What next, Microsoft?

First was mighty Pennsylvania Railroad, the widows’ and orphans’ stock, that never failed to pay a dividend; the so-called “Standard Railroad of the World.”
Pennsy had already merged with arch-rival New York Central in a flailing attempt to remain solvent, since the government wouldn’t approve merger with Norfolk & Western, who eventually ended up operating Pennsy after Norfolk & Western merged with Southern Railway.
That is, Norfolk Southern owns and operates the old Pennsy lines, most that is, after Penn-Central successor Conrail was broken up and sold in 1999.
So it wasn’t actually Pennsy that went bankrupt; it was Penn-Central, the largest corporate bankruptcy ever at that time, June 21, 1970. (Penn-Central continued operations through 1976.)
Although government policy can partially take the blame, plus the tendency toward individualized personal transport, the auto.
I also remember the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle newspaper wailing about Penn-Central’s proposal to end delivery of newsprint by railroad boxcar.
The railroad wasn’t being compensated anywhere near the cost of delivery, yet the newspaper wanted to continue railroad delivery.
Can you say “corporate welfare?” Empty the pockets of the railroad so managers at the newspaper can buy a Mercedes?
Government built the Interstate Highway System. It also funded massive airport expansion, and set up an airway control system.
Railroads have their own control system; it isn’t a government operation.
It’s the railroads that keep trains from crashing into each other, and they do pretty well.
Together the government highway system, and airline transit, made railroad passenger transport unattractive.
Still, railroading is superior at carrying freight. It’s so much more efficient than trucking.
A single train, with only a crew of two or three, may be moving 200 or more trailer containers.
Trucking needs a driver for every one or two trailers.
And railroading uses much less fuel per ton-mile.
No way could trucking move the quantity of coal or grain or ethanol a train can move. One coal-car can carry 120 tons of coal — and a coal-train might be 100 cars or more. —Trucking can’t even come close.
Shipping can be even cheaper, but there you’re limited by where the waterways go.
The rail network is more extensive. Not as extensive as trucking, plus the railroad maintains its pathway.

Next was General Motors, who once claimed “what’s good for General Motors is good for America.”
Well, perhaps; but GM was saddled by heavy costs, and also seemed to suffer from myopic vision, like they were too big to fail.
They continued to build uninspired and unreliable cars, while the Japanese built better and more attractive cars.
Perhaps the best example of the turkeys they were turning out is the Pontiac Aztek, the UGLIEST car of all time.
Whatever possessed The General (General Motors) to market this styling abomination is beyond me. Plus its underpinnings weren’t much.
If it had been All-Wheel-Drive it would have been interesting, but it wasn’t.
It was just GM’s standard front-wheel-drive platform made into a box.
Box-like styling is more useful, but needs a prop. That prop would have been All-Wheel-Drive.
The Aztek was also a styling disaster; like GM stylists were confused.
A Japanese manufacturer, Toyota, became the number-one auto-seller. Mighty GM was left in the dust.
The General eventually had to declare bankruptcy; it couldn’t meet its financial obligations.
Mighty GM had to rationalize. It had to dump some of its storied brands.
Oldsmobile ended before the bankruptcy, and then Pontiac was lost with it.
Saturn was also dumped. Saturn was a somewhat successful attempt by GM to build and market cars Japanese-style.
It started good, but caved to the GM way.
Various Saturns were rebadgings of other brands. The General had a habit of fielding the same car across it’s many brands. There were Pontiac and Buick versions of the Chevy Cavalier, even a Cadillac version. Plus a Saturn version.
Dealers were fighting each other selling pretty much the same car.
Cannibalizing each other.
Perhaps the best Saturn was the first; almost a Honda.
Finally GM was competing at Honda’s level.
But then Saturn caved.
Ever more GM platforms were shared, and Saturn became GM, uninspiring.
Only four brands are left, Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and GMC — and GMC at first was essentially the Chevy truck.
Which it still is. Ya don’t see GMC versions of the Chevrolet Cruze.
The General apparently recovered from bankruptcy, and is building better cars.
GM has become as reliable as the Japanese; it’s back to number-one.

So now it’s Eastman Kodak that declared bankruptcy.
It was so tied to film, it failed to cash in on the switch to digital photography.
So now the Japanese have the market Kodak should have got.
When I came to this area in Fall of ’66, I surveyed the Kodak Employment Office on Brown St. near State St.
But I didn’t go in.
The opinion was a job with Kodak was a job for life.
If I had I’d have become one of the Kodak retirees now worried about pension and health-benefits.
Yellow Father (Kodak), who was Rochester, is DONE.
The largest employer in Rochester is no longer Kodak. It’s University of Rochester, primarily its health-system, which includes a large hospital.
I used Kodak products for years, Tri-X film, PolyContrast print paper, and Kodak photographic chemicals, developer, stop-bath, and fixer, etc.
My dark-red darkroom-light was Kodak.
I remember riding my bicycle to LeBeau Photo (“luh-BOW;” as in “bow-ribbon”) on Lyell Ave. (“lile;” as in “aisle”) in Rochester. I’d load up on Yellow Father. There were alternatives, but Yellow Father was best. —Also what I knew, dependable.

So one-by-one the mighty pillars fall, seeming victims of their own weight.
Heavily freighted with demands to maintain the status-quo, while markets changed.
Pennsy tried to put on a good face while falling apart. It always paid a dividend.
The General fell to marketing cars that were turgid and unreliable (at least that was their reputation) compared to Japanese offerings.
Kodak, whose immense power was its dominance of photographic film, failed to follow the market-change to digital photography — even though they invented it.
I wonder what will become of Kodak Park, the massive facility Kodak built in Rochester to manufacture and process its photographic products?
The Park stretched for miles. It even had its own railroad and fire-department.
When I drove bus we drove Park-and-Rides through the Park.
I’d enter at one end amidst massive manufacturing buildings, and drive the Park’s road all the way out to the boonies at its other end.
This was in the morning, so I’d let people off where they asked.
I also remember it stunk. It had the heavy aroma of photographic fixer.
You could smell it clear on the other side of town if the wind was right.
Already many of the buildings were torn down — usually dynamited in front a news-cameras.
A lot of the Park has been sold to start-up businesses, many with ex-Kodak employees.
Supposedly Kodak will reorganize and re-emerge.
But what if it’s liquidated?
I have a Nikon digital camera (made in Japan).
At the same time, storied brands like General Electric and Ford still prosper.
What is it, the company leadership?
General Electric is manufacturing jet engines and railroad locomotives, not just light-bulbs or irons.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and its environs. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability.
• “Park-and-Rides” were bus-trips from suburban or rural end-points, usually through Park-and-Ride parking-lots, where passengers would park their cars, for a bus-ride to work in Rochester.