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Re: [BRHSlist] Fred and Lou from Railspot, was: Obituary: Herb Wallace,

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Subject: Re: [BRHSlist] Fred and Lou from Railspot, was: Obituary: Herb Wallace, Jr.
From: "Norm Andersen" <Norm_Andersen@msn.com>
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 12:07:16 -0400
Cc: "Fred Frailey" <ffrailey@kiplinger.com>
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Dear List and Fred,

    Just so there is no misunderstanding, I was Herb Wallace's chief clerk ( in 
Burlingtoneze, "Special Movements Clerk") when Lou Menk came on the scene.

    Menk did more to destroy the morale and pride of the Passenger Department 
and the railroad then Harry Murphy developed in his long tenure! Menk's tactics 
certainly did result in all of the train-offs but they were brutal, uncaring, 
unscrupulous and unprincipled! On the CB&Q, the Denver Zephyr, 1 and 10, were 
in the black yet he saw to it that they went into the red. Passengers on 
remnants of what once were proud Zephyrs and other trains were treated 
unimaginably poorly and subject to embarrassment and ridicule. Passenger train 
crews were victims of Menk's policies insofar as "taking care of" passengers. 
The railroad itself was subject to undermaintenance and all trains suffered. 
And, all customers suffered.

    Did the GN and NP passenger trains suffer the same indignities? Absolutely 
not. Was it that Burlington passenger service was so highly regarded that Menk 
had to destroy this sterling reputation? Yes and he certainly did that. He 
brought Burlington passenger service to its knees, disgraced it and then 
delivered the coup de grace!

    Menk was no role model. He was a tool of the board and the stockholders, 
the GN and the NP. His reputation was tarnished even as it was being made.

Norm Andersen
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: okt@juno.com 
  To: BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 1:03 AM
  Subject: [BRHSlist] Fred and Lou from Railspot, was: Obituary: Herb Wallace, 
Jr.



  --------- Forwarded message ----------
  From: Fred Frailey <ffrailey@kiplinger.com>
  To: "texaszephyr" <texaszephyr@sw.rr.com>
  Cc: Gblatham@aol.com, railspot@yahoogroups.comI dunno, TZ, I can't see
  much difference in the Texas Zephyr's going to 
  Vahalla on Sept. 11, 1967, versus later that year or the spring of 1968.
  I 
  guess your point is that the Ft Worth & Denver was duplicitous to argue 
  that the mail was coming off before the Post Office made it official. I'd

  say its timing was dead-on! And doggone it, TZ, just admit you made a 
  boner accusing Lou Menk of crimes he didn't commit. He didn't put the TZ 
  up for discontinuance "early" because of the loss of U.S. mail, because
  he 
  was long gone Lou by then. And he certainly didn't kick the passengers
  off 
  the Billings train at 1030 on a Friday night (in Hemingsford, Neb., to be

  exact) - he'd been at Northern Pacific two years by then. Other people
  did 
  those things. Accuse Lou of things he DID do, like lower the 
  superelevations and whatever. Or tell Time Magazine that the Texas Zephyr

  was an example of a train that shouldn't be in the timetable because of 
  whatever reasons he gave. As for the Northern Lines (GN,. NP, Q) "working

  in tandem," that's just not true. John Budd at GN, Lou Menk at NP and
  Bill 
  Quinn at Burlington in the late 1960s all approached their passenger
  train 
  problems in different ways. Budd was a chip off of Harry Murphy - he
  loved 
  the Empire Builder like a son. Menk was OK to his transcontinental 
  passenger trains at NP and Quinn was doing everything he could to lower 
  the train miles once his big network was shorn of the mail revenue - by 
  1968-69 he was a desperate man! Nothing any of them did or said to me
  even 
  hinted at collusion or "working in tandem."

  Fred





  "texaszephyr" <texaszephyr@sw.rr.com> 
  09/03/2003 02:28 PM

  To
  "Fred Frailey" <ffrailey@kiplinger.com>
  cc
  <Gblatham@aol.com>, <railspot@yahoogroups.com>
  Subject
  Re: RS:  Obituary: Herb Wallace, Jr.






  Fred,

  I know that most (maybe 80-90%) of the US Mail was removed from the
  trains
  in the fall of 1967. That's one of the historic periods of time that I
  always stress in my books.

  But that's not the point I was making. What I was trying to say was that 
  the
  Burlington used the loss of US mail as the primary reason to terminate
  the
  TEXAS ZEPHYR. But what has never made any sense here was that the USPS
  did
  not make the announcement (down here at least) until Sept. 1, 1967 well
  after the CB&Q had sent in its train off petition (stating this excuse)
  to
  the ICC. On top of this the USPS announcement gave no time frame for the
  definite removal of US Mail on the TZ. It was all supposed to take place
  nationwide within a 12 to 24 month time frame.

  So how was this accomplished?

  The facts are that we have a train off petition which makes the statement
  that the recent loss of the US Mail contract is the primary reason for
  the
  Burlington not making enough money to keep the train running.

  But we have a train that was still handling US Mail on Sept. 11, 1967 
  (just
  as it always had).

  So in other words the ICC gave the Burlington permission to cut a train
  on
  account of lost mail contracts when in fact the US mail was still on the
  train on the day that they made their last runs.

  Since the TZ was never allowed to operate a single day without mail,
  sleeping car service or dining cars, how are we supposed to know if the
  train could have continued to run a bit longer? Late October? Christmas
  1967? Fact is in the case of the TEXAS ZEPHYR we'll just never know.

  At least the Santa Fe continued to operate several trains (Kansas Cityan,
  Chicagoan, California Special, etc.) several months after the mail had 
  been
  yanked. Same with the KCS and T&P. I think that we would all be very hard
  pressed to find any other example of a train in Railspot territory that 
  was
  discontinued on account of an event that had not yet occurred.

  Let's compare the Santa Fe and the Burlington. We know that John Reed of 
  the
  Santa Fe completely caught off guard on the speed in which the mail was
  yanked. So how was it Lou Menk was able to use an event that had not yet
  occurred? Devine speculation?

  I'm not arguing that it would not have happened at a later date. We all 
  know
  that it would have eventually been removed in October or at least prior
  to
  January 1, 1968 just like most other runs in this area. But to use the 
  loss
  of a mail contract as their primary excuse when the train in question was
  never allowed to operate a single day without handling US mail seems to 
  say
  all that we need to know about the mindset of the Menk regime and the ICC

  at
  the time.

  As for Menk not being with the Burlington at the time of the
  Lincoln-Billings incident, his policies had been implemented and the die 
  was
  already being cast to merge the CB&Q, GN and NP anyway. Its not that big 
  of
  a stretch to know that all three lines were working in tandem to
  eliminate
  as many trains as possible before the merger. It was just a bit of
  housecleaning before the lines all became BN.

  TZ


  ----- Original Message -----
  From: "Fred Frailey" <ffrailey@kiplinger.com>
  To: "texaszephyr" <texaszephyr@sw.rr.com>


  > Across the entire Burlington system, and across the entire U.S. rail
  system for that
  > matter, virtually all first-class mail was removed in the fall of 1967,
  > mostly between mid September and mid October of that year. I don't know
  > the source of your remark that the postal service meant to do this over

  a
  > two-year period. Maybe it did say that, but in fact 90% of the deed was
  > done immediately afterward - so rapidly that Santa Fe president John 
  Reed
  > says he was stunned and shocked. It is inconceivable to me that of all 
  the
  > trains in the U.S., the remaining pair of FWD trains would be exempted.
  > Had they remained into mid October, they would have been threadbare of
  > storage mail and definitely without a Railway Post Office.





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