Akron Railroads

By Craig Sanders

In the six decades preceding 1960, Akron's network of railroads had been relatively stable. Then a series of mergers began that year, changing the face of the city's railroad network. By the early 1970s, the industrial base--particularly the rubber industry--that had sustained the region's economy was in decline, and the fortunes of the railroad industry fell with it. The self-described "rubber capital of the world" was hit hard, and the production of tires for the automotive industry all but disappeared. The 1960s also saw a precipitous decline in rail passenger service, with the last passenger trains discontinued in 1971. A restructuring of the railroad industry that began in the mid-1970s left the Akron region with three railroad companies. Some railroad lines were abandoned, while others saw the scope of their operations changed or reduced. Today's rail network in Akron may be slimmer, but the railroads are financially healthy and continue to play a major role in meeting the region's transportation needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Oct 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781439657942

Craig Sanders

Craig Sanders is a transportation writer living in University Heights, Ohio. He is president of the Akron Railroad Club, whose members contributed the images that are used in this book.

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(W&LE)

INTRODUCTION

At the dawn of the seventh decade of the 20th century, the railroad industry was in deep trouble. Passenger service was in decline, and there was talk that it might be gone by the end of the 1960s. Railroads were losing freight business to trucks, pipelines, and water carriers, and by 1955, the percentage of the nation’s freight hauled by railroads had dropped below 50 percent.

Richard L. Saunders Jr., author of Merging Lines: American Railroads, 1900–1970, described the 1950s and 1960s as the crying towel era. Despite a booming economy, much of the railroad industry was managing only to survive.

Railroads had more track capacity than they needed for the business they had, particularly in the eastern United States. Mergers could bring about economies of scale and eliminate parallel routes and redundant service facilities.

Among the earliest mergers was the October 17, 1960, union of the Erie Railroad and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, which gave rise to the Erie Lackawanna Railroad.

On February 4, 1963, the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway took control of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. They shared a common management but continued to operate under their own identities. The C&O won control of the B&O by besting the New York Central System, which had approached the C&O and B&O about a three-way merger in 1959.

Rebuffed by the C&O, in 1961, the NYC resumed merger talks with its chief rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad. The two had announced in 1957 that they were contemplating merging, but those efforts had been called off in 1958. After years of regulatory and legal review, the PRR-NYC merger was consummated on February 1, 1968, as the Penn Central Transportation Company.

The New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad (also known as Nickel Plate Road) had acquired Ohio-based Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway in late 1949. Fearing a combined PRR and NYC could ruin it, the NKP sought a merger partner. The Norfolk & Western Railway saw the NKP as a conduit to extend its coal-hauling business into the Midwest. The merger took effect on October 16, 1964, and also involved the N&W acquiring the Akron, Canton & Youngstown Railroad.

The EL was a combination of struggling companies. The Erie had traditionally been the weakest of the Chicago–New York carriers. Within three years of forming, the EL was on the verge of financial collapse.

In 1967, the Interstate Commerce Commission ordered the N&W to acquire the EL. N&W management feared that absorbing the EL might bring the N&W down, so it minimized that risk by forming a holding company (Dereco) to oversee the EL.

N&W viewed the EL as hopeless. It had too much track, too much debt, a declining traffic base, high New Jersey taxes, high labor costs, and an unprofitable New York City commuter operation. The EL gamely sought to offer quality service, but bad track and a lack of money hindered its success.

The financial woes of the PC have been well documented in books and articles. It was a marriage doomed from the start due to incompatible cultures and irreconcilable differences. PC suffered many of the same problems as the EL. Some PC track was so bad that trains derailed while standing still. The railroad became infamous for losing track of trains for days, providing unreliable service, and engaging in questionable financial practices designed to make it look stronger than it was.

After PC reported a railroad operations loss of $102 million in the first quarter of 1970, it was unable to sell bonds or secure loans from banks or the federal government to pay off its debts. PC filed for bankruptcy protection on June 21, 1970, making it the largest business failure in the United States to date.

The most immediate effect of the PC bankruptcy was the passage by Congress of the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970. The law created the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, better known as Amtrak.

On May 1, 1971, dozens of passenger trains—many operated by PC—were discontinued as Amtrak began operating a skeletal system heavily focused on the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, DC.

PC was not the only eastern railroad in financial trouble in the early 1970s. After Hurricane Agnes damaged 375 miles of EL track in June 1972, it filed for bankruptcy protection.

With PC, EL, and four other major Northeastern railroads in bankruptcy proceedings, Congress approved the Regional Rail Reorganization Act, establishing the United States Railway Association (USRA), in late 1973. USRA was directed to study preservation of railroad service in the territory north of the Ohio River between the Atlantic and the Mississippi River.

Another 1973 law, the Rail Facilities Restoration Act, provided loans to railroads devastated by Hurricane Agnes.

Out of those efforts emerged the Consolidated Rail Corporation, which began operations on April 1, 1976. The creation of Conrail was a complex process that involved various scenarios. One of these proposed the establishment of a separate railroad consisting of the EL, three other bankrupt northeast railroads, and select PC routes. The Chessie System, the holding company for the B&O and C&O, would acquire much of the eastern half of the EL.

There was tremendous pressure for just three large railroad networks in the East. Conrail would be comprised of six failed northeastern railroads and five smaller bankrupt railroads.

The Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 restructured railroad