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Books > History > History of specific subjects > Economic history
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Rock Island Requiem - The Collapse of a Mighty Fine Line (Paperback)
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Rock Island Requiem - The Collapse of a Mighty Fine Line (Paperback)
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George H. and Constance M. Hilton Book Award Celebrated in history
and song, the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company -
the Rock Island Line - was a powerful Midwestern railroad that once
traversed thirteen states with its fast freights and Rocket
passenger trains but eventually succumbed to government regulation
and a changing economy. Gregory Schneider chronicles the Rock
Island's painful decline and along the way reveals some of the key
problems within the American railroad industry during the
post-World War II era. Schneider takes readers back to a time when
railroads still clung to a storied past to offer new insight into
the devastating impact of economic policymaking during the 1960s
and 1970s. Schneider recounts the largest railroad liquidation in
American history - as well as one of the most successful
reorganizations in American business - to depict the demise and
ultimate collapse of Rock Island as part of a broader account of
hard times in the railroad industry beginning in the 1970s.
Schneider weaves a complex story of how business, politics,
government bureaucracy, and individual greed helped to limit the
economic possibilities of the railroad industry and catapult the
Rock Island Railroad into oblivion. Weakened by a troubled economy,
the Rock fell victim to inept management and labor union
intransigence; but Schneider also reveals how government
regulations and price controls prevented innovation, hindered
capital acquisition, and favored other forms of transportation that
lie beyond the scope of regulation. Railroads were even hurt by
taxation of property and real estate while competitors were able to
use government-subsidized highways and airports without having to
pay taxes to fund them. Now that America has gone on to witness the
collapse of such mammoth firms as Enron and Lehman Brothers, not to
mention the bankruptcy and bailout of General Motors, the story of
the Rock provides an instructive lesson in how a major American
enterprise was allowed to fall victim to forces often beyond its
control - while the bailout of the Penn Central, at the expense of
smaller lines like Rock Island, helped initiate the era of "too big
to fail." For economic historians and railroad buffs alike, Rock
Island Requiem is a well-researched and informative work - and a
mighty good read.
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