Conrail Modelers

[Black Diamond]

What's the attraction?

I'm a fan of grimy Northeast railroading and there's a ton of info for the CR which means fewer modeling 'black holes' and 'dead ends' but all those great B-B locomotives simple don't like right to me in blue paint. Am I missing something? There are bucketloads of variations for this battery box or that radio antenna or whatever, but I just don't see 'em. It seems too much like minutiae to me. The LV, CNJ, Reading and PC seem to have more 'character' if you will, but running them all together is not cohesive right? I kinda want a more unified NE modeling experience.

Any thoughts?

POLITE thoughts?  ;D

[VGN50]

I'm waiting for Ed to reply to this.

Mark

[David Leonard]

There's no accounting for tastes. I like Conrail, but if it doesn't grab you, there are other options you can model.

The thing about Conrail for me is that they had so many different locomotive models--especially early on. Depending on which era one models, you could have LV, RDG, PC etc running together--in the very early days, unpatched and unrenumbered in many cases. Basically, Conrail saved railroading in the northeast. It's rather a success story: throw six or so bankrupt railroads together and hope for the best. The initial public offering of CR stock was about $20 and at the time of the split it was around $115. And you gotta like those SD45-2's and SD80MAC's!

If you're looking for advice about what to model, perhaps you could say what time span you're interested in, and maybe people could offer suggestions.

[lock4244]

CR had buckets of character. The fact that it replaced a number of storied roads should not be held against CR; from that rough, disjointed start she grew into something worthy of it's predecessors combined legacy. Maybe even more since Big Blue showed'em how to railroad and make a buck... granted without any real modal competition.

To quote some of the brightest minds in history, "Conrail F***in' Rocked"

[Ed Kapuscinski]

It's because all the cool kids think Conrail is cool.

Personally, it's because it's what I grew up seeing. SD40-2s waiting to go over the Delair bridge to Camden (like this, but not an B36: http://thecrhs.org/?q=node/2684), SW1001s switching the chemical plant up the street at night, stuff like that.

But I think the lasting appeal is bigger too, and is something that I know we all actually could use a little reminding of.
Conrail was a government plan that went right. It seems that there have been few government actions (since the Apollo program) that have really done what they were supposed to and succeeded. Conrail did just that. It took a bunch of bankrupt railroads and turned them around into a profitable enterprise, and then, once it WAS profitable, it stopped being a government entity (CR went public back in the early 90s, I think).

I feel like it's a success story in a space where there are far too many failures, and I find it reassuring, especially in these anxious economic times in which we currently live.

Oh, and who CAN'T love the Horseshoe Curve ops?

[lock4244]

Ed, CR went public in 1987.

[Black Diamond]

Some good points--thanks.

CR had buckets of character. The fact that it replaced a number of storied roads should not be held against CR

Yeah, I know...  : I think I'm being a 'player hater' because the LV was actually in the black on April 1 1976.

I keep revisiting the the 'early days' of CR and thinking that's what appeals to me most, it just doesn't feel cohesive is all. I'm just trying to figure out some kind of direction. I'd like to get into something more popular. Maybe the PRR around 1955 would feel right. I do have all this LV junk though...I'm thinking of starting a new layout-one big a$$ oval with a siding and one road name. That's it. 

[3rdrail]

One, the "gubmint" almost badly flubbed the privatization of Conrail. Libby Dole was Secretary of Transportation at the time and being a good old Nawth Cahlinah girl, proposed selling CR to Norfolk Southern for $26. per share. Shippers and other railroads did some very strong lobbying to prevent this, resulting in 85 percent of the stock being put out as a public offering and 15 percent retained by the CR employees. This netted Uncle Sam better than $30 per share, better than Libby Dole's giveaway to NS.

Second, the stock went from the high twenties to $115., but you neglected to mention that it split 2 for 1 along the way.  Fifteen percent of that eightfold increase in value went to the employees that hung onto their stock. But I consider that another government flub - those profits could have been the taxpayers'!

I miss the PRR much more than I miss PC or CR... :'(

[wm3798]

I may be mistaken, Gregg, but I recall reading that all of the government loans that were granted to Conrail were repaid with interest, so the tax payers made out quite well in the deal.  Similarly, the Chrysler "bail-out" of the mid 1970's was also successful.  Lee Iacocca re-invented the convertible and the K car and made enpough to pay back the government sponsored loans in full and ahead of schedule.

As for your dilemma, BD, I think I know what you're driving at.  Because it was such an amalgam of disparate facilities, roads, routes and traffic, it's hard to pin down the one thing that "defines" Conrail.  Blue paint, indeed, isn't enough.

There were, however, many operations that were quintessentially Conrail, helpers over the Curve certainly being one of them.  Others would include electrified freights on the Port Road, TV hot shots pulled by 7 or 8 geeps, SD80Macs lugging coal out of South Fork etc...

The trick would be to pick the slice of Conrail that excites you the most, and build your modeling concept around that.

Lee

[Ed Kapuscinski]

And if you need photo inspiration, check out http://thecrhs.org/?q=ScenicAndActionGallery.

We've got a good number of really great photos in there of all sorts of stuff.

[asciibaron]

in my mid mid 80's Conrail is the absolute best era - they were on sound feet, mostly sporting a unified paint scheme, and a unique character was emerging.  Conrail still retained, up til the end, several regional characters, but Conrail managers knew that the regional character and operation styles were key to the success - the northeast operated very differently from central PA and the mid west.  the unified character was the types of trains and the streamlining of operations.  that character can be seen in the Salad Bowl Express segment of Love Those Trains.  

SD40-2's in CR blue pulling hot shot TrailVans is Conrail for me.  Or is it SD45's shoving up Horseshoe.  it's all good to me.

Nevermind I'm sporting a Chessie System shirt today.

-Steve

[sizemore]

For the experience, I would go along with more of the Alphabet Route instead of Conrail. That way you get a larger array of Northeastern roads.

BD, hit you up with an e-mail, shoot one back.

Tim

[Wlal13again]

Well, I was old enough,and lived in the right part of the country, to see the EL. LV, L&HR and PC on a regular basis. So I have some loyalty there, but I also remember the constant turmoil the PC suffered every night on the news. But Conrail always was MY railroad, I saw it in the beginning, as a rag tag outfit grinding it out day to day, then starting to turn a profit and improving the physical plant, to the Blue Giant it was at the split. I guess I grew up with it, and it grew up with me. It brought railroading back to the northeast as a solid player, not a laughing stock. I caught a few cabrides, met some great people. And Conrail Blue sure did look good climbing Horseshoe Curve...

Rich

[Chris333]

What does blue have to do with Conrail?
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=139844&nseq=27
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=52806&nseq=56
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=16750&nseq=69

[tom mann]

What does blue have to do with Conrail?
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=139844&nseq=27
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=52806&nseq=56
http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=16750&nseq=69

If I was a Conrail modeler, I would model these times.