Judging by the amount of “foreign” power I see on CN and CP every day, the large class 1s seem to work quite well together. Although the BNSF/CN merger got nixed years ago those two systems probably collaborate on alot more than the sharing of motive power. My guess is that they have aligned their marketing and sales efforts and have a close working relationship on many levels. Thus there’s probably no compelling reason to merge as an informal “defacto” merger already exists that does not involve a long drawn regulatory apprroval process.
Ulrich,
Are you in total ‘guess’ mode, or do you have new information? BNSF/CN interaction amounts to CN ‘haulage’ rights between Duluth/Superior and Chicago. Even that has decreased since CN bought WC Ltd and has their own ‘shorter’ route between the Twin Ports & Chicago(with no delays passing through Twin Cities metro area).
Locomotive ‘pooling/leasing’ is something very common between major class 1 railroads, and cannot be construed as a marketing tool. CN would be better off making a ‘deal’ with CSX or NS to move traffic East/South East from Chicago. They have their own trackage South to New Orleans(ex-IC).
Jim
Any mega-mergers will be unlikely for the foreseeable future. Any move toward a mega-merger would probably result in a push for re-regulation that would be much harder to resist.
Define mega merger. If it is within one’s geographic area, like NS and CSX, then no it won’t happen. But if it is CSX and UP or NS and BNSF (I like the BNSNSF or BNSFNS monikers), then perhaps. Up to now I feel mergers have been more financial investment than actual operational/marketing ventures with the idea of being able to leap long distances without service in between unless there is a substantial return on investment. In other words, many mergers have been to move money from one place to another rather than trains and their cargo.