Customer Reviews

MAIN LINES: REBIRTH OF THE NORTH AMERICAN RAILROADS, 1970-2002 (Railroads in America)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book carries on the very fine writing from this author's previous work, Merging Lines. This is an exceptionally good history of railroads in America since 1970. It explains why we see which railroad companies are still operating and what happened to the likes of Southern Pacific, Western Pacific, Conrail, Southern, Rio Grande, etc. It is a very easy read and hard to put down. I look forward to the next book from this author.

Drawing from numerous sources, Saunders weaves the economic and political history behind Railroading As We Know It Today into a work that is all at once comprehensive, insightful and engaging. This is no less than the Definitive Work and I have been recommending it as such to colleagues.

Having been with the Rock Island and Conrail for much of the time period covered, I can also attest that he seems to have gotten the facts not only right, but also in perspective.

Henry Posner III

Chairman
Railroad Development Corp.
Pittsburgh, PA

MAIN LINES is the indispensable history to find out why the United States went from dozens of "Class One" railroads in 1970, with most of the ones in the northeastern U.S. bankrupt or heading toward it, to today's situation with only seven Class One railroads, six of them megasystems (two of them Canadian-owned), only the smallest just a good-sized road but not a "mega" (the Kansas City Southern). Not all active track is operated by those seven roads, but pretty much by default the smaller lines are called "short lines," and frequently one operator will work a bunch of little segments that are separated by Class Ones.

In the Sixties, a combination of improving non-rail infrastructure, railroad corporate stodginess, federal inaction and some outright looting brought American railroads to the brink. In general, the industry was in much worse shape than most people (even railroad analysts) knew. That Sixties had seen the new subsidized interstate highways and the new medium-distance jets taking away first a lot of trucking, then intercity passenger travel from the rails. Most railroad companies were disinclined to seek subsidies to keep their passenger services going. Very strict tariff legislation dating back to the Trust-busting era had stifled innovation. Even worse, one the most respected and well-known railroads, the Pennsylvania Railroad or "Pennsy," had been looted Enron-style, malfeasance that went unecognized well into the PRR-New York Central merger as "Penn Central," which itself lasted only about two years.

By the early Seventies, "the experts" were predicting that in a few years American railroading would be reduced to export-coal trains coming out of the Appalachians, commuter services, a handful of inter-city links like New York to Washington, D.C., and not much else. What went right? This book is an excellent way, perhaps the best way, for the lay reader to understand the pain and consolidation of the 1970s (which gave us both Amtrak and Conrail), and how that winnowing down laid the framework for the regulatory reforms of the 1980s.

Compared to 1980, today's railroads are hauling about a quarter more freight with just over half the employees and about a third fewer track miles. The Interstate Commerce Commission was gradually phased out in favor of the more marketed-oriented Surface Transportation Board (nickname: the "Surf Board"). Railroads became more free to seek out new shippers, one of the major beneficiaries being the nascent Intermodal movement (shipping containers and trailers, mostly) and revolutionary overhauls in telecommunication, signalling and computerized sorting of cars. Also in the Eighties, (yet another) wave of mergermania took hold, not to be resolved until the late 1990s, when the country emerged with its current Big Seven (and as the joke goes, number seven doesn't count).

An excellent companion to this volume, in fact the perfect lead-in, is MERGING LINES, author Saunders' history of U.S. railroading from 1900 to 1970. We come to understand how American railroading has almost always been dominated by "mergermania," with hundreds of rail companies at the turn of the 20th Century winnowing down to a few dozen by 1970. Another book that finds great favor with business as well a railroad devotees is THE MEN WHO LOVED TRAINS by Rush Loving, which is more personality-oriented and arguably a bit easier to read. But to me MERGING and MAIN LINES are the definitive histories, with their excellent research and historical grounding, multiplicity of timely maps, and other helpfulness. If anything is missing, it's the more successful railroad companies like the former Santa Fe (ATSF) with their relative lack of drama that kept them out of the corporate-history pages.

This is author Richard Saunders, Jr.'s 2nd book. Together, Merging Lines and Main Lines cover the history of American railroading during the entire 20th Century. It is a compelling and highly detailed overview of an industry which played a vital role in the development of the United States. It is not a "pretty picture book", but rather a detailed history of each major railroad. Management, traffic analysis, competition, route structure and mergers are all thoroughly discussed in an attempt to explain the rise and fall of many carriers. This book is a MUST READ for anyone seriously interested in understanding the development of the railroad industry. The arrangement of chapters and headings allow it to be read in bits and pieces based upon interest in particular companies or time periods. Mr. Saunders has obviously spent a tremendous amount of time writing and researching this history. Main Lines is 381 pages of text, followed by notes, works cited and an index making this a valuable resource for future reference or rereading.

Dennis Mize, Author, L&N's Memphis Line.