4 ms·
> the truism that no railroad company became an airline I don't know if that's a truism. A railroad company could have tried merging with an airline. That they
by JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
> the truism that no railroad company became an airline
I don't know if that's a truism. A railroad company could have tried merging with an airline. That they didn't doesn't make it obvious that it wouldn't have worked. (Air-rail alliances started becoming a thing twenty years ago [1].)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-rail_alliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air-rail_alliance
- dtagames 7mo agoNo railroad company became an airline. The first airline was Pan Am. Railroads ignored air transportation until it killed all of their passenger business and they had to be bailed out and merged into a Federal conglomerate called the National Passenger Rail Corporation, branded Amtrak. I bring it up as an example of how sunk costs and the fallacy that they'll always continue to produce the same income often prevent industries from adopting a new and fundamental way of doing business -- even when they have the clear lead in that business, as QVC did and as railroads did.