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Trains Magazine 1956 August Tales of a Ten-Wheeler NP VGN
Trains Magazine 1956 August Tales of a Ten-Wheeler
66 Pages
Railroad news and editorial comment. By David P. Morgan.6
Europe's increasing coal demands are opening new vistas for American railroads.
Railroad news photos.8
The railroads are never at a loss for words when the question is "What's new?"
Tales of a Ten-Wheeler. Data and photos by R. V. Nixon.14
All about a Northern Pacific 4-6-0 that has seen a lot of life in her 54 years.
Of black upholstery and commanding exhaust. By H. Reid -18
The end of a VGN service that specialized in first names and candy for the kids.
Faces ... remarkable, remembered. By F. H. Howard.21
What makes one locomotive differ from another? Why the expression on the face!
Little railroads in faraway places. By David P. Morgan with
photographs by Philip R. Hastings.---26
To the woods of West Virginia - where old-fashioned railroading hath charm.
Photo section. ------31
Thirteen solid pages of steam railroading in pictorial glory. Take your choice.
K4s. By Frederick Westing.--44
Story of a locomotive. If the K4s has a secret left - it's not worth the telling.
HOW NOT TO FIGURE "DEFICITS"
EGARDLESS of whether you take it at face value or not, the I.C.C. formula for the allocation of railroad passenger service costs [pages 31-37, July TRAINS] has produced some mildly encouraging results for the year 1955. The "deficit" totaled 636.7 million dollars for class 1 roads. Alarming? Perhaps, but downright hopeful compared with losses of other years. The figure, lowest in any year since 1950, compares with I.C.C.-reported losses of 669.5 million last year and 704.5 million in 1954. The accompanying table details how the larger roads stacked up in individual passenger operating ratios and deficits.
If anything, the formula is its own worst enemy. Even a casual study of the 1955 results indicates that the more passenger business a railroad handles, the brighter its statistical performance is apt to be. Unfortunate Long Island, saddled with all the horrors of a rush-hour commutation trade at inadequate rates and no tonnage to speak of, is - according to the formula - the best passenger operator in the field. Its ratio is 89.41 per cent (the only one less than 100) and LI shows a net operating income of $205,000 from hauling suburbanites.
Or consider New York Central and Santa Fe. Central typifies the passenger problem: commuters, costly terminals, excessive train-mileage, short hauls. Santa Fe, on the other palm, is the kingpin in a lucrative long-haul Chicago-California market...It wouldn't know a commuter if it met him face to face, and its major terminals are Chicago, Kansas City and Los Angeles-all shared facilities. Last year passengers, mail and express grossed 150.9 million dollars for Central, a more modest 86 million for Santa Fe. Yet the Eastern road, with a ratio of 114.02 per cent, lost 37.7 million dollars on passengers; the Western pike, with a ratio of 136.3 per cent, dropped 40.8 million in the same business!
Obviously, the answer to the passenger problem as implied in the formula is to carry more people shorter distances at lower fares and into more expensive terminals.
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