STAYING ON TRACK

The Newsletter of the Lubbock Model Railroad Association

MARCH 2003

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Randel supplied me with the following calendar of upcoming events for the LMRA.

Train operations at Godeke Library will be on March 17 thru March 22 (Monday thru Saturday). Train operations at the Arts Festival will be on April 11 thru April 13 at the Lubbock Civic Center (Friday thru Sunday). The Carillon Retirement home train operations will be on June 24 and June 25 (Tuesday and Wednesday).

Please call Randel at home (788-0701) or work (771-5600) if there are any questions. His e-mail address is rbittick01@aol.com .

THE AUCTION

The auction was very successful this year, except the voice of the auctioneer which was less than stellar. The club made about $103 profit. There were 54 items placed for auction and they brought a total sales price of $338. Sellers gained a profit of $246, and the remainder went to the LMRA. There were 22 "no bids." This is an unusually high percentage of "no-bids," but I am not sure how to improve this. In general, we needed more buyers to match the plethora of sellers.

If there is continued interest, we will have the next auction in February of 2004. If people do not enjoy the auction, please let me know, since it is a lot of work to put on.

AMARILLO RAILROAD MUSEUM, INC.

This from the ARM, dated January 27, 2003.

We are working full steam ahead on plans for the 2003 tristate Train Show to be held here in Amarillo on the weekend of April 12 - 13, 2003. The show will be held in the north Exhibit Hall at the Amarillo Civic Center in downtown Amarillo. Planned show hours are from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday, April 12 and from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Sunday, April 13.

For clubs that responded to our earlier survey, the response was enough that we decided to go forward with plans for the show, thus we sincerely hope that your club will come and display your layout at our show and to have an opportunity to mingle with folks from other railroad clubs. It takes trains running on layouts to attract people to come to the show. Thus, you will be a vital part of the show.

As noted previously, we plan to have vendors' clinics and model contests as a part of the show, thus we invite you to spruce-up you models and enter them in the contests; this will be a good tune-up opportunity for NMRA members planning to attend the Lone Star Region convention in Lubbock in June.

For your convenience, we have reserved a block of rooms at the HomeGate Studios & Suites with a special discounted rate of $27.50 per night; you will need to call them at 806 358-7943 to make your reservations and you will need to state that you are participating in the 2003 Tristate Train Show. This hotel is located at 6800 I-40 West.

If you have any question write to me at Bob Roth, Amarillo Railroad Museum, Inc. P.O. Box 31105, Amarillo, TX 79120 or e-mail me at broth@arn.net .

HOW CSX GOT ITS NAME

From Trains web page, submitted by Ron Warner, written by Milt Dolinger.

"What's in a name?" Shakespeare asked in Romeo and Juliet

Quite a bit, apparently, and not only to the Bard. Railroads, in particular, have grappled with that same question over the years - especially those railroads that are the products of mergers or the surviving company after a takeover.

There is, on the one hand, Norfolk Southern, a straightforward name for the affiliation of the Norfolk & Western and Southern railways. Along the same lines, there is Burlington Northern & Santa Fe, an amalgam of large and once-independent roads. On the other hand, there are occasions where a railroad powerhouse takes over another carrier and retains its own name, such as Union Pacific's takeover of Southern Pacific and several other railroads.

And then you have CSX. The poet T.S. Eliot wrote, "The naming of cats is a difficult matter, it isn't just one of your holiday games." The quotation is apt since a sleeping kitten, the famous Chessie, was the longtime mascot of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, one component of CSX.

Why and how did the 50-50 merger of Chessie System and Seaboard Coast Line Industries in November 1980 result in those initials?

Let's back up a bit. After Chesapeake & Ohio acquired control of the venerable Baltimore & Ohio in 1963, the C&O was the dominant company, but the combined system was known simply, and informally as C&O/B&O. It wasn't until 1973 that C&O, B&O, and the B&O-controlled Western Maryland officially became Chessie System, Inc.

Seaboard Coast Line was the 1967 combination of the Seaboard Air Line and Atlantic Coast Line railroads. As a prelude to further mergers, SCL in 1982 combined with longtime ACL affiliate Louisville & Nashville to form the Seaboard System Railroad Inc., which lasted less than four years.

Confusing? You bet. And after the government approved the "merger of equals" (Chessie and Seaboard) in 1980, a new moniker became imperative.

Hays T. Watkins, then chairman of Chessie, and Seaboard's chair, Prime T. Osborn, said that since it was truly a 50-50 deal, neither the name "Chessie" nor "Seaboard" should be part of the new name. Early on, employees of both companies were asked through their company newspapers to suggest names and, if one was selected through that process, a prize would be awarded.

From the outset, a variety of initials were kicked around as a point of departure such as CSCL Corp., C/SCL, CCL, CCS, and CSL. At one point, and in jest, Watkins said at a luncheon in the executive dining room in Cleveland's Terminal Tower that the new company should be called First American Railway Transportation System. He added with a smile that the slogan could be, "We go like the wind!"

In the meantime, of course, the lawyers of both companies were busy before the Interstate Commerce Commission pleading the case for merger. Watkins named a bright young man in Chessie's Finance Department, Paul Goodwin, (now vice chairman of CSX) to work with the late Dick Sanborn, a top official of the Seaboard, to come up with a name. At one point they decided on CSC Inc., only to learn those initials already belonged to a Virginia truck line. They tried CSM (for Chessie-Seaboard merger) but that, too, was taken.

Back to those lawyers working before, the ICC in Washington. Because of the numerous documents and filings in the case, they had to use a shorthand name for all the references to the two companies involved, and the initials "CSX" were used over and over again through 52 days of hearings and literally thousands of pages of legal documents.

It was never intended that CSX would be the permanent name of the new corporation. But seemingly faced with the fact that all other initial combinations of "C" and "S" were not available, plus the fact CSX had by then developed a certain cachet, Paul Goodwin said CSX became the name. "Hays liked it," he added. And so it was that Watkins and Osborn announced to the world that "CSX is singularly appropriate. C can stand for Chessie, S for Seaboard and X, the multiplication symbol, means that together we are so much more."

They thanked employees and stockholders for their suggestions, adding "all were interesting and many were inspired, but we feel the two years' use we already have had with the CSX name gives us a leg up in identification. We also feel the logotype developed by our own internal communications people is a distinctive one and there will be no problem with our recognition."

That comment about the logotype needs some explanation. The public relations department for Chessie, of which I was in charge, had brain stormed a number of ideas for a proper logo. We went through all the varieties of using CSX in different letter styles, and nothing really stood out. Finally, almost as a passing thought, I asked our staff designer, Franklyn Carr, if there was any way he could combine a slanted C and S to form the shape of an X.

After an afternoon of doodling, Franklyn came up with a truly distinctive logo. Today, however, when the company uses the combined X, it usually appears with the letters "CSX Corp." alongside.

This article was reprinted from TRAINS Magazine.

HUMOR?

You know you are a railfan when:

You curse the dispatcher when you're held up in traffic.

Your relatives only think of you when they see a train.

While driving your car, you put your arm on the window sill and wave your hand and blow your horn to all the kids standing on the street.

MARCH CLINIC

Pat Pritchett will talk to us about Gondolas.

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