That one left me just about rolling on the floor with laughter. Maybe we should require it be engraved on the business card of every investment banker.
RR’s did diverse themselves…Greyhound Buslines was started by the Pennsy so it could offer “…alternitive means of public transportation to allow abandonment of non-profitable rural branches”…granted they were hogtied as far as “quickly” getting rid of bad lies and making mergers…how long did UP try for CRI&P…most if not all of the larger lines by 1950 had some kind of rubber tired freight service…not just pigs either but real LCL/LTL …the ICC was created to reign in the lawless emerging monopolies of the mid 1800’s and IMHO by the end of WW1 the ICC wasnt needed anymore
I really think that this depends on the time. Was the Government’s plan to merge all of the Class I’s into 10 or 12 “big” railroads at the end of WWI feasable? Of course it was, but none of the people who controled the railroads wanted to hear about it. Big railroads like the Pennsy didn’t want it because they would have lost control of N&W and the scad of others that they controled throught PennRoad. Small lines didn’t like it begacuse they would have just been swallowed up, and their managments, thrown out by bigger companies. whether it would have worked is pure speculation.
In the 1930’s depression there was plenty of opportunity for East - West mergers, but western railroads in particular wanted no parts of a PRR or NYC snatching a western road that was tight on money (since that included virtually all of the big western roads, including UP & ATSF. SP might have been the only exception.). So they demanded that the artificial East/West line of the Mississippi/Chicago area be maintained. When the B&O bought the Alton and got access to Kansas City, it was severly punished by the western roads by diverting traffic to the point where the B&O finely had th sell the Alton to GM&O.
There were many merger opportunities in the 50’s & 60’s. Imagine what would have happened if B&O/C&O had merged with NYC in 1967, and N&W had merged with PRR? How different would things look if the ICC hadn’t taken 10 years to approve the UP & SP take over of Rock Island, or had approved the merger of UP and Milwaukee? Or if ATSF had tendered an offer for E-L before they were tied to the creation of Conrail? What would it look like if their had been two compeating “little” Conrails? What if Chessie had been able to purchase E-L, and Reading to compete with Conrail?
Lots and lots of what ifs, and they continue toda