With a POD no earlier than 1940, make the Pennsylvania Railroad - the "Standard Railroad of the World," but with possibly the least inspired diesel paint schemes in U.S. railroad history - instead adopt the paint scheme of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western/Erie Lackawanna (gray, maroon and gold). Bonus points if there's still a DL&W or an EL separate from the PRR.
A little bitty AH railroad challenge
- Thread starter Joe Bonkers
- Start date
SsgtC
Banned
Prevent the 1968 merger with the New York Central and the 1969 merger with the New York, New Haven and Hartford. That lets the PRR continue strong longer. Of course, to do that, you'll have to substantially weaken the ICC. Then when the NYC and the NYNH&H are on the verge of collapse, the PRR can outright buy them out for pennies on the dollar and they would have a much smoother transition and can likely butterfly away CSX entirely.
You can butterfly PC away very easily. There were several times throughout the process where negotiations could have broken down, or the ICC could have just sad no.
The Pennsy owned the Norfolk & Western, so they probably at that point would have gone through a merger with them. The only reason why the Pennsy was able to stay aloft was because of the lucrative Pocahontas coal revenue that the N&W provided. Once that revenue was gone, there would be no way the Pennsy could stay afloat, let alone outright purchase another major railroad. Especially the Central.
As for the Central. They were indeed profitable, if barely. In reaction to the PRR-N&W merger, they would have gone for a merger with the C&O-B&O. NYC President Alfred E. Perlman wanted this merger as early as 1963. The Presidents of all 3 roads actually met at the Greenbrier Hotel in order to discuss the merger. Unfortunately, they soon broke into fighting and no deal was reached. Thus, the Central was forced into the arms of its arch-rival the Pennsy.
The Haven is an interesting case. It was only included into PC in 1969 because the ICC told them they had to include it. The Haven went bankrupt in 1961, and if it had not been picked up by another road, it would have been liquidated. The Pennsy would have used the money from the N&W to pick up the New York to Boston shoreline, and the rest would be either abandoned or split up between various other railroads. The Central had no real interest in the Haven. The Central was the Haven's biggest, although distant, competitor through the ownership of the Boston & Albany. Even If the Central picked up pieces of the Haven, it would be out of a desire to prevent any competition, like the Chicago & Northwestern did during the Rock Island Liquidation.
I feel like the Eire Lackawanna was screwed during the Penn Central merger. A 5,131-mile system surrounded by a soon to be 20,530-mile system! The EL didn't even get any real concessions from the merger! It really reminds me of the situation between the Milwaukee Road and Burlington Northern. EL did see a lot of initial success, however, it was swept up by DRECO, a holding company made by the N&W, in 1968. DRECO never took financial control of the EL, so when Hurricane Anges swept through in June 1972, and the EL went bankrupt, there was nobody to save them. It was originally considered to keep the EL out of Conrail, however, failure to reorganize the company eventually lead to its inclusion.
Also, how would it butterfly away CSX or at least a CSX like railroad? It would be likely that the NYC-C&O-B&O merger would have adopted Chessie somewhere in their name. The ATL Chessie eventually merges with either the Southern or Seaboard at some point, both are possibilities, as the OTL Chessie did have merger talks with the Southern before negotiations fell apart. The only real way to butterfly away CSX without having it be ASB is to just have the ATL Chessie adopt a different name upon merger with one of the two roads.
As for how you can get the Pennsy to adopt the DL&W/EL scheme, I have no clue. I just need somewhere to spew my railroad history knowledge.
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