"Parent Company"

[NW Mailing List]

Dear List,

I have followed the "parent company" discussion with some interest.  I cannot cite which sources I am recalling, but I have the distinct impression that the PRR increasingly relied on its earnings from the N&W to make it possible for PRR to pay dividends in the final years of the Standard Railroad of the World.

It seems plain that PRR watched N&W financial activity very closely.  Is it likely that N&W could have undertaken financial activity that PRR disapproved?  Probably not.  That ability to proscribe, and perhaps prescribe central business decisions would argue that the term "parent company" is not misused in describing the relationship.

I am curious as to the role, if any. of PRR, of the accession of Mr. Saunders to the Presidency of the NW following Mr. Smith.  Mr. Saunders, according to our friend Mr. Newton's excellent book, The Tale of a Turbine, was able to convince the Board of the N&W to avoid any more funding for the turbine program in favor of more rapid dieselization, a decision resembling one that I believe the PRR had already made.  

I am also curious as to the role of General Motors and its financing ability in the dieselization decisions (particularly the rate at which that process was executed) on both PRR and N&W

Neill Herring, grateful for the education this list offers
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