WD Burt wrote: "I haven't written or implied that. But it's an interesting subject. John Kneiling's Trains column periodically took potshots at EL, which he supplemented in some letters to me. His point of view was that EL and the Milwaukee had a great opportunity to launch containerized land-bridge services while abandoning local freight service as fast as they could. The first time this idea was proposed in print, White replied with a letter to the editor that dismissed it as "crackpot" or something similar. Afterwards, Kneiling would occasionally complain in print that EL management had no higher objective than to find refuge in a merger. In our brief correspondence, he tempered this somewhat by saying that they ran a better railroad than some others." John Kneiling's style made him appear more circus act than serious commentator, but his basic observations were valid. BY the 60's, the industry had lost most of its market share to trucking, and he saw this as a result of adherence to the 19th century technology of loose-car railroading. He overemphasized the potential of landbridge cargo; at that time the volume was insufficient to turn the industry around. But the problems he pointed out have yet to be addressed. Due to poor equipment utilization, the industry is having difficulty attracting investment in the car types that are predominantly used in loose-car service, including boxcars and general service gons. Also, "The Dereco experience raises several interesting questions: 1.) How effectively were joint services marketed? Was N&W's dalliance with Lehigh Valley going on at the same time, or did that really kick in only after the bankruptcy in 1972? 2.) How much and how effectively was operating management coordinated? (More than some think, I suspect.)" After the EL merger, LV became the NKP's friendliest connection at Buffalo. Runthrough service began in 1967, and despite Dereco, by 1969 N&W and LV were exchanging 3 pairs of trains daily at Buffalo, including the Apollo TOFC trains between NY and Chicago. At the same time, I believe service coordination with EL at Huntington was more than just window-dressing. Some of the growth in interchange was traffic diverted from PC due to its post-merger service problems. Paul B The Erie Lackawanna Mailing List http://EL-List.railfan.net/ To Unsubscribe: http://Lists.Railfan.net/erielackunsub.html ------------------------------
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