Misleading if not false statements- Both condition and traffic. The west end as far as condition did not really start declining until the winter of 1977-1978. This was the Big Freeze winter, when MANAGEMENT actions allowed much power to freeze and break. It was almost as if deliberate, if not deliberate. After that, there were motive power shortages until the end. It was also when they began the major reduction of M-O-W forces. There were major track projects in 1971 and 1973, plus smaller efforts even including some CWR, clear up to 1979! (I can refer you directly to someone who was in charge of some of these projects.) Thereafter, under the constant pounding from the larger tonnage hoppers, etc, etc, it rapidly came apart. Until then they were largely able to maintain posted track speeds. Those trains noted were the 'scheduled' operations. Even though mostly dropped from ETT and run almost exclusively as EXTRAS WEST and EAST. So a lot of times you'd not necessarily see a 261 0r 262. But you could ID what would have been run as them easily just by looking at consists. You had system time freights and divisional time freights. I possess an original copy of the last contractor operated detector car run out west, Fall of 1979. So I know what capabilities were. Of course there were slow orders everywhere. M-O-W was all gone after the first embargo, add a soggy snowy winter and what do you expect? NP, GN, BN and any other railroad would have been in that very same condition! Now, what's the next claim? The old rotten tie fable? I can personally discredit that falsehood, having viewed it via a professional capacity. Boxcab E50
railroads When you say the frisco managers were mucking with things and someone mentions a funnel, to an outsider could you explain what was meant by those phrases? I find all of this really interesting.
Ryan- Something which happens often in the corporate world, is a merged company gets it's people put in management. I guess it's throwing a bone to the dog, or dangling a carrot. However you care to see it. After BN took Frisco in, it was what happened. One thing these people then try to do is 'make their mark.' The best way is making the books look good. So they proceeded... Amongst many foulups, they shut down Stampede Pass. Putting everything on Stevens Pass. They sold off the segment from Easton to Tri-Cities to Nick Temple, creating Washington Central, literally dirt cheap. Which WCRC promptly started giving good service and getting shippers back- Making money! And any time Stevens was down for work, derailment, etc, their alternative was park trains, or run the long way around from Seattle- To Vancouver, up the Gorge, Tri-Cities, making that single tracked line into Spokane even more clogged. They shut down and scrapped the SP&S line between the Tri-Cities and Spokane. Eliminating what had essentially been used along with the nearby NP, as separated double tracks. Forcing all onto one line. Solution? Millions had to be spent lengthening sidings and upgrading to accomodate more trains. They shut down the old GN between Spokane and Dean, forcing everything over onto the old NP between Sandpoint and Spokane. Which squeezed traffic from the old NP and former GN onto one line. Hence the "funnel" effect. They leased off the old NP from Sandpoint to Billings, creating MRL. Also selling the Montana branches to MRL. Now any trains going that way cost more money.... Plus the lease requirements of so many cars every year via MRL. Plus all the work they discovered they needed to do, in order to have two railroads on that one track- Millions more $$$ out. They chopped off some profitable branch lines as well. Oh- Also, when the State of Washington looked at Stampede for acquisition, the BN went in and logged it. You should have seen the mess left. Even with reforestation, you can still see it today. Back then, it looked like a nuclear test zone. It has even been written about in a book. Can't think of the name right now. A diatribe on railroad land grants and such. Oh well. Remember the comments by Rose after BNSF came to be? Roughly it was "What have you done to this railroad..." Then they had to buy back WCRC using a fair sized chunk of change. And then spend how much was it on Stampede Pass, plus more on the many miles to Tri-Cities. But they have been unable to get WashCorp to vacate their lease/MRL. All in all, the so-called savings to BN were perhaps a couple of years on paper, then drained right back out again. Boxcab E50
