Could the MKT have survived on its own if the UP hadn’t bought them in 1988?
A few alternatives that have crossed my mind:
MKT + CGW merger in the 1960s
MKT buying RI’s Spine Line between KC and Minneapolis in the early 80s (instead of CNW)
MKT buying RI’s line between Omaha and Chicago in the early 80s (instead of Iowa Interstate)
MKT buying the bankrupt Chicago, Missouri & Western in 1989 (CMNW was split between SP and ATSF) - what I think would be the best option!
Certainly the MKT would have to expand to stay afloat. Today the FWWR and Texas Pacifico would provide a good link to Ferromex, making today’s Katy a good competitor with KCS. It would be even more so benefited by having a connection to Chicago (in the expanded state it would need to survive), which KCS lacks. It could very well be a merger target from CPR, since CN gobbled up IC.
MKT + CGW would have been an end-to-end merger of weaklings with a poor route from Kansas City to both the Twin Cities and Chicago. Besides, MKT was in pretty bad financial shape. Buying the RI lines in the 1980’s (comparable to CGW) would have been difficult since the trustee was driving hard bargains in selling off the railroad. Buying CMNW makes absolutely no sense. MKT had no real presence in St. Louis and the CMNW Kansas City line was in need of major rebuilding.
Wouldn’t it be good to have end-to-end mergers? It extends the reach of a railroad…ala UP + WP or CN + IC. If it’s a parallel merger, all that happens is one railroad is pretty much abandoned - like in the IC + GMO case.
I was thinking that MKT could have purchased CMNW to get access to Chicago and therefore interchange with Eastern and Canadian roads. St. Louis would be a non-existant factor, and only the KC-Chicago portion would remain important.
Although the railroad may have been in bad condition, it could have been rehabilitated. I’m sure MKT could have gotten and rehabilited the line for far less than the $93 million CNW payed for RI’s Spine Line - BEFORE rehabilitation!!
I feel that any Class 1 today needs access to either Chicago or Memphis to survive on its own or be a desirable merger partner. St. Louis and Kansas City compete against each other and are quite a mess (not that Chicago and Memphis are much better…) If MKT rehabilitated its line through Parsons and into Missouri (yes this would cost money, but what doesn’t? Gotta spend it to earn it!) to connect with the CMNW it could have avoided the traffic jams of KC and STL, making for faster transit times between Chicago and the Gulf Coast.
BUT…if CMNW still seems like a bad idea, what about IAIS? UP onced looked at them as a new entrance to Chicago, but bought out CNW instead. My only question about this would be t
I would love to hear of some examples myself if anyone cares to comment!
Off the top of my head though, I’m thinking IC and GMO. I don’t think either road was in ‘great’ shape, but the IC just picked up a few key lines from the Gulf and then dropped the rest.
B&M and MEC SHOULD have been a good combination - both were struggling, but unfortunetly Guilford dropped the ball on that one.
I’m thinking that even by the 50s, so many railroads were huge that mergers were both end-to-end and parallel. Also, many were unstable, but the bankruptcies didn’t come until the 60s and 70s. Obviously Conrail took many weak sisters and made a nice road, but they had “unlimited” funds to do so.
Hard to believe that this Sunday the 12th will mark 19 yrs since the Katy-UP merger. Will have to give UP credit as most former Katy lines have fared well under the big yellow.
Thanks for your comments. I am not sure the IC - GMO would qualify. The IC going into the merger, although on a down swing, wasn’t terribly unhealthy. It still had cash from its Chicago land rights–although it did not end up spending it on the railroad. Moreover, I wouldn’t really classify it as a successful merger.
Conrail is an interesting point. I wonder if the same money were pored into the Conrail lines separately–and they were allowed to abandon branch lines as was done under Conrail–if the same result could not have been achieved.
How healthy were the C & O/Seaboard System prior to the merger? Although, one wonders if you can call CSX a successful merger.
Its always nice to wonder what railroad of the past could have survived if they had the chance. I always thought the EL would have been invigorated by the double stack revolution, they were the only ones with the clearances around here for them.
UM…CMW was broken up between SP (SP-CSL) and KCS (Gateway Western/Gateway Eastern after failure)…all Santa Fe got was a boomer NW Chief Engineer who now works for Amtrak in Chicago
Illinois Central screwed up the property before anyone else touched it (part of what killed CMW)… It was (and partially still is) a cobbled together mis-match of non-standard rail and OTM.
…and everybody apparently forgot the headache that was OKT. (lots of skeletons from CRIP’s closet came to light there)
Well, it took decades to become strong, but I would say Grand Trunk and Canadian Northern into Canadian National is one I can think of.
Conrail was a much stronger railroad than the ones it took over too, true. But I agree, had EL figured out a way to stay out of Conrail (it went right up to the last minute on that one), they might have done well with double stacks. A big downside for the EL back in 1976 was that it missed the “big cities” along its route, which meant it couldn’t generate the merchandise biz that PRR, B&O and NYC could. The present business model, of end to end with little interest about what happens along the way would have been a boon to the EL.
Funny that both examples of mergers of weaklings becoming stronger, CN and CR, are also examples of the government stepping in.
MKT strong enough to buy into anything in the 1970’s may be an almost oxy-moronic statement…The CMW deal came about in the aftermath of the UP buyout [1988] as UP tried to clean up, and make what was left of the MKT work in their system. The St. Louis line through Sedalia,MO and into Parsons was removed and abandoned in 1970’s;From Parsons to oklahoma City was done also abandoned about the same time in the late 1970’s. Downsizing, as MKT was trying to improve its cash flow in the 1970’s; the deferred maintenance had made that line[StL to Parsons to OKC,Ok.] almost impossible to negotiate was any speed at all, the track was apparently so bad that when a crew went dead the standing train would derail in place as the wind moved the cars side to side, and the force of the wind motion worked the cars side-to-side, along with backing the spikes the spikes out of worn ties and the wheels would drop between the rails;derailing while standing still! The UP to-date, has made what is left of the KATY a vital an necessary part of their system.
E L tried to stay out of conrail, But the effects of Hurricanes of 1975 destroyed much of thier N.Y. main line. Leaving them no alternative but file . since the cost of rebuilding was enormous’ and would bankrupt the company a few years down the line. They just postphoned the bad news
Who was CGW’s major interchange in KC? Who was MKT’s? If they didn’t provide each other with much of any traffic as seperate companies, there might not have been any traffic to hold onto as a merged company. Still, the idea of a single Chicago/Twin Cities to the Gulf road is intriguing. As I’ve said (ad nauseum) before, I’ve often thought that end to end mergers instead of the parallel mergers that the industry went through in the 60’s-70’s were a missed opportunity. A merged MKT/CGW would have had single line service that may have been a viable or even preferable (again, if there was sufficent potential traffic) option. Perhaps the big grain exports to the Soviet Union in the 70’s have been some plum long haul for them. In the pre-mega merger, ICC regulated environment it may have held together long enough to become an attractive merger partner later.
CGW had a really poor line into KC, and they didn’t even have their own yard.
Wouldn’t MKT have been focused on St. Louis instead of KC for interchange ? I believe St. Louis was second to Chicago in interchange during the 1970s, whereas now it has been eclipsed by a few other cities.
I think the Soo Line-Milwaukee Road missed out on an opportunity shortly after its 1985 combination to go after the Katy. Certainly I think that, if the Grand Trunk would have been able to acquire the Milwaukee Road like they should have, they almost certainly would have gone after either the Katy or the KCS somewhere down the road. One of the funnier things I heard back in 1985 was that the Soo Line would go after the MKT and the new system would be called the “Katy-Soo”.
[#ditto] I was scrolling down throught to the bottom thinking “Wow, couldn’t believe knowone mentioned MKT’s biggest connection, the MLWK.” But then, at the bottom, here it is. A three-way Soo-MLWK-MKT would have given CP Gulf coast access, albight a longer route to Texas rather than CN’s direct IC route to Louisiana.
A SOO/MILW/MKT link-up would definitely be the long way to the Gulf from the Midwest, with a poor connection at Kansas City to go with it. Such a link-up would not have a direct Twin Cities-Kansas City route, either.
MKT was once viewed as a possible merger partner for CB&Q and later with BN but BN’s merger with SLSF shot that one down.
Oh yes it would, oh yes it would. There’s NOTHING wrong with the former MILW Twin Cities - Kansas City mainline; even south of River Junction (La Crescent). In fact, in the early 80’s the former MILW put in a lot of money in the River Jct. - Marquette segment and the Soo Line and CPRS put in a lot of work south of Marquette in the 90’s. Perhaps it’s not a straight arrow down from the Twin Cities like the former RI/CNW (now UP) “Spine Line” but the River Line does just fine, thank you, and I’m guessing that when the DME/ICE does start hauling coal out of the Powder River Basin that line will get even more work.
Also, what was “wrong” with the connection at Kansas City that the MILW had with other roads; in this case MKT? Aside from sharing Knoche Yard with the KCS which, in all fairness here, should have been the merger partner for the MILW (and then later on CPRS), the MILW had healthy working relationships with not only the Katy but also the SP/Cotton Belt, the Santa Fe, and the Union Pacific. In fact, back in the early 80’s I used to see Katy pool power on MILW trains operating between Kansas City and the Twin Cities in my native northeast Iowa all the time. In short, the Katy would have been a good partner (still behind KCS - at least IMHO anyway) for the MILW/GTW or MILW/SOO/CPRS to merge with.