briansilvermustang posted:
Good one Brian, love the Penn Central.
mlaughlinnyc posted:
2. There was nothing about exchanging passenger services to Amtrak in exchange for equipment and running trains. The railroads offered most, but not all, of their cars and passenger locomotives for sale to NRPC. Those sales were a normal commercial transaction. NRPC bought roughly a third of the cars, including nearly all of the cars made by Budd.
I recall reading an article somewhere about how before Amtrak start up, Santa Fe and SCL management (maybe others?) often thought about staying out of Amtrak, so they were difficult to deal with when it came to purchasing equipment. Do you recall Santa Fe, IC, and maybe others being difficult to deal with? Both roads had diesels that were only leased by Amtrak.
4. A railroad could buy its way out of providing intercity passenger service by making a payment to NRPC equal to the last three years of its passenger deficit. That payment became part of NRPC's initial capitalization. Those that did not join NRPC were required to keep the same level of service for some years(5 yrs ?)
6. The railroads that did not buy into the NRPC and continued to maintain intercity passenger services were Southern, Rock Island, Rio Grande and Georgia.
Wasnt Rock Island so broke that they couldn’t afford to join, and the state of Illinois was somehow paying Rock Island to run the passenger trains anyway? I’ve always wondered if that were true, or just railfan folklore.
Thank you also for your post. That is some fascinating information.
For me it's like looking at a bunch of mutilation pictures. 😥
Sam's comments got me thinking about the Rock Island. I've done a bit of research on that this evening.
As I see it now, the Rock's decision looks like a straight forward return on investment decision. The cash savings would not have provided a reasonable return on the cash required to buy in to Amtrak. Tjat's not directly related to the financial situation. -in 1970 we did not yet look at RI as one of the financially hopeless railroads.
An important clue to the situation is in the April 1971 Official Guide, last issue before the NRPC took over. The Rock Island had only two remaining intercity passenger trains, round trips to Chicago from Peoria and Rock Island. They had been successful in discontinuing many passenger trains in the last three years. The three year deficit buy-in price for Amtrak would have been huge compared with the actual cash cost of the those two train pairs.
The deficit number calculated for Amtrak buy -in was on the basis of the ICC fully distributed cost formula including overhead, depreciation and return on capital invested. Railroads had to pay that in cash or value of equipment transferred. The actual cash cost of running those two trains was mainly crew, ticketing, fuel and maintenance expense, and there was a prospect of state subsidy. So it made no financial sense for the Rock to participate.
Privately run intercity passenger service in Milwaukee was a thing of the past by early 1971. The Federal government had formed Amtrak to remove the burden of passenger service from the railroads and insure that core passenger routes remained active. By May 1st, when Amtrak rolled into Milwaukee, things had changed... https://youtu.be/LS_B0k9WHF8 a colorful rainbow train @ 1:17
On May 1, 1971, Amtrak became Wisconsin's rail passenger carrier...
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With few exceptions, the models have almost always looked a whole lot better than the prototypes. A bit of a shame for what is supposed to be our national rail passenger service.
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Didn't remember what a run-down hodge-podge of equipment they had to start out. Makes contemporary Amtrak trains look spanking new.
I know there exceptions, but as a general rule, did the E units get there porthole windows blanked out when they when in for their first shopping under Amtrak?
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Mitch
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Nice work Mitch.
Thankee kindly!
Well now, that is different! The 20th Century Zephyr!
There you go again Mitch... remind me to NEVER let you near my Dreyfuss Hudson... or any other of my engines for that mater
But I must say, that is an impressive paint job.
Apples55 posted:There you go again Mitch... remind me to NEVER let you near my Dreyfuss Hudson... or any other of my engines for that mater
But I must say, that is an impressive paint job.
I am rather proud of it... ^.^
Mitch
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briansilvermustang posted:
You know that's my favorite Brian.
one of mine too Dave... 
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