There are names there that were once thought to be too big to fail.

- The Pennsylvania Railroad, the Standard Railroad of the World.

- The New York Central Railroad, their main competitor.

- Railway Express Agency, the FedEx of its day.

"I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert... 'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains." And I heard that story and said 'pfft, surely I can do better than that sucker.'" There are now two vast and trunkless legs of stone in the desert. one comically larger and more crumbled than the other. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.

That's basically the story of the former Pan Am building, which sits right next door to and overshadows the former New York Central's Terminal building in Manhattan.

The building of the mighty airline overshadowed the majestic terminal of the formerly mighty railway, but then the mighty airline itself faltered, and the building now belongs to almighty finance...

And I heard that story and I said "pfft, surely I can do better than the last two suckers"...

Yes. Corporate ego trip movies, circa 1950.

Pennsylvania Railroad's "Progress on the Rails".[1]

New York Central's "The Big Train", featuring the CEO.[2] He's lobbying for deregulation and less federal funding for airports and roads.

Both include sections on the data processing systems of 1950.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8TM-LGDt5M

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZUXNs8ts9I

If you want a sobering antidote to corporate hubris, read the Dow Jones Industrial Average for every year since it was founded.

Can you elaborate?

It's the "30 best companies" or such, and not a single one of the original companies is still on the list.

Of the original list (which is mostly railroads) I think only Union Pacific and Western Union still exist under their own name.

Are you thinking of the right list? The original DJIA components had multiple companies that still exist today such as General Electric and Domino Sugar. The only railroad company was TCI, but they were primarily in the steel business and have been US Steel for over 100 years.

Ah I was looking at the transportation average, the older one.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average Is the correct link

> once thought to be too big to fail

Relevant: Bureau of Labor Statistics data for American railroad jobs from 1947 to today: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES4348200001?amp%25253bdata...

The merger of NYC and the Pennsylvania - the Penn Central - was the biggest bankruptcy in US history before Enron. <i>The Wreck of the PennCentral</i> is a great business book on why.

I love websites like this. It’s an obsessive collection of information, neatly formatted. No JavaScript or elaborate backend systems. Just a plain information dense webpage. A reminder of what the web used to be

> A reminder of what the web used to be

But this page still is here and is seemingly even being updated. So the web that used to be still is.

Then you'll love this!

https://www.vintagestreetlights.com/

https://www.deviantart.com/tpirman1982/art/Celebrating-10-Ye...

https://www.angelfire.com/planet/tpirman1982/index.html

I think Douglas Self's (yes, that Douglas Self!) museum websites probably are of interest too:

http://douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/museum.htm

and

http://douglas-self.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/locoloco.htm

Recalls the legendary Parisan lamp post photographer Charles Marville https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Marville

I am regularly astounded by the depth, breadth, and usability of https://marxists.org.

Is "fallen flag" a phrase I should recognize? I realize the site is probably not for me, but I would have appreciated a paragraph explaining what is being presented here

I was confused too. I found this:

> The term "Fallen Flags" describes those railroads whose corporate names have been dissolved through merger, bankruptcy, or liquidation. At one time the United States boasted nearly 140 Class I's.

https://www.american-rails.com/fallen-flags.html

OK great, but what's a "Class I"?

> In the United States, railroads are designated as Class I, Class II, or Class III, according to size criteria first established by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) in 1911, and now governed by the Surface Transportation Board (STB). The STB's current definition of a Class I railroad was set in 1992, that being any carrier earning annual revenue greater than $250 million. This has since been adjusted for inflation and most recently set to $504,803,294 in 2019.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Class_I_railroads

which doesn't jive with what I'm seeing? Or maybe I still don't understand.

https://www.rr-fallenflags.org/amtk/amtk.htm

Amtrak still exists, though, maybe since it's a different logo?

ChatGPT's version:

-

Fallen flag railroad companies refer to railway companies that are no longer in operation. These companies have ceased operations for various reasons, including financial difficulties, mergers, acquisitions, bankruptcies, or changes in the transportation industry. Fallen flag railroads hold historical significance and are often remembered for their contributions to the development of the railway system.

Here are a few examples of notable fallen flag railroad companies:

1. Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF): The AT&SF was one of the largest and most renowned railroads in the United States. It operated from 1859 to 1996 and played a crucial role in connecting the Midwest and the West Coast. The company was known for its "Super Chief" and "El Capitan" passenger trains and its involvement in the development of California's rail network.

2. Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O): Established in 1827, the B&O was the oldest railroad in the United States. It operated primarily in the Mid-Atlantic region, connecting Baltimore, Maryland, with various other cities. The B&O was known for its contributions to the growth of American railroading and innovations such as the Tom Thumb steam locomotive.

3. Penn Central Transportation Company: Formed in 1968 through the merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and the New York Central Railroad (NYC), the Penn Central Transportation Company became one of the largest bankruptcies in U.S. history. The company's financial struggles and operational inefficiencies led to its collapse in 1970, resulting in the formation of Conrail (Consolidated Rail Corporation).

4. Southern Pacific Railroad (SP): The SP was a prominent railroad company that operated in the western United States from 1865 to 1998. It played a crucial role in the development of California and the southwestern states, connecting them to the rest of the country. The SP was known for its iconic "Daylight" passenger trains and its involvement in the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad.

5. Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road): The Milwaukee Road operated in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest from 1847 to 1986. It was known for its "Hiawatha" passenger trains, which were renowned for their speed and luxury. Financial difficulties and declining freight traffic eventually led to the company's demise.

These fallen flag railroad companies, along with many others, have left a lasting impact on the development and history of railways in their respective regions. Although they may no longer be in operation, their legacies continue to be remembered and celebrated by railroad enthusiasts and historians.

Random fact check bc I never know how much GPT hallicinates:

"Southern Pacific Railroad (SP): The SP was a prominent railroad company that operated in the western United States from 1865 to 1998."

It's actually 1996, not 1998. I checked multiple sources.

Union Pacific (the acquiring railroad) has UP1996 in its heritage livery fleet to commemorate this: https://www.up.com/heritage/fleet/commemorative/sp-1996/inde...

Would you surmize that reading a trailing '8' might be an OCR bug which messes a '6' with an '8'?

How does the bot draw in data? does it parse for numbers first? Dates? How does it eval data?

I assumed he was just providing something related and interesting rather than suggesting why it ChatGPT said 1998

The audience of the site are railfans - and these terms are common in the jargon of that hobby. We don't define cpu on pages about speculative execution, do we?

I work in the rail industry (different country) and didn‘t know what this is about. That page seems to have no explanation what it is about, what it does or what the intent is.

Amazing dedication. This is what the internet is for!

Nice to see that BNSF 4723 still has the Microsoft Train Simulator Sticker[1] in 2022. :)

[1] https://www.rr-fallenflags.org/bnsf/bnsf4723bf20.jpg

Yes, Microsoft really need the brand exposure /s

Good catch lol

Something about that photo (aliasing? cleanliness of the sticker?) makes it look photoshopped, but it actually does have that sticker: https://youtu.be/9eOYUYSXzi8?t=56

I think it's the JPEG compression ratio being different on that region compared to the rest of the picture. That video is great though; just how many containers do you want?!

Can somebody put this on the Internet Archive?

On its way via ArchiveBot:

http://archivebot.com/ https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveBot

I've grown wary of relying only on IA

  [lammy@popola#Webrips] du -hs www.rr-fallenflags.org 
   43G    www.rr-fallenflags.org
  [lammy@popola#Webrips] find www.rr-fallenflags.org | wc -l
    479221

ArchiveBot regularly grabs sites of that size and uploads them to IA, its not a big deal. The Imgur/Reddit archiving was at least an order of magnitude or two larger.

Of course it is always good to have multiple copies of a site, especially personal ones for things you care about.

Will that work? The site mentions that it's not indexed by search machines. So I guess it has a robots.txt (on my phone and did not check...) Would the archive respect that?

Annoyingly, Internet Archive doesn't respect robots.txt. I specifically excluded ia_archiver from my site which worked for a number of years until they decided to ignore it because robots.txt "do not necessarily serve our archival purposes." They do remove your site if you email them though.

Personally, I'm with the Internet Archive on this one. If they were to respect robots.txt, it wouldn't be long before a whole host of websites exclude the Internet Archive for dubious reasons such as lost advertising revenue, copyright concerns, exclusivity deals etc. I am curious to know if you've found the Internet Archive's activity to be exceptionally taxing on your servers, or whether you have another reason to wish to exclude them?

Mainly I just feel I should be in control of the sites I make. They're personal in nature that I don't mind sharing with the world, but if I want to change something or make them disappear completely it irks me that there's a website out there violating my express wishes.

How interesting! That's a completely different way of looking at the Web; I don't think I've thought about it like that before. I view the Web as a kind of library where you can add books as well as borrow them.

When I read something online, I sort of feel that it becomes a part of me as it informs me and shapes my perspectives. I like to think that I could re-read it if I ever forgot the details; as a result, I've downloaded quite a few websites. Common facts don't really apply here for me, as they'll be accessible as long as encyclopaedias exist, but personal anecdotes and niche catalogues are worth their metaphorical weight in gold.

Additionally, I download things that I one day hope to read, but think that the website might disappear before that time comes (due to the author not renewing a domain name etc.)

My province has the ultimate fallen flag the entire railroad system here was dismantled in the mid 1980s.

At the time I never knew of its history or my family history with it until my Dad gave me a metal box. In it were old family documents, pictures, mementos mostly from my great-grandfather. He worked on the railroad but I had never know about it I barely even knew his father my grandfather.

Even more historically powerful my province which at the time was not a province of Canada had massive debt due to railroad construction costs. We only joined Canadian Confederation to get the debt paid off and since it is an island a promise to have year-round access to the mainland.

Is this Nova Scotia? I ask because I've often wondered over Stan Rogers' song "Guysborough Train" which seems to be about a planned but never completed railroad line.

Things I never expected: reference to Stan Rogers on HN.

I believe your interpretation is the generally accepted one. Stan was from Guysborough and as I understand it, the rail line was started, quite a lot of progress made, and then never finished so there was a lot of displeasure from the locals at the constant reminders of the failure of the government to make good on their promise to deliver the railroad.

No but you're close, I'm in PEI the neighbour to the north of NS.

I have a bunch of model trains... like at least 60 cars/engines in N and HO scale...

I dont know what to do with them per se... I bought the collection at an estate sale, but I have some famous pieces. I just love trains.