One thing the railfan community was not aware of were the bond obligations Erie was held to. $11 Million was a lot of money back in 1969. I estimate that to be, concervatively, about $44 Million in today's dollars. Where did EL get the money to meet this obligation. I wonder who held the bonds? They could have called for the liquidation of the company. I remember a New York Bank threatened to do that to the Jersey Central in the early 70s. EL did not have the on-line traffic to generate the revenue to meet this need. I'm sure this was an issue when the merger was being considered back in the mid to late 50s. Lackawanna and D&H shareholders looked at this obligation then. It may have been one of the reasons why D&H pulled out of the merger talks. At the time William White probably thought the D&H merger would be more of a liability to D&H shareholders than an asset. I remember reading about several towns in New York being stuck with the loss of investment when the NYO&W failed. They held a lot of the bonds that were worthless by 1957. EL had these obligations. Was it also true for NYC and PRR? I think the rail system finally became solvent after NS and CSX split up Conrail, got rid of redundant trackage and moved more towards the railroad John Knieling envisioned back in the 60s. I wonder if it could have been done more simply with less government intervention, or were too many managers and unions committed to the old way of running railroads? Ed Montgomery The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List http://EL-List.railfan.net/ To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html ------------------------------
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