On July 20, 1995 the Interstate Commerce Commission gave final approval for Burlington Northern and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe to merge. The two companies merged on August 1st.
Probably saved the ATSF from becoming another fallen flag. BNRR should thank whomever for the PRC or they to may have bit the dust. [:o)][:p]
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Originally posted by nanaimo73
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QUOTE: Originally posted by spbed
Probably saved the ATSF from becoming another fallen flag. BNRR should thank whomever for the PRC or they to may have bit the dust. [:o)][:p]
Another fallenflag? I would of thought the ATSF LA- Chicago Transcon would of been enough for them to survive? Or was this a attempt to keep pace with the UP mergers of CNW and SP?
Anybody know how many jobs they were ably to eliminate purely from ecomomies of scale/duplicity of effort ?
More like the other way around. When BN + ATSF were trying to merge, the UP tried to steal the ATSF away from the BN. After that failed and the BN & SF merged, they went after the SP. The CNW had been under UP controll for some time and wasn’t really a factor in the last round of mergers.
The actual merger took place 9/22/95. It was not until 1998, when all labor agreements were negotiated, that both rrs began operating as one. My first day on the rr in '98 just happened to be the day yd operations at Kan City were combined together.
The old ATSF mainline was and is a thing of glory, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that the Chicago-to-Cameron (w. of Galesburg) stretch is now pure CB&W in heritage. That’s what is now called the “Southern Transcon.” The Streator-Chillicothe-Galesburg stretch that used to be mainline is now just the Chilli sub. Amtrak follows the Sou. Transcon too, which is why trains stop at Mendota and not Streator.
After a merger, one would expect the railroad to sell off or shut down some redundant lines and facilities. Has BNSF done much of that? In my part of the country, (backwoods,so to speak , as far railroads are concerned) south eastern S.D., the only noticable difference has been that the locomotives now come in many colors other than Cascade Green. We now see Cascade Green, Bluejackets,Warbonnets, and half a dozen shades of orange.