What was the exact date that Atlantic Coast Line passenger trains stopped using Florida East Coast tracks between Jacksonville and Miami and started using Seaboard Air Line tracks because of the strike on the FEC?

-- Bob Koditek (BestStreamliner@aol.com), January 12, 2002

Answers

Response to What was the exact date the Atlantic Coast Line passenger trains started using the Seaboard tracks rather than those of the Florida East Coast between Jacksonville and Miami because of the strike on the FEC?

1/17/02

Dear Troy,

I think the answer to your question regarding why the ACL and SAL did not start eliminating duplicate trackage and granting each other trackage rights prior to the formal approval of their merger id threefold. First, political as state and federal legislators and companies and unions from those communities losing service would have flocked to the ICC with objections, demanding new hearings and legal, in that there would have been more lawsuits. I know it sounds dishonest but the way the game works is that, until the tracks were actuallly being torn up, the constituencies from the rival routes compete with each other to have their route kept. The decision can be publically made after the merger is a fact of life. There is another, for the ICC, more important legal issue involved. There were strict ICC rules on railroads coordinating before the ICC approved a merger. I am a former Assistant Secetary-Treasurer of the old Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and worked on the merger of the holding companies and the failed, never consumated railroad merger. Partly because the holding companies had merged against ICC wishes before railway approval and the Southern Pacific Railroad was put into trust, the ICC never believed there was not some kind if secret collusion, which to my knowledge there was not, and I believe that is one reason they never approved the merger.

Following, so all our our members can see, will be my orginal answer to your original answer to my question. I learn the E world some day!

Also, for those interested in post World War II Streamliners, I have an quantitatively researched list of the top twenty five. (Yes, of course, the Florida Special and Silver Meteor are there!)It's called Before Amtrak - the Twenty Five Greatest American Streamliners and Domeliners 1945-1970. It is on an excellent search engine RailroadData.com - URL:http//www.RailRoadData,com/rrlinks/ where you will find lots of other neat stuff. When you get on the link, click hot and its about 80 some odd hits this month I think.

Bob Delieater@aol.com BestStreamliner@aol.com http://hometown.aol.com./delieater/myhomeepage/profile.html

previous response sent privately:

1/12/02

Dear Troy,

Thanks for your post and interest. I'm afraid I don't know the answer to your question regarding the ICC but I'm inclined to think it came out of a gentleman's agreement between the railroads which reinforces the legal regulations covering storms and other disasters, only this was more permanent. Rememember these guys all play golf and drink together and the CEO of one railroad can be CEO of another one tomorrow. Also, I dont know when merger talks started between the ACL and SAL.

I can think of two similar situations. I the late '50's, the Pennsylvania demmanded renegotiation of the contracts involving operating the Florida and New Orleans trains between New York and Washington. Coincidently or not, this was around the time the Baltimore and Ohio was getting out of the New York-Washington business. I don't know what contractual changes actually happened but the trains kept running.

The other ws in 1955 when the Chicago and North Western decided it no longer wanted to carry the City of Los Angeles and other Overland Route trains between Chicago and Omaha and te Union Pacific was not satisfied wwith its performance either, a kind of mutual break up. The UP had no problems signing up the Milwaukee Road to take over.

Sinverely,

Bob Delieater@aol.com BestStreamliner@aol.com http://hometown.aol.com/delieater/myhomepage/profile.html

-- Bob Koditek (BestStreamliner@aol.com), January 17, 2002.

Response to What was the exact date the Atlantic Coast Line passenger trains started using the Seaboard tracks rather than those of the Florida East Coast between Jacksonville and Miami because of the strike on the FEC?

"The ACL and SAL had already agreed to merge, had received ICC permission to merge, and were simply waiting out some lawsuits so they could, in fact, merge"

interesting, may i bring up a point?

If for all intents and purposes it was GOING to happen, why did they not dispose of many duplicate routes prior to the formal merger and just grant each other trackage rights over the alternate routes? I can think of several lines in florida where it could have happened sooner. That way even if for some reason the merger did not happen, the through-route would be intact, even if it was via trackage rights. i think florida was unique in that there are so many parallel lines between the sal and acl that at points were within a mile of each other

-- troy nolen (tnolen12@tampabay.rr.com), January 17, 2002.

Response to What was the exact date the Atlantic Coast Line passenger trains started using the Seaboard tracks rather than those of the Florida East Coast between Jacksonville and Miami because of the strike on the FEC?

Interesting speculation, but that simply would not have happened. The ACL and SAL had already agreed to merge, had received ICC permission to merge, and were simply waiting out some lawsuits so they could, in fact, merge. The SAL would, in effect, be cutting its own throat by refusing to let the ACL use its tracks.

Bob Hanson

-- Robert H. Hanson (RHanson669@aol.com), January 15, 2002.

Response to What was the exact date the Atlantic Coast Line passenger trains started using the Seaboard tracks rather than those of the Florida East Coast between Jacksonville and Miami because of the strike on the FEC?

Ive always wondered what would have happened if the SAL had not granted the ACL trackage rights over the SAL auburndale - miami... would we have seen an SCL??? Or was SAL forced to allow ACL's miami trains by the ICC?

-- troy nolen (tnolen12@tampabay.rr.com), January 12, 2002.

Response to What was the exact date the Atlantic Coast Line passenger trains started using the Seaboard tracks rather than those of the Florida East Coast between Jacksonville and Miami because of the strike on the FEC?

January 23, 1963. The last five trains operating on the FEC were #1&2 The Champion, #5&6 The City of Miami and The South Wind,#29&30 The Daylight Express,#75&76 The East Coast Special and #87&88 The Florida Special (75th Anniversary Year).

-- Gary Riccio (g.riccio@worldnet.att.net), January 12, 2002.