Don't blame Menk for the methods he used. Blame the ICC. The only way you
could drop service in those days was to show the ICC that you were losing
money, and usually for a long time. Still works today with the Surf
Board.
Terry
On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 10:07:09 -0500 "texaszephyr" <texaszephyr@sw.rr.com>
writes:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fred Frailey" <ffrailey@kiplinger.com>
> Subject: Re: RS: Obituary: Herb Wallace, Jr.
>
>
> >Menk liked Wallace - he was just convinced (correctly >as it
> turned out)
> that the Q was throwing good money >after bad into passenger
> trains.
>
>
> It may have been "correct" for the Burlington to have gotten out
> of the
> passenger business only because everyone else did. But that by
> itself was
> not an indication that all Burlington passenger trains should have
> been
> discontinued. The Burlington had several excellent trains with good
> ridership that should have been left alone by Menk. In RS territory
> I'm
> talking about the TEXAS ZEPHYR.
>
> The TZ was still a well used train throughout the mid-1960's but the
> CB&Q
> was hell bent to get rid of all remaining passenger trains,
> especially those
> remaining on those pesky subsidiaries. During the time period
> around
> 1966-1967 I would see this train almost daily. Either directly down
> at WF
> Union Station or at least when #2 passed under the Scott Street
> overpass as
> it left town for Iowa Park each afternoon. The trains were still
> very well
> patronized right up to the end.
>
> Here are a few instances of what Herb had to put up with. The FW&D
> was not
> allowed to stock its dining cars with enough food to take care of
> the
> business that they still had. As few as three or four steaks would
> be all
> that was put on the diner-obs. upon leaving Ft. Worth and remember
> that
> these cars not only served dinner northbound to Amarillo, they
> served
> breakfast and lunch on the return trip out of Amarillo.
>
> The result, people were turned away from the dining car steward who
> was not
> allowed to stock enough food to handle the train's business.
>
> Why? In order to run the passengers off.
>
> Another great example of what Menk was doing to the FW&D passenger
> trains
> centered on those great super-elevated curves that the FW&D once
> had. These
> had been installed after the Zephyr was first instituted on the line
> in
> 1940. They allowed the TZ to fly around curves, keeping a fast track
> speed.
> Most were located between Ft. Worth and Decatur with several located
> as far
> north as Estelline. On a inspection trip to Texas shortly after Menk
> took
> over, he jumped all over Dan Monaghan's father (FW&D General
> Manager) for
> maintaining those curves. He strongly believed that too much money
> was being
> spent on the FW&D's mainline and as a result of his ideas, the poor
> old
> railroad was just beat to death by the time that the BN started
> running coal
> train over the line in 1976.
>
> Bottom line, Menk wanted to allow the track to go to pot just in
> order to
> drop passenger train speeds.
>
> Why, so that the passengers would turn away.
>
> Both of these practices still failed which left Menk one last
> option, to
> kill the trains based on their lost US Mail contracts. So the main
> selling
> point to the ICC was the fact that the TZ had lost its mail
> contracts and
> could no longer afford to operate solely on passenger revenue. The
> ICC
> bought this and on September 11, 1967, the TZ concluded its final
> trips.
>
> However, what most didn't know was that although the USPS had
> announced on
> Sept. 1, 1967 that it was planned on removing all US mail from the
> rails
> within the next two years, no mail had been removed from the TZ by
> the time
> that the last trains ran ten days later. As a matter of fact the TZ
> had
> swelled to an average of 12-13 cars in each direction by August
> 1967.
>
> Take a look at the photos of the last two days trains in my FW&D
> book. Not
> only will you still see lots of mail being handled, you will still
> see
> Pullman sleeping car service, full diners (though ill stocked) and
> enough
> REA being handled to pay most of the bills itself. The ICC had
> bought Menk's
> story about the lost mail contracts but had allowed the TZ to be
> discontinued without ever running a day without this same lost mail
> contract.
>
> The TZ's last train to Dallas doesn't exactly fit the description of
> what we
> think of being a last train. It still had E-5's on the point, still
> handled
> five or six fully loaded head-end cars, had a couple of sleepers in
> operation, two to three chairs cars and still carried a full length
> diner-lounge-obs.
>
> Most other trains that I know of would have lost something first,
> (at least
> the sleepers and obs.) but not the TZ. It was killed simply because
> one man
> didn't want passenger trains and was in a position to keep his hands
> in the
> pockets of the ICC.
>
> At least the TZ was allowed to complete its final runs. Menk killed
> off the
> Lincoln-Billings train out in the middle of nowhere and made the
> passengers
> detrain and walk to the nearest town.
>
> Herb was right to have jumped ship.
>
> TZ
>
>
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