TIES – Southern Railway magazine – May 1965

Description

This is the May 1965 issue of TIES (“The Southern Railway System Magazine”). Its cover features the relatively new freight services that the railroads were offering – intermodal containers that were carried by ship, rail and trucks. The magazine contains 28 pages and measures approximately 8.25 x 11.25 inches. There are numerous articles with black & white photographs and illustrations.
TIES was the company magazine of Southern Railway. Its first issue was published in March 1947 and it lasted 35 years (until the Southern’s merger with the Norfolk & Western Railroad).
When the first issue of TIES was published, railroads lived in a vastly different transportation world. Still riding the crest of an incredible transportation performance in World War II, railroads dominated the intercity transportation market.
But trucks beginning to throng intercity highways posed a growing threat to the railroads' freight business. Passenger trains were already running deep in red ink. In the skies above them and on the highways beside the tracks were the airplanes and autos that would administer the final blow to rail passenger service as a private enterprise.
TIES' purpose was set forth plainly in the opening issue. TIES would serve as the "voice" of Southern Railway System, strengthening the ties of understanding among employees, management, owners and customers, by providing its readers with accurate and complete information about Southern's activities, achievements and aspirations. This was TIES' guideline, carried on the contents page for decades.
From the beginning, TIES paid careful attention to the economic facts of life in the transportation business. The effects of subsidized competition, and the limitations placed by ICC regulation on how railroads could respond to changing market conditions received frequent coverage. There were stories about railroad costs and railroad pricing, and the effect of careful and careless freight handling on our relationships with customers.
Nor did TIES overlook the chance to tell the interesting stories to be found in the lives of our people as individuals – their hobbies, community service, political activities and many more. Stories about customers and how they used railway service appeared often.
The Southern Railway (reporting mark SOU) (also known as Southern Railway Company) was a Class 1 railroad that was based in the southern United States. The railroad is the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were combined, reorganized and recombined beginning in the 1830s, formally becoming the Southern Railway in 1894.
At the end of 1971, the Southern operated 6,026 miles of railroad, not including its Class I subsidiaries Alabama Great Southern (528 miles) Central Of Georgia (1729 miles) Savannah & Atlanta (167 miles) Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway (415 miles), Georgia Southern & Florida (454 miles) and 12 Class II subsidiaries. That year, the Southern itself reported 26,111 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 110 million passenger-miles.