Is (NW Mailing List)

[NW Mailing List]

PRR purchased 39% of the common shares of N&W in 1900-01.  This was part of 
an effort to stabilize rates for coal shipments over eastern ports.  PRR 
also purchased a goodly share of B&O; NYC purchased some of B&O and C&O. 
After that end was realized, PRR and NYC sold their stock in B&O and C&O, 
but PRR kept the interest in N&W until forced to divest as a condition of 
both the PRR/NYC merger and N&W's NKP/Wabash deal in 1964.  Divestiture was 
not complete until 1972; between 1964 and 1972 several hundred thousand 
shares were sold each year.

I have endeavored to determine the amount of dividends paid PRR each year by 
taking 39% of N&W's common stock dividend payout, with proper estimates 
between 1964 and 1972.  The total, between 1900 and 1972, amounted to $407 
million dollars.  You are all invited to get the CDs of N&W Annual Reports 
and add them up and check my figures.  N&W never missed a dividend, even 
during the Great Depression, and it is said (I have no way to check it) that 
at least one year PRR's dividend payout equalled that received from N&W.

Too much can be read into the PL signals and the red passenger cars; I 
rather imagine that probably because of PRR's use of those signals, N&W got 
a good deal on its PL's, which shared the virtue of the 3-color light 
signals in that there were no moving parts, as in semaphores and the GRS 
Searchlight signals (which moved a vane with the proper color in front of 
the bulb when the signal changed aspect).  And anybody can look at PRR's red 
passenger cars and N&W's and know that the paint didn't come out of the same 
can.

The three smartest business decisions (IMHO) that PRR ever made were: 1 - to 
purchase the N&W stock; 2 - to not sell it after the rates were stabilized, 
but to keep it as long as they could, and; 3 - not to mess with N&W's 
operating or mechanical practices - just be quiet and let those dividends 
keep pouring in.  PRR didn't influence N&W's motive power practices or 
designs - that much is perfectly clear.  And if any road had a mind of its 
own on these items, it was PRR.

My PRR friends get quite exercised when I remind them that a great deal of 
PRR's status as the "Standard Railroad of the World" was paid for with N&W 
dividends . . .

Hope this helps.

EdKing
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "NW Mailing List" <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
To: <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 2:29 PM
Subject: RE: Re: Is (NW Mailing List)



>

> Well, maybe N&W purchased all those P.L. signals at a yard sale .

> Cheers,> Jim Guthrie

>

>

> Pretty much... the first installations of US&S PLs were bought surplus 

> from PRR.

>

> Robb Fisher

> RFDI

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