Interesting facts and notes in old railroad magazines

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Starting around 1960 Trains started listing top speeds on rail lines. Interesting to see those numbers. I am skimming the June 1966 as I type this. I should have mentioned this the first time the list was published. Given the legal complaint against NS re: Crescent it is worth noting the old SR was topping out at 65 MPH versus other RRs hitting over 80 MPH, and it was not for many miles at 65 MPH.
 
McLeansvilleAppFan said:
Trains, July 1966. Page 14.

GONE BY 1976?: President B. F. Biaggini of Southern Pacific thinks that passenger trains will be a lingering memory in approximately 10 years and says that 125 mph speedsters, such as Japan's new Bullet Line operates, could not reverse the trend here
Click to expand...
Wishful thinking on his part?
 
McLeansvilleAppFan said:
Trains, July 1966. Page 14.

GONE BY 1976?: President B. F. Biaggini of Southern Pacific thinks that passenger trains will be a lingering memory in approximately 10 years and says that 125 mph speedsters, such as Japan's new Bullet Line operates, could not reverse the trend here
Click to expand...
Well, there were many on at least one side of the aisle who voted for the Railpax Bill with a nod nod wink wink understanding that the whole thing will fail within five years. So Biagginni was not the only person suffering from that delusion, and it is quite possible that many from that era are still smarting from the fact that their dreams have failed to come to fruition. That is possibly the basis for at least a segment of the completely irrational (in my opinion) opposition to Amtrak today.
 
McLeansvilleAppFan said:
Trains, May 1966. Page 53.

I will just cut and paste a picture of the screen clipping. I have not read the article yet but will at some point soon.

View attachment 38053
Click to expand...
That was one of my favorite articles by editor Morgan. He was an excellent writer and some of his vignettes such as ‘After Midnight’ were almost poetic.
 
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jis said:
Well, there were many on at least one side of the aisle who voted for the Railpax Bill with a nod nod wink wink understanding that the whole thing will fail within five years. So Biagginni was not the only person suffering from that delusion, and it is quite possible that many from that era are still smarting from the fact that their dreams have failed to come to fruition. That is possibly the basis for at least a segment of the completely irrational (in my opinion) opposition to Amtrak today.
Click to expand...
I suspect that Biaggini was referring to the mid-1960's Stanford Research Institute study that projected the end of intercity rail passenger service to come in the 1970's. That the SP paid for the study, done at an entity named for the son of one of the company's founders, struck some editorialists as unsurprising. Presumably it was done to use as evidence in train-off cases that were piling up.
 
jis said:
Well, there were many on at least one side of the aisle who voted for the Railpax Bill with a nod nod wink wink understanding that the whole thing will fail within five years. So Biagginni was not the only person suffering from that delusion, and it is quite possible that many from that era are still smarting from the fact that their dreams have failed to come to fruition. That is possibly the basis for at least a segment of the completely irrational (in my opinion) opposition to Amtrak today.
Click to expand...
I don't think there are many active politicians or businessmen left today who would have been part of that nod nod wink wink agreement, and if there are they would have been pretty junior back then and hardly had much skin in the game. Any persisting disillusion or wound-licking was at best passed down through word of mouth. As neither politicians nor executives are known for their interest in things that happened before their time, I think it is safe to say that this hurt plays no role in today's politics.

Why there are people who hate Amtrak is still a legitimate question of course.
 
Willbridge said:
I suspect that Biaggini was referring to the mid-1960's Stanford Research Institute study that projected the end of intercity rail passenger service to come in the 1970's. That the SP paid for the study, done at an entity named for the son of one of the company's founders, struck some editorialists as unsurprising. Presumably it was done to use as evidence in train-off cases that were piling up.
Click to expand...
To be fair though, if Amtrak hadn't stepped in I doubt any passenger trains would have survived. The railroads would have mismanaged them to the point that abandonment would have appeared the only reasonable option.
 
cirdan said:
To be fair though, if Amtrak hadn't stepped in I doubt any passenger trains would have survived. The railroads would have mismanaged them to the point that abandonment would have appeared the only reasonable option.
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If you look at this map beginning in 1962 onwards
I would have had the same conclusion. I remember the big Amtrak cuts of 1979 and thought it was only a matter of time that Amtrak would just be NEC and a couple of commuter routes our of Chicago and LA.
 
Bostontoallpoints said:
If you look at this map beginning in 1962 onwards
I would have had the same conclusion. I remember the big Amtrak cuts of 1979 and thought it was only a matter of time that Amtrak would just be NEC and a couple of commuter routes our of Chicago and LA.
Click to expand...

The atmosphere at the time, especially after the 1967 removal of the Railway Mail Service on most routes, was that disappearance was inevitable. That included the NEC, except for commute services. The Stanford study, which was widely publicized, pointed in that direction. What was missing in many discussions? Alternatives. NARP was created to fill that gap.
 

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