Penn Central RR computer system failure 2148

I don't know any specifics about the computers, but in general everything that the NYC did one way, the PRR did differently. Everything involved merging incompatible systems.

For example, NYC practice was to cut the pusher in (when needed) in front of the caboose. PRR practice was to cut it in behind the caboose. PRR cabooses were designed with very strong refused to leave the yard if they were buttigned an NYC caboose).

Possibly related to computer systems are these three anecdotal stories:

Somehow the folk on the Lasalle & Bureau Cty discovered that the PC couldn't track their cars. There being a shortage of boxcars at the time, the LSBC folk started repainting any PC boxcar that showed up with LSBC marks, eventually collecting several hundred of them. They were eventually caught, due to getting lazy on their paint jobs (a couple of other roads, notably the Marianna & Blountstown, were accused of the same thing).

In towns which had been served by both NYC & PRR, crews habitually took trains to the yard they were familiar with, regardless of which one they were susposed to go to (a situation probably not helped by dispatchers saying things like "put it in track one in the old yard" when both RRs had an old yard with a track one). There are any number of stories of entire trains being lost for weeks for that reason, and at least one case of a cut of cars not being found until Conrail tore up the yard in question.

There's also a story about a lumber dealer in the NE, who got a boxcar of lumber from Oregon, which happened to be spotted the wrong way round (boxcars are often loaded in such a way that they have to be unloaded from the same side that they were loaded from). The customer called the yard & asked for it to be turned, the local picked it up & brought it back to the yard, confusion occured and the car got routed back to the mill in Oregon. After a few days, the customer started enquiring why it took so long to turn a car, and the mistake was discovered (the folk in Oregon were probably wondering why they got a full car instead of an empty, too). So it was shipped all the way back across the country, spotted at the dealer, and...still the wrong way round. So the local picked it up, took it to the yard, and it went all the way back to Oregon again. On the third try, a switch crew was sent from the yard just to pick up & return that one car, so it couldn't get lost again.

John