Re: [CBQ] Rollers

["leakinmywaders via groups.io" <leakinmywaders=yahoo.com@groups.io>]

So maybe the profitability of the perishables business differed according to what shippers were located online?  Right through the 1960s the NP was still investing in expensive  mechanical reefers, ACF refrigerated Conditionaire covered hoppers, and insulated and refrigerated trailers. The annual reports, President's files, and periodicals show a great deal of enthusiasm  for maintaining and expanding the NP's share of shipping for a variety of fruit and vegetables, both fresh and frozen all across the NP system.  Hard to believe these  would have been mostly money-losing investments.  

On the other hand, in sniffing through the president's files one does get the impression that in its final few years, NP management (at least at its top) was more concerned about gestures providing some symbolic assurance to shippers that a merger wouldn't curtail local services, while burnishing the railroad's image with shiny new equipment, than it was with the profitability of specific shipping arrangements, commodities, and fleet purchases. In the frugal Macfarlane years there had been meticulous cost/benefit analyses for every freight car purchase and lease lot (and for fleet retirement decisions), but those  kinds of analyses are much less in evidence in the files of the Menk administration.  

I know this comment is NP focused, but the largest share of this NP-originated perishable traffic (and return routings of the cars) was handled by CBQ, so the Q was integral to supporting it.  

Chris Frissell
Polson, MT

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