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Re: Hormel Meat Reefer traffic was Tri-Sorb snubbers on reefers

Tim O'Connor
 


Yawn. It's a ridiculous argument. The PRR served the industrial heartland and it was
an enormous and important corporation. It was also one of the many that suffered from
the postwar migration to the west and south - you can almost watch the ton-miles going
from the PRR to the SP for much of the postwar period. Weird routings existed because
railroads were COMPETITIVE (thanks to the ICC and tariff rules) and those routings were
not necessarily faster, shorter, or better. You never heard of the traffic manager
being taken out to eat by the railroads' sales reps? Business ain't charity, but it
also isn't entirely rational.




On 11/12/2019 4:54 PM, Donald B. Valentine via Groups.Io wrote:
 Hi Tony,

     The short answer is that if the Pennsy had been in business, instead of pretending to be, the Alphabet Route
would not have been. The Erie was a hell of a railroad and I'm sorry it's gone. The time per ton mile always
seemed to be excellent and given the profile of their route from eastern Ohio further east one has to give them
credit for the excellent service they provided. If you look at those figure again It is not only the Erie that had
volume, it was the roads between them andthe four northern New England states. This is why the B&M numbers
were so much higher than the Penny's New Haven partner as well. Most of what the New Haven did carry came
via Maybrook, the Erie's New Haven connection, judging by most photos I've seen, rather then via car floats from
the Pennsy at Greenville, NJ. I know Bruce and others disagree with but to me the Pennsy was little more than
its reporting marks, all PR but not much service. I wish the figures included the Canadian roads as the CPR
carried a fair amount of meat traffic into Northern New England as well but I have no figures for the volume.

My best, Don Valentine


--
Tim O'Connor
Sterling, Massachusetts
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