with railroading in the metropolitan New York, New Jersey region.

          Although there are many other events that occurred during this time (too many to go into detail here), the death kneel for EL was rang after the failure of the proposed N&W-Chessie merger. After N&W concluded it wanted no more of the EL, Chessie moved in and was very near consumating an EL-Chessie merger, however; talks fell through at the last minute, reported due to EL's operating crafts failure to come to an agreement with Chessie over union work rules, pay, employee protection and seniority dovetailing, thus leaving the bride at the altar so to speak.   

           Folding the EL into either of the two solvent roads in the Northeast at the time, N&W or Chessie, makes for some great "what if’s" but the most intriguing scenario I've read is that of Santa Fe Industries, the holding company that controlled AT&SF at the time. In 1975, EL's largest interchange partner was Santa Fe. An 85 page report titled "Erie-Lackawanna Railway Company, Proposal for Acquisition" on the matter was generated by Santa Fe in mid-1975, but is said to have been too late as EL was already committed (for the 2nd time) to be included in Conrail in April 1976, just a few months into the future at the time of this report.  The report was said to be overall favorable towards a Santa Fe acquisition of EL. One has to wonder what US railroading would look like today had this report come with a little more time. One carrier, L.A. to Croxton, managed by the proven competent operating personnel of both roads, would have the potential to have been quite a railroad.

Regards,

C.J.

Last edited by GP40

OGR Publishing, Inc., 1310 Eastside Centre Ct, Suite 6, Mountain Home, AR 72653
800-980-OGRR (6477)
www.ogaugerr.com

×
×
×
×
×