[N&W] Re: Signals

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

 > 'What is amazing is that "parent" PRR '

Wasn't this just MORE PRR "fan BS"??? I hear it started because the PRR
guys were really embarrassed about their favorites motive power failures.
and they new that the N&W was run exactly opposite of the PRR. The
different N&W groups(track, motive power, support facilities, design and
R&D, etc) talked and shared data and worked with a common understanding of
what the task was.
The PRR's main problem was too much management, and no communications.
That's why PRR ended up with passenger engines that couldn't navigate the
passenger curves. They under estimated the maintenance required for their
aging fleets of stokerless engines. The PRR had a LOT of stuff, and the
characteristics of them made them stick out, but they sure didn't learn
anything from the N&W. N&W's stock dividends kept the PRR in the black for
37 years. Without the bucks, the PRR would never have survived the 1950's.

Mark Lindsey
________________________________________________________________
Hey, Abe:

I think you're forgetting the history of the PRR/N&W relationship.  It 
evidently bears repeating, for you and the list.

PRR bought controlling interest in N&W in 1900-1901 as a step in 
stabilizing coal freight rates over eastern ports; it was just one of 
several such acquisitions done at the time.  But PRR kept its interest in 
N&W until 1964 when it was forced to disinvest because of the upcoming 
N&W/WAB/NKP consolidation and PRR's own merger with NYC.

In the course of that 64-year ownership of so much N&W stock, PRR got, 
conservatively estimated, at least a half-billion (that's with a B) dollars 
in dividends from N&W.  N&W singlehandedly kept PRR afloat during the 
depths of the Great Depression.  So if you want to consider the PRR the 
"parent" you're free to do so, but understand a couple of truths connected 
with the relationship.  First, PRR made much of being "The Standard 
Railroad of the World" but hid the fact that that status was paid for by 
country boys, of which the signal people were only a few.  Also, consider 
the fact that PRR did not interfere or dictate to N&W the conduct of its 
day-to-day operations, its extremely cumbersome Book of Rules, nor its 
mechanical policies.  Nor did it dictate to N&W its signal system.  N&W 
used hardware supplied by US&S that was similar to PRR's, but used its own 
rules.  Some of them might not have been as good as the ones you're in love 
with, but others were better.  (Understand that I operated locomotives into 
Cincinnati Union Station over PRR and B&O, and from Columbus to Bellevue 
over the old Sandusky Line, so I knew both systems' signal rules - all 
three, that is.)  When I went to work for N&W in 1959 it was paying a $6.50 
annual dividend and PRR had over 4 million shares.  Do the math.

It could be maintained that the two most intelligent corporate decisions 
PRR ever made were (1) to buy and keep the N&W stock, and (2) not f**k with 
the goose that laid a half-billion golden eggs - it was greatly beneficial 
to PRR to leave the country boys alone.  If it hadn't, PRR might have gone 
under and  been broken up during the depression and parts of it distributed 
to other roads with more solid financial standings and less inflated 
corporate egos.

I also spent three years in the mid-1970s helping clean up the mess PRR 
made when it did go under.  I worked for the USRA.

EdKing