01-01-2009, 03:43 PM
Awww...CRAP! Third time today! 
![[Image: IMG_0658.jpg]](http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa145/Ralph59/IMG_0658.jpg)
Charlie, that was very interesting to watch both for the "pitch" to the government and for the vintage glimpses of PC equipment and facilities. Hardly an upbeat picture though! I would like to learn about the government's response to this film in particular. It was a compelling approach: "We COULD do fine work like at these modern facilities but we just don't have the bucks to improve more of our physical plant. Look at how bad its getting (cue very scary looking wobbly freight cars) and know that its only going to get worse if we don't get some money!"
On night I heard an explosion and the next day witnessed the incredible mess of a PC derailment near Mt. Marion NY in 1975. Tankers with combustible materials went off the track, and ignited damaging or destroying several cars. It took several days to clean up the wreck. The incident was attributed to failure of one car's wheels. Had the derailment occurred a mile earlier it would have blown up a small loading facility that handled ammonium nitrate of all things, likley vaporizing the local post office and several homes nearby!
The many factors related to the PC's bankruptcy and dissolution are well documented in good reads like "The Wreck of the Penn Central" by Daughen and Binzen. Certainly deteriorating equipment and facilities were a big problem, as were so many other issues for this ill conceived merger. That said, I model it because it was RAILROADING in my world as a boy. Despite its catastrophe as a business and carrier I still love the looks of those black locomotives, jade green freight cars, and the much maligned "Mating Worms" logo. The line does run better in my basement than pictured above.
Ralph
Charlie, that was very interesting to watch both for the "pitch" to the government and for the vintage glimpses of PC equipment and facilities. Hardly an upbeat picture though! I would like to learn about the government's response to this film in particular. It was a compelling approach: "We COULD do fine work like at these modern facilities but we just don't have the bucks to improve more of our physical plant. Look at how bad its getting (cue very scary looking wobbly freight cars) and know that its only going to get worse if we don't get some money!"
On night I heard an explosion and the next day witnessed the incredible mess of a PC derailment near Mt. Marion NY in 1975. Tankers with combustible materials went off the track, and ignited damaging or destroying several cars. It took several days to clean up the wreck. The incident was attributed to failure of one car's wheels. Had the derailment occurred a mile earlier it would have blown up a small loading facility that handled ammonium nitrate of all things, likley vaporizing the local post office and several homes nearby!
The many factors related to the PC's bankruptcy and dissolution are well documented in good reads like "The Wreck of the Penn Central" by Daughen and Binzen. Certainly deteriorating equipment and facilities were a big problem, as were so many other issues for this ill conceived merger. That said, I model it because it was RAILROADING in my world as a boy. Despite its catastrophe as a business and carrier I still love the looks of those black locomotives, jade green freight cars, and the much maligned "Mating Worms" logo. The line does run better in my basement than pictured above.
Ralph