Great Video, Love Alco power, and Many Thanks!

Love your long, and extensive explanations videos

Those ex-ATSF Blue Warbonnets are beautiful!

Amazing. Thank you for your work.

Can you imagine if the New Haven, and the New York Central had merged with the Norfolk and Western? With deregulation in place in 1958? And the ICC Agrees to the merger. Provided that New Haven becomes an independent railroad. Or a new railroad. With no infighting. And the N&W begins the construction of a new line of the New York Central and New Haven branch lines of North Brookfield to East Brookfield to the Ware River Branch and the New Athol Branch line around the Quabbin. And the Charlton to Southbridge branch to the East Brookfield, North Brookfield-Ware River Branch. To the New Athol Junction to interact with the Boston and Maine or the B&M. Then PRR Merges with the C&O. The New Haven becomes the Providence and Worcester in 1968. And has become a financially stable company. Where the Reading, and Leigh Valley. Would merge with Penn-Chessie and the Jersey Central merges with the P&W and the D&H forms a partnership with. The Providence, Worcester, and Jersey Central.

Great job. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

I love the D&H bypass underneath the Starbucks bypass. I remember the huge rail yard in Mechanicsville and repair shops at the Colonie yards. I used to move railroad crews to and from deadhead trains.

Excellent history. I started my railroad career as a towerman with the EL in 1969. Retired 43 years later as a conductor with NJT. During the ConRail era I had to work other occupations since work wasn't steady. Rumor has it that ConRail tore up the NJ cutoff to thwart the D&H from running from Scranton, PA to Croxton.

Some extra notes. (Maybe some of this will show up in the next video?) 1. The New York Central remained profitable throughout the 50s and 60s largely thanks to it's brilliant President Al Perlman. The Pennsylvania Railroad itself was unprofitable but was kept afloat by the fact that they owned 1/3rd of the stock in the highly profitable Norfolk & Western. This stock had to be given up as apart of the merger. The New Haven didn't help either. 2. The C&O/B&O and N&W gave up on their merger in the wake of the Penn Central bankruptcy. The merger had been approved by the ICC in 1970 shortly before the Penn Central bankruptcy. 3. It was planned for Chessie System to take over the Reading and Erie Lackawanna as apart of the formation of Conrail. Chessie System pulled out at the last minute due to issues with the unions. This would leave Conrail with a total monopoly in the Northeast. The D&H was given trackage rights to try to at least give the appearance of preserving competition. (In reality Conrail’s planners never intended for the D&H to be a true competitor to Conrail but Conrail's formation could not wait any longer.) A real good book to read (maybe you already have read it) is "The Men Who Loved Trains" by Rush Loving Jr. It's a must read. Great video altogether! We need more deep historical videos like this.

Very informative. I'm a big D&H fan and never knew about this particular merger. Thank you for sharing this 👍👍

Really great railfaning history video 👍👍👍👍👍

Guilford ruined everything the Maine Central had though deferred maintenance. CSX is going to have a lot of work to get the main line back into shape though Maine.

One thing I would like to clarify is that the Maine Central was never in bankruptcy. Out of the 3 railroads Mellon bought, it was the only one making money. MEC still had 6 or 7 paper mills which generated a lot of on system traffic. The reason why the MEC was pawned off was because the Bangor and Aroostook president, Buck Dumaine had purchased the majority of Maine Central stock with the intentions to form a mega railroad, since a lot of MEC traffic went to the B&A and a lot of the finished products from the B&A went to the south via the MEC. However, due to the ICC he was unable to merge the two companies, so after being forced to sell the stock, he sold his shares to US Filter Corp which was more or less a corporate hedge fund, who then resold to Mellon. Up until this point, the MEC was turning record profits in a time that many railroads were going bankrupt. As soon as Mellon took over, the pulp which was hauled to the mills by rail was done away with since it wasn't a big money maker. As a result many of the mills began switching to trucks or transloading at several warehouses on the Grand Trunk and Bangor and Aroostook where service was better. Ultimately, the poor service on Guilford's part played a role in some of the mills having to shut down because they couldn't compete with other companies due to the poor service.

I see Guilford and pan am all the time but with csx purchasing pan am the good ol Guilfords might be lost to history. Also can you do a video about the Boston and Maine and Maine central history please?

Great video

Love this video ... Only one problem... And it is a big one.... We're is Part 2? 😆 Awesome video, very professional. Please let me know when Part 2 comes out. Have a great day my friend.

You've covered just about every way government interference, taxes, collusion, regulations, and unreasonable union demands, can destroy large swaths of once profitable railroads. It almost appears to have all been planned years in advance.......just sayin'. Anyway, a wealth of information as usual. Your effort is appreciated Alco Guy.

If there is ever time or interest you have in this topic covering the merger of the Boston & Maine and Maine Central could be interesting . Which led to the demise and abandonment of the mec mountain division. Also nice video I’m glad I can more understand the merger of GTI and the D&H

outstanding!

The Montrealler/Washingtonian was a Central Vermont train. The D&H ran the Adirondack/Laurentian.

The D& H is my favorite railway. So much that I didn't know. The Pen Central was a disaster from the get go which put so many smaller east coast railways .

Well Done👍🚂🇨🇦🇺🇲

Great and informative video But I can't locate part 2 of the merger. Would you be able to help?.thank you.

All the RR's and their executives- plus any and all politicians- could not foresee nor stop the movement of and changes in industries in the Northeast, and the nation at large. Anyone that can come up with changes that would have "worked" is full of shit.

Great videos. 👍🏻 Robin 👍🏻Ontario 🇨🇦

Such a complicated back story...and now maybe soon Pan Am Southern will be the last NE independent?

Can anyone tell me the difference between 'tracks' and 'trackage', or is trackage just someone trying to look smart?

A little correction in your information the Erie Lackawanna went bankrupt thanks Penn Central railroads inability to pay their debts and also to a big old hurricane that wiped out a lot of trackage if it hadn't been for that they still would be around because one of their big account saved Conrail through their worthless years and that is UPS shipping

I thought the ICC forced the PC Merger?

Scab outfit

I thought the CN or the CP bought the D&H….????