The Men Who Loved Trains
For most model railroaders, me included, the fascination with model trains started with a fascination with the real thing. As a young boy in the early 1970’s, living less than a block from what is now the New Jersey Transit’s River Line, I spent plenty of time running to the end of the block and watching the freight trains rumble past. As the trains passed I would love reading all the different road names on the engines and freight cars. The Penn Central was just formed a few years earlier so I got to witness the transformation of paint schemes on some locos and cars from Pennsylvania to Penn Central.
Thanks to the formation of ConRail
in the mid 70’s, I got to witness an even wider array of road names.
Watching the migration of equipment to the Conrail paint scheme, which
for some consisted of a big "CR" stenciled over the original road
name, was neat especially when I saw ConRail blue on a locomotive for
the first time. Many years later freight trains still run on those
tracks but the road names on the engines are Norfolk Southern and CSX
now with an occasional ConRail thrown in. Being a railfan from a young
age I was well aware of why the road names were changing over the
years. I didn’t realize the events responsible for those changes could
be so interesting until I read an article in the July issue of Trains magazine by the author of a new book, The Men Who Loved Trains.
The article by Rush Loving, Jr
entitled "The Prize" was a real page-turner. The piece, which is a
representation of Mr. Loving’s new book, gives an overview of the
events that lead up to the eventual takeover of ConRail by CSX and
Norfolk Southern. Feeling the squeeze from the merger frenzy of the
railroads in the western U.S., CSX and Norfolk Southern both felt
(unbeknownst to one another) that a merger with Conrail was necessary
to survive. CSX approached ConRail but NS was already in secret
negotiations with ConRail. When ConRail and NS announced the merger,
CSX managment was stunned but decided to put up a fight. In the end
CSX and NS both got what they wanted but the story leading up to the
final outcome is very good.
The article epitomizes the way big railroads and the men who run
them operate in America. The ConRail takeover is just one of many
events that reshaped America’s railroads. The Men Who Loved Trains
looks at many such events and the men responsible for them. If the
book is anything like the article it should be a great read. My copy
is on order from Amazon.com.
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