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But no one thought that Kiefer alone would have to bear the burden of the catastrophe. Even if he had failed to see the warning signal, why had the slipshod Long Island, unwanted and neglected stepchild of the great Pennsylvania Railroad*,failed to install automatic stopping devices, which Manhattan subways had had for 48 years? Fed up with years of gross-incompetence on a system that carries more passengers than any other U.S. railroad (300,000 daily), and appalled by the disastrous accident, commuters made an indignant demand: investigate the whole operation of the Long Island, rescue it from what passengers were sure was its undisputed status as the worst Class I railroad in the U.S.
-The Long Island Rail Road was bought in 1900 by the Pennsylvania. After 1935, with the exception of three war years, the Long Island lost money, and in March 1949 the Pennsylvania declared it bankrupt and said it was on its own. A few months later, the Nassau County Transit Commission charged that the Pennsylvania had systematically milked its subsidiary. It charged that: for the L.I.'s tugs and barges to move freight across New York Harbor, the Pennsy paid the L.I. only 35¢ a ton, collected as much as $1.10 from shippers; the Pennsy and the N.Y., N.H. & H. used some eleven miles of Long Island tracks, paid only half of what the fee should have been; the Pennsy leased the Long Island's Wheelspur Yard for a piddling $13,000 in 1948, forced the L.I. to deadhead its own cars to less accessible yards at a cost of $370,000 a year. "Complete misunderstanding of the facts," snapped the Pennsy. When the L.I. went into bankruptcy Pennsy filed claims of close to $53 million.