I get that, but to add weight to your argument- 2 coaches and 1 baggage car seems insufficent for an intercity line, even if it was between neighbouring cities. Plus, to argue against 'some guy', goods, deliveries and letters need to be moved around a city somehow.
Exactly! A lot of American railroads were running real short austere passenger consists in the late 60s because they were all hemorrhaging money but the New Haven held on until the bitter end. Out of the 100s of trains per day only a handful were short and you can easily narrow the options down.
Figured. Also, aren't those big FL9's duel diesel-electric? Can imagine that running on electric within city lines saved money rather than burned it.
Sort of. The FL9s were dogshit dual mode locomotives bought for the purpose of abandoning most of the New Haven's overhead electrification. Turns out the FL9s were more expensive to operate and performed way worse than electric locomotives.
The New Haven management didn't acknowledge the mistake until they went bankrupt in 1961 and shifted back to trying to use the wire they had. By that point it was too late and they were stuck with nearly brand new FL9s that they didn't want.
One of the few good things Penn Central did was eventually banishing the FL9s from the New Haven main line and transferring them to the old New York Central commuter lines where they were slightly more fit for purpose.
Suppose since they didn't perform as well as electric locomotives, they were better off handling lighter loads (commuter coaches) at lower speeds over shorter distances? If only to recuperate losses before upgrading to something better?
It's still a first generation EMD which means it never breaks. The FL9s were ok-ish once they found lower speed/smaller-consist uses in areas where they weren't running the diesel engines under the wire. But... it takes one P32AC-DM to do the work that 2 FL9s used to do so they still weren't great.
I know I could probably look it up elsewhere but feck it, presumably the push to ditch overhead electrical supplies was done due to complaints of it being an eyesore?
The power plant the New Haven owned needed to be modernized and it was struggling to handle the loads put on it. The solution was to abandon most of the electrification and invest in dual mode locomotives rather than pay to maintain the power plant. History obviously proved this was a bad idea.
Hindsights 20-20, but I guess the mindset in business back then isn't too different to what it is now. Why meaningfully solve the long-term problem when you can try to delay it in the short term.