Not sure if this thread was created before, and not to beat a dead horse…This is a what past RR’s would you have merged together? It can be from any time period. Some of the mergers thought of, could lead to a different rail map than we have today. A more balanced system? Possibly even more rail still active today. Perhaps some of the mergers discussed could have been contemplated by the RR’s in the past, and never matured. Or the merger partner backed out for various reasons. Whether it be a; Class 1, Regional, and/or Shortline. It can be anything from a super coast to coast system. East meets West, North, South. Whatever. List some combos for each region or a true transcontinental system. I’ll start with a few I would have merged together.
My Transcon System merger circa 1960:
Milwaukee Road, Illinois Central, Central of Georgia, Florida East Coast, Nickel Plate, Deleware Lackawanna and Western, Detroit Toledo and Shore Line
My merger for two Midwestern roads circa 1965:
Kansas City Southern+Gulf Mobile and Ohio
My merger for three Western Roads circa 1965:
Union Pacific+Rock Island+Northern Pacific
P.S. If you have the tools even map them out. If you would like too share them.
What is the economic reasons for the mergers you have suggested? Mergers don’t happen because the look nice on a map - they happen because the make economic sense to the parties involved.
These mergers I suggested were more or less opening up new traffic sources/lanes and single line service to benefit customers. Call it economics? Probably not. But this is a topic I wanted to cover later. This is something I wanted to discuss later after everyone got their ideas in. Then we could look at each and see why they would make sense. My transcon merger was more or less single line service through Chicago with minimal interchange. With the intention of developing new traffic lanes. Grain from the Northern Plains could flow to; Midwestern, Eastern and Southern Ports seamlessly. Same for Automotive traffic from the Midwest to the Pacific and South. Forest Products from the Pacfic Northwest to Eastern destinations etc…The second merger I proposed was to give KCS access to Chicago. Allowing greater interchange to Eastern manufacturing, and vice versa. My third merger was to give UP greater access to new markets, also the NP inclusion was to give a better balance of competition on the Northern Plains essentially prepping for a future BN.
Point-to-point merger of the New York Central to any of the 'roads that terminated in Chicago. The merger of the PRR and the NYC made no sense at all, at least Al Pearlman thought so.
In the same vein, a point-to-point of the PRR with any of the Chicago terminus 'roads.
New York Central - Santa Fe and perhaps Pennsylvania Railroad and Southern Pacific or Union Pacific.
In the 60s the eastern railroads were struggling, in part due to changing shipping patterns, the growth of trucking, and shorthauls that made rail uneconomical given the labor contraints of the day. Out West the situation was less critical… nice long hauls, a simpler route structure, and perhaps not quite as much competition from trucking. A merger of a strong western carrier with a struggling eastern partner could have resulted in a much stronger combination… a true transcontinental system as early as 1965. As it is, CN remains the only true transcontinental today, in 2015. Imagine the possibilities that a NYC - ATSF combination could have offered shippers. The water level route between the largest US cities and the Chicago to LA racetrack for the West! Both NYC and ATSF were ahead of their time with intermodal… ATSF with their Super C and NYC with their flexivan system. A meeting of the minds through merger would have resulted in further innovation and progress instead of the debacle that was Penn Central. NYC’s flexivan expertise in containerization could have been extended to the western ports while ATSF’s piggyback focus could have been extended east as an alternative to trucking, thereby further building on each systems’s core strengths.
A NYC - ATSF merger would have resulted in a sweeping transcontinental trunkline with branchlines into the growing sunbelt states as well as direct access to Canada’s manufacturing heartland, truly a system that would have been much greater than the sum of its parts!
UP-Rock Island before the RI had 10 years to fall apart. RI, whatever its historical missteps, had the population, agricultural and industrial centers, and would have gotten UP into Chicago 30 years before CNW did.
Thank gummint for the likes of the Quad Cities, Iowa City, Newton and Des Moines enjoying branch-line status today. Little wonder I-80 is so busy through there.
Before the PC fiasco, C&O wanted to merge with NYC. ICC nixed it. If it had happened it would have created something close to what happened with the Conrail split, but C&O/NYC would have kept the entire water level route, which would have been a better balance than what NS eventually got.
Also, I would liked to have seen D&RGW kept out of UP, to at least give an impression of some competition in the central corridor.
Given my druthers (and a big heap of hindsight) the SAL would have wound up under the Southern banner and ACL would have gotten the Central of Georgia. After that the L&N, which was already in the ACL camp, would have gotten its share of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois and Southern the Monon. It’s not perfect but would have yielded a better balance than what did happen.
The proposed UP-Rock Island merger made a lot of operational sense but the other Midwestern Class 1’s that connected UP with Chicago realized it would potentially kill a vital source of revenue and fought it tooth and nail. I personally believe the merger should have been approved…
The various railroads that co-operated in “Alphabet Route” freight service would have made an impressive system:
Here in the southeast a puzzle was the ACL - SAL merger. Why SOU RR did not get some of the SAL has always been a puzzle. That would have given Florida 2 competing RRs instead of the CSX mostly and the independent FEC on east coast. .
As the merger was considered the Southern Railway petitioned the ICC for three concessions: 1) Southern already had trackage rights from Hardeeville to Savannah and asked for one of the two parallel lines between Savannah and Jacksonville; 2) a line between Jacksonville and Tampa through Central Florida and 3) a line from Tampa to the Florida/Georgia border. The ICC said no. Why?
Remember the context of time we are talking about. This all happened during the same era that Southern was fighting the Big John hopper car case essentially poking the ICC in the eye. ACL was a huge corporation headquartered in Florida and Tallahassee did not want to cross them. The city of Tampa did put up a fight but could not overcome Federal and State hubris. The argument was made that there was nor would ever be enough traffic in Central Florida, specifically west-central Florida, to justify two railroads. But the trackage requisition by Southern would not have been a gift; they would have to buy it. If the traffic didn’t pan out then Southern would have been stuck with the losses and the petitions for abandonment.
Basically railroading in my part of the Sunshine State dried up over the fight for the principles of rate regulation embodied by Big John and I think of this every time I see the one preserved in Spencer. The regulatory bodies that were supposed to ensure balanced trade and the good of the public with indiscriminate fairness to all the parties involved failed miserably. Was the Big John victory worth the losses of a bad merger? We still have railroads over 50 years later and they are doing reasonably well and as a railroader I am grateful alth
Did the ACL moves its headquarters from Wilmington to Jacksonville before the merger with the SAL? Whenever my mother mentioned writing for a pass, she always spoke of writing to Wilmington (my father worked in the Tampa Shops).
ACL moved their HQ to Jacksonville in 1956, over 10 years before the merger was consumated. The building on Water Street that has served as the main corporate office for ACL, SCL, SBD and now CSX was finished in 1960.
A related quetion- Had the Southern Pacific / Santa Fe merger gone through, would it have succeeded in doing what its planners thought it would accomplish?
They already cooperated on passenger service Buffalo-NYC; don’t remember if they also did so on freight. (Have to revisit my John Rehor.) Bet NKP Guy would know.
Nice map :-). Wabash+Frisco looks like a formidable line. Midwest autos, steel and grain to the South. Not too mention serving oil and gas heavy Oklahoma and Texas.
Yeah Erie did need a larger Midwestern presence. I had envisioned Erie merging with the Wabash instead of Delaware Lackawanna and Western. Giving it access to the Michigan auto industry and Wabash’s (Used trackage rights across southern Ontario to reach Buffalo) Canadian traffic. I could see a Erie+Wabash+DT&I merger. The DT&I inclusion would give it a direct link to Detroit without a roundabout way. Plus access to southern Ohio coal.
