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Trains Magazine 1968 January Great Trains of the Great Western
Trains Magazine 1968 January
January 1968Volume 28 Number 3
NEWS - - -3
PROFESSIONAL ICONOCLAST -5
RAILROAD NEWS PHOTOS -8
STEAM NEWS PHOTOS - - 10 SALESMAN'S PEREGRINATIONS 14
GRANDEST 0-8-0 OF ALL - -18
NEXT BREAKTHROUGH:
TRUE TRAIN - - -20
WHICH TWIN HAS THE GIESL? 27 GREAT TRAINS OF THE GW - 34
Railway post office 50Running extra 57
Second section56Interchange57
COVER: Austrian Federal 4-6-2T, K. Glass; True Train, John Swatsley; Red Bird, William Vaughn.
SANTA FE CALLS IT QUITS
IF ever there was a passenger's railroad in our troubled time, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe qualified for the honor. The road inaugurated the nation's newest long-haul schedule, the San Francisco Chief, in 1954; cheerfully aligned itself with those who argued that the ICC formula exaggerated passenger deficits; was taking delivery on new hi-level coaches and rebuilding sleepers into all-room cars as late as 1964; passed the saving along to its customers when the 10 per cent excise tax on tickets was repealed; reduced off-peak fares to iron out the valleys of its summer / Christmas-type traffic; and introduced an inclusive ticket covering transportation, space, and meals.
For its efforts, Santa Fe reported the second highest (after Penny's) passenger deficit in the U. S. in 1966: 31.9 million dollars, a figure more than double the loss of rival Espee.
Even as Santa Fe steered its increasingly lonely if affirmative passenger course, the system seemed to sense the inevitable. During those Senate subcommittee hearings on the railroad problem back in 1958, Sen. Frank Lausche (Dem., 0.) gently nudged then AT&SF President Ernest Marsh into a look at the future:
LAUSCHE: "Is there anything you can do to improve your railroad service and keep for yourself a part of the business that is now being taken away by the private automobiles and by the airlines?"
MARSH: "We have done a great deal in that direction."
LAUSCHE: "Do you see anything more that you can do?"
MARSH: "No, not in the way of improved service. There might be some development in connection with equipment that would give a better service, but I don't think we should try to compete on a speed basis. We are now trying to compete on the basis of comfort and convenience and room to move around in, and a scenic route, and trying to talk to people on the basis of going there, rather than being there."
A later exchange between the two men was more revealing:
LAUSCHE: "I assume you do mean to imply by that that the interesting ques
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