Re: Penn Central

(See my note 'way at the bottom!)

>> Seth Breidbart wrote: >>>> The Penn Central Railway, just to name one example, ran so well "by >>>> itself", that it drove itself into bankruptcy, and liquidation. The >>>> vast sums that they lost on passenger rail service were a direct >>>> contributing factor. >>> Actually, it didn't do so badly until it was looted by corrupt >>> management. >> A close look at the record does not support that. A key book is "The >> Wreck of the Penn Central". The authors, two newspaper reporters, >> took a muckraking approach and clearly felt the bankruptcy was totally >> management's fault. However, they at least included details of other >> circumstances that were actually the real reasons for bankruptcy. >> (The authors chose to emphasize different issues). >> Note that: >> -- The key PC personnel didn't get rich. The head guy, Saunders, lost a >> lot of money and prestige. >> -- The bankruptcy was aggresively investigated and no criminal >> wrongdoing was found. >> -- As a result of the bankruptcy laws were changed to eliminate the >> problems the PC had. Passenger service, both local and long distance, >> was transferred to govt agencies. (PC lost a tremendous amount of >> money on psgr service). Abandonments of unprofitable segments and >> better rate making was deregulated by the Staggers Act. >> -- Keep in mind there is a big difference between bad decisions and >> criminal decisions by management. Bad decisions is not "looting". >> -- Unlike modern corporations where assets are mostly paper and the >> guts are hidden, the physical plant of the Penn Central was wide >> open for everyone to see, and it was obvious it was lousy. >> Everybody was stuck on the legends of the Pennsylvania Railroad and >> New York Central and ignored the reality that both railroads were >> in terrible physical condition and were losing money at the time of >> the merger. It amazes me how Wall Street ignores -- good and bad >> -- the actual condition of a company. (A friend told me a utility >> was undervalued by Wall Street and to buy it. He was right, the >> stock doubled soon after I bought it. >> Too bad I only bought a little so even though I doubled my money my >> actual gain wasn't that much.) >> As an aside, the Pennsyslvania Railroad had a sophisticated telephone >> system, with its own toll test switchboards. I believe railroads were >> one of the types that were allowed to own their own telephone gear and >> maintain it themselves and still connect to the Bell System. After >> Amtrak and Conrail came in the system was replaced with modern stuff. >> Tiny modern brown 2554 Touch Tone wall sets replaced big old style >> phones and Teletype 40 series CRTs replaced the old green impact >> printers. Amtrak used Control Data computers and CRT screens. >> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Baltimore & Ohio and Santa Fe Railroads >> each had their own telephone network as well. PAT] > And let's not forget about the Southern Pacific Railroad (or was it > the Southern Pacific Railway?)... As the story has it they were the > ones who thought up SPRINT! > Al > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The *S*outhern *P*acific *R*ailroad > *I*nternal *N*etwork *T*elecommunications Department of that railroad > -- or S.P.R.I.N.T. for short -- did a major re-build of their > trackside telephone system in the late 1960's. They did such a good > job of it, they had a huge anount of left-over capacity and decided > to lease it out to other businesses and companies. That was the > original Sprint, which a few years later got into residential telecom > service as well, and has now -- 2005 -- gone through many changes in > ownership and management. About 1998 or so, Sprint bought the United > Telephone Company which serves a lot of northern Kansas among other > territories. PAT]

They also serve a good chunk of central Florida too.

Reply to
Tony P.
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