http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080423.RCPR23/TPStory/Business
From the article:
Kansas City Southern Railway Co. of Missouri is worried it will lose some corn shipments if the regulatory board approves CPR’s DM&E deal. Adding to its fears, Kansas City Southern describes the CPR-UP alliance as “a commercial bond just short of a merger.”
And that differs from the KCS-CN alliance how?
Well,if you look back at previous mergers, thats the preclude to a merger…The bigger RR always
give some buisness to the incoming RR,then stat paying their bills and on and on til they say we’re going to merge…!
ugh i do NOT want to see hideous yellow patches on SOO SD60s[xx(]
Why not?
Well, CP’s GEVOs have red hoods. As evidenced by my sig.
Nah…ain’t gonna happen. Now, had CP lost out to say, CN, for the DME/ICE then yes, it would have been inevitable that the UP would take the CP in the not too distant future. But with CP’s impending acquisition of DME/ICE everything has changed. A lot of people simply don’t understand what a HUGE wildcard the DME/ICE is/was to future mergers. CP simply HAD to get the DME/ICE and get back to the Kansas City gateway to have ANY chance at surviving as an independent railroad. Had CN won out (and no doubt the ICE in particular would have been a nice fit for them) it would have been game over for CP. CP made a horrible mistake back in 1997 when it sold the “Kansas City Corn Lines” and gave up the KCITY gateway. Now CP has a real shot at becoming a real player again and I think somewhere down the road the CP and the KCS will FINALLY hook up like they should have years ago.
Anyone remember the BNSF-CN attempt of a few years ago?
Also there’s one big thing we’ve got to think about here. Seriously, would the governments of the US and Canada really allow the UP to eat the CP? That could form a true transcon, which could have a domino effect on the rest of the North American system. BNSF would have to merge with someone else to stay in the game, and so on.
Not to mention the fact that the last thing that the government of Canada wants is to loose another big institutional Canadian company like CP to the Americans. There was enough of a collective bellow from them when “Canadian National” became known as just “CN”.
In my opinion, Canadian Pacific is going to stay in Canada, Union Pacific is going to stay in America and the Class2’s better start looking over their shoulder a little more often to stay off the sale block.
Cheers!
~METRO
Do you even have to ask that? Patches are pretty much universally hated
How do we know it would be like that? Picture a couple thousand Armour Yellow locomotives with red CPRail patches on them.[;)] There-doesn’t that feel better?[^]
not bad. but i personally wish they’d stay seperate. I mean UP is pretty big now
Yes, UP is pretty big and with its meltsown feasco after gobbling up SP & D&RGW, it should stay where it is and NOT try to buy any other railroads. It cannot plan or conduct a well organized merger/buyout.
I agree. UP isn’t in a position to gobble up new lines; its money IMHO is better spent on more efficient motive power and track upgrading. It’s enticing to think of CPR buying out something else; but while they had an okay 2007 they might better consolidate their DM&E purchase and find some way to pacify that ol’ Mayo Clinic.
Actually now that KCS is doing better it might look attractive to CPR. But then, to the extent it looks attractive, it might cost too much. My hunch is that our undervalued dollar won’t stay at Canadian parity too long, so either Canadian railroad that wants to spend a lot of money is going to try to do so pretty soon (as witness CN and the EJ&E).
Alas, the whole problem with any more merging is that anything that happens with one system buying out another is that it could be to railroading what Sarajevo was to World War One. This is hardly an original thought that started with me; most of the posts about (possible) mergers foresee a tipping of the applecart.
I follow CP and I hope they don’t get bought out nor try to extend themselves trying to buy other things out. Apparently they’ll have their hands full for the near future trying to upgrade the DM&E. Diplomacy, the economy, exchange rates, the costs of fuel – all pale in significance to one whiny medical complex!