Class J Shoppings after Jan 1956

[NW Mailing List]

The TRAINS article was “Stuart Saunders and his Moneymaking Machine”.  I don’t know when it ran.

When Saunders was at the N&W, he had a cadre of Transportation, Operating, Mechanical, Engineering and Sales people who ran the railroad for him.  He didn’t have to be bothered with any problems therein, except dieselizing; he could concentrate on his next merger.  They ran the railroad for Robert H. Smith and knew how to get stuff done right.  They ran it for Saunders, knowing he didn’t have Smith’s knowledge of everything from the crossties in the Hillsboro Branch to the ash trays in the executive offices.

When he got to PC, he didn’t have that cadre.  Instead, he had two feuding factions wanting to torpedo the thing at every turn.  He didn’t know how to run a railroad; he just knew how to orchestrate mergers.  He didn’t have the personal power to bring the two sides into harmony (probably no one could have done that) and was lost.  

He was an ambitious man in over his head.  If he’d stayed on the N&W he might have been OK, but he didn’t and the rest is history.

EdKing

From: NW Mailing List 
Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2015 9:18 AM
To: NW Mailing List 
Subject: Re: Class J Shoppings after Jan 1956

On Sat, Aug 8, 2015 at 1:46 AM, Mike wrote:


  Ken (or anybody else that would like to comment), what do you think of the legacy that Stuart Saunders left behind? I don't know what to make of the fact that he was only in charge of the PRR for a few years before they merged with NYC and he was thrown out of the new combined PennCentral. I have read that of the two merged railroads, the PRR was in really poor financial shape compared to the NYC, with a tremendous maintenance backlog, and the combined company never had a chance. Was Stuart Saunders just unlucky, or was he at least partially responsible for this disaster (and I'll take my answer off the air...)

I believe Saunders was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was stuck trying to stem massive losses he had little control over. The latest Trains article about great railroad blunders did a pretty good job of condensing the problems leading to Penn Central in a few column inches. The heavy regulation of rates by the government, increasing competition from highways and air travel, too much infrastructure for declining business, and a plant still worn out from the war all stacked up against the Pennsy. It could have been anyone left holding the bag, but Saunders was the patsy.

I believe it was a number of years ago that Trains had an article about Saunders and his time at the N&W. I seem to remember it was written by an author who knew the business (Middleton?) and he did a business analysis. His view was that Saunders went though the rapid dieselization of the N&W, despite the good state of steam power, to boost the stock price. Biggest beneficiary of a higher price was the Pennsylvania Railroad, with its large holdings of N&W stock. The value, if not the cash from a sale, would infuse a needed financial boost to the PRR. Now I guess I'll have to go searching to find that article.

Bruce in Blacksburg
 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
________________________________________
NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
To change your subscription go to
http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/

---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
http://www.avast.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20150808/d5729f39/attachment.html>