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Trains Magazine 1956 October Engine that made Penn Station Possible
Trains Magazine 1956 October Engine that made Penn Station Possible
62 Pages
Railroad news and editorial comment. By David P. Morgan.6
What about the Eastern roads' petition for 45 per cent first-class fare increase?
Railroad news photos.8
Railroading is an active industry. What goes on from Kankakee to Kalamazoo.
Railroads out of Rio: nobody loves 'em. By Brian Fawcett.14
Brazil's railroads are important to its economy, but nobody rides 'em for fun.
Two-story streamliners. By David P. Morgan.21
The West is riding high in 151-foot-tall cars with two floors of roaming space.
The ankle-view train. By E. John Long.21
The East is nestled down into the 12-foot-high cars of the lightweight tubular.
The locomotive that made Penn Station possible.
By Frederick Westing.--28
The Pennsylvania made a bold decision, then produced a locomotive to back it up.
Pennsylvania DD1 at Manhattan Transfer. By George A. Gloff.32
A four-color re-creation of the New Jersey change point in the late 1920's.
Robert Hale focuses on ... the American West.-39
The talented hand of Bob Hale tripped the shutter on these classic rail scenes.
Steam: it fares better in the flatlands. By David P. Morgan
with photographs by Philip R. Hastings.-49
Ohio's terrain is a perfect stage on which steam plays one of its last, finest roles
THE WRONG ACTION TAKEN AT THE WRONG TIME IN THE WRONG WAY
EPORTER Robert E. Bedingfield of the New York Times broke the biggest railroad passenger story of 1956. Instead of dealing with a low center of gravity, it told of a very high fare. Bedingfield .wrote that the nation's;; largest long-distance railroad passenger operators -New York Central and Pennsylvania -were willing to concede the Pullman trade to the airlines and that they would ask a boost of approximately 50 per cent in first-class fares to dry up that end of the passenger business.
Bedingfield's sc p was still reverberating across the land when Pennsy reacted violently against the charge of "scuttle," declared that the Times report was "not factual, misleading, and an unjustified deduction." The railroad said it had a billion dollars invested in its passenger business and grossed 170 million a year on it; moreover, Pennsy said, any fare increase would not be calculated to dry up any traffic.
Central kept mum.
The Times report appeared July 25; on August 10 the railroads acted.
Six Eastern roads - New York Central, Pennsylvania, Chesapeake & Ohio, Norfolk & Western, Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines, and Pittsburgh & Lake Erie - petitioned the I.C.C. for a first-class fare increase of 45 per cent and a coach fare boost c' 5 per cent. Two other roads - Lehigh Valley and Reading -asked for the coach increase only. Significantly, all six of the roads wanting the double increase have a family alliance, by direct stock ownership or otherwise, with Central and Pennsy.
The party line handed down by the two kingpins of the passenger business was this: the six petitioners lose more than 100 million dollars a year on passengers [under the I.C.C. formula], therefore it is "imperative to take bold action to put our fare structure on a realistic basis." The increases, they said, would approximate the cost of providing the service. In explaining the gulf between 5 and 45 per cent, Central and Pennsy noted that the airlines, too, had discovered that luxury service is not economical for mass transportation unless the passenger is prepared to pay for it. Hence the trend to aircoach. And in answer to the scuttling charge the roads said, "The quality of our first-class railroad passenger service is something we are very proud of. . . . We believe that there will continue to be a demand by substantial numbers of people at the price we propose."
The reluctance of the big Eastern roads to figure their passenger expenses on an out-of-pocket basis is because they do
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