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Re: [CBQ] Re: Digest Number 1972

To: <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Re: Digest Number 1972
From: "Steven Holding" <s.holding@charter.net>
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 23:23:27 -0600
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One of the basic reasons this country was founded on was INDEPENDENCE
I want to leave for the Spring Meet in Oregon at 6AM not wait till 2 or 3 or
4 or when ever the train arrives.  On arriving up north were ever I will
need an Auto to get me to where I want to go and most of the places are not
close to public transportation.
So what do I do.   DRIVE
sjh
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Russell Strodtz" <vlbg@earthlink.net>
To: <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 8:22 AM
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Re: Digest Number 1972


> sjl,
>
> Interesting comment about Oklahoma. Exactly where in the
> United States outside the Northeast Corridor, where freight
> has been banned, could you find any route that could compete
> with the Turner Turnpike?
>
> Even with a 70 mph or so station to station schedule the
> parking and transition to different transit modes at each
> end would eat up any slight travel time advantage. This is
> also presuming that your only goal is to get from St Louis
> or Tulsa to Oklahoma City.
>
> The appeal of the American highway system is that it offers
> many possible routing options and all at a reasonably rapid
> rate of movement. Before my mother and most of my wife's
> relations passed away we made the trip from Texas to the
> Twin Cities or the area along the river fairly often.
> Usually went from Oklahoma City over to Joplin on the way
> up and via Kansas on the way back. Liked the variety and
> it always seemed like the roads in Kansas City were set up
> better to do it that way.  Even during the peak of American
> rail passenger service I doubt very much I could have gotten
> from a whistle stop South of Fort Worth on the MKT to a
> whistle stop Northwest of La Crosse on the CB&Q in around
> 15 hours.
>
> Russ
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: Stephen J. Levine
>   To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
>   Sent: Sunday, 22 February, 2004 21:34
>   Subject: [CBQ] Re: Digest Number 1972
>
>
>   Where Menk made his mistake was that, with regard to passenger
>   trains, particularly on Burlington's Chicago-Denver route.
>
>   The Frisco's Oklahoma City, St.Louis mainline was very curvaceous,
>   even on the part between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, and certainly
>   between Tulsa and St. Louis.  Thus one could not run fast passenger
>   trains on the line on overnight schedules.  Even today, besides
>   having to bring the Tulsa-Oklahoma City line back to mainline
>   standards (the State of Oklahoma owns the line), there is going to
>   have to be a lot of curve-straightening to get speeds on the line
>   competitive with the Turner Turnpike.
>
>   The Q's line covered the more populous Denver-Chicago city pair and
>   it was already a high speed line that, if cab signalling had been
>   applied, could have been legally <shush...g> able to handle speeds
>   over 90 MPH and in fact did before speed restrictions were applied.
>   Thus overnight-everynight service attractive to the business customer
>   was still possible.  Plus the Rocky Mountains are a year around
>   tourist attraction.  Reequipping the DZ in 1956 with domes and
>   slumbercoaches basically left the train's only serious competitor,
>   the City of Denver, behind in a cloud of DZ dust and the train lost
>   its separate identity in the early sixties when it was combined with
>   the City of Portland.
>
>   Thus Menk, in the DZ, had a very viable competitor to the automobile
>   and airplane, whose only problem was probably excessive labor costs
>   due to outmoded work rules and labor-intensive equipment and
>   services.  One wonders how well the DZ would do today if it were
>   established as a separate Denver-Chicago train on its own 16 1/2 to
>   17 hour schedule.  In any case, the additional costs were paid for by
>   the RPO, so when it was discontinued, the train became uneconomical.
>
>   I think that, if Menk had not been so gung ho about passenger train
>   demise, but had, instead, done it reluctantly and only where
>   necessary, I do not think he would have had the bad reputation he
>   had, even with the history of ending passenger service on the Frisco.
>
>   Incidentally, if any railroad president got an unfairly bad rap, and
>   I admit guilt on this one, it was Myron Cristy of the Western Pacific
>   Railroad.  For losses on the CZ were eating up, if I remember
>   correctly, 1/3 of the revenues of the Western Pacific and basically
>   killing the railroad.  He is probably one whom history has vindicated
>   what he did when he did and for justifiable reasons and, had I know
>   then what I know now, I would have probably favored a California
>   Service-type arrangement as early as 1967.
>
>   sjl
>
>   --- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, cy svobodny <ctsvobodny@y...> wrote:
>   > Not unheard of to cook data.  The bean counters at the
>   > UP did it years ago to both prove electrifcation was a
>   > good idea and later a bad idea. Using the same info
>   > both times,  result depended on what the front office
>   > was infavor of at the time.
>   > --- Tom Smith <sd70mac@c...> wrote:
>
>
>
>
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