A few years ago Trains rans a series of issues showing the modern Class I’s and their antecedents in a “family tree” type diagram. Does anybody recall what issues those diagrams appeared in?
I need to trash the house one move time before I give up and try to buy replacments.
Thx!
Mark
Part 1 was in the Jan 99 issue, and covered Conrail, BNSF and CN. The Feb issue had NS and UP. March covered CSX, CP, GTI and KCS.
The Family Trees are also on this website
http://www.trains.com/trn/default.aspx?c=ss&id=19
Trains made an error in placing the Rock Island into UP’s family tree. Granted, UP now operates much of the former RI track via later mergers, but that still doesn’t count. The Rock Island “corporate soul” (along with the physical plant) came to be controlled by the CRI&P’s subsidiary, the Chicago Pacific Corp. The ChiPac was originally created in 1969 by the CRI&P to handle all non-railroad properties. After shutdown, ChiPac became in charge of liquidating everything from its parent company. The liquidation proved very successful. All debts were paid in full plus interest. With money left over and still coming in, ChiPac eventually purchased a dozen manufacturing companies, the largest being Hoover Appliances. Then “Maytag Company” purchased the Chicago Pacific Corporation (for $1 billion) and became “Maytag Corporation.”
Along the way, Maytag became the largest owner of Heartland Rail. Heartland was created by Maytag and other much smaller investors, including the CRANDIC, to preserve rail service in Iowa City, and at Maytag’s Newton, IA plant. Heartland entered a purchasing agreement with ChiPac, and leased the RI former main line to the IAIS. Following Maytag’s (coincidental) ChiPac aquisition, this main line became Maytag’s, (leasing to Heartland Rail.) This line was later sold to the IAIS outright along with the RI “beaver skin” herald. Whirlpool later aquired Maytag, so from an investor standpoint, Whirlpool owns the RI “soul.” However, if one places the corporate soul with the herald itself, then IAIS is the owner. Depends on how you look at it. Either way, the Rock Island is certainly not in UP’s family tree.
Trains also made an error in placing the Milwaukee Road into CP’s family tree. Soo never aquired the Milwaukee Road.
Trains correctly placed the Milwaukee Road in CP’s family tree. Soo Line did purchase the CMSP&P’s tracks, locomotives, cars, and the rest of the hardware. That is what we, and the magazine, are interested in. If Trains was some weird “corporate soul” magazine, then perhaps they would share your view.
You are basically correct that RI does not belong with UP, but I don’t have a problem with it being there. UP operates 2000 miles of the Rock Island, from the Twin Cities to Fort Worth and New Mexico. UP would operate additional east-west Rock Island routes if they had not acquired parallel routes from other sources. From a motive power standpoint, much of the CRI&P fleet went to Union Pacific in 1980.
The web site is pretty disapointing. Not much of a “tree” to it. The listing for CSX doesn’t even mention the Chessie or the Family Lines! Doesn’t the “C” in “CSX” stand for Chessie?
My apologies. I thought accuracy was most important, not some bizarre convoluted way of determining who belongs to who (apparently by way of physical ownership of track, engines and even cars.) If one determines that ownership of the physical plant constitutes lineage, it becomes a messy subject with some lines going to one company and others to another. By your logic, then Conrail belongs in the NS tree because they aquired more of the physical property, when actually the corporate “soul” was aquired by CSX. (The symbolic split of PRR and NYC notwithstanding.)
Granted, to the layman Soo aquired the Milwaukee. Although technically incorrect, it all depends on how important facts and details are. Acc
The Soo Line acquired the physical plant of the CMSP&P, which is what the magazine covers. You can’t say the magazine is wrong just because you use a different category.
I don’t know how in the world you could portray a railroad family tree with 100% accuracy in all facets of it. Locally, BNSF operates on tracks from GN. MWK,IC,and CNW. To portray that accurately in a family tree, you’d have some inbreeding and married cousins involved.[B)]
Where does the “corporate soul” of a railroad go, after the railroad itself is gone?
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Maybe that’s why some of the systems act so screwed up sometimes! [(-D][(-D][(-D]
Soo aquired most of the physical plant, not everything. It’s the lack of accuracy and attention to detail that’s most disappointing to me. But I’ll agree with you that it does depend on your definition of belonging to a family tree. To me, Trains just looks ignorant by placing the RI into UP’s family tree (and then sticking by it.) Perhaps if the corporate entities (which preceeded the railroads themselves) aren’t important to the mix, then perhaps Trains should call it something other than “family trees,” which implies who actually aquired whom at the core. The problem lies in semantics I think. We’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one.
I’m thinking you would have even less accuracy if you used corporate “soul”. Krebs, and his assistants from SP, took over Santa Fe, and then BNSF. It could be said that the Frisco cost cutters had earlier taken over BN.
And then you have the SP folded into D&RGW, and being renamed SP, followed by UP being folded into SP, and renamed UP.
just to offer my [2c]…
i would agree from a technical obsolute stand point in whatever catagory you use…the UP never ever ever “aquired” the Rock…UP tried for like 19 years in the 50’s and 60’s didnt they??? finaly gave up after ICC footdragging???..the Rock was ABONDONED…therefore there was nothing to merge or corporate soul to worry about…i agree with 99.5% of the trees shown…other then the Rock and maybe the MILW…
i offer this only as my opinon as a avid TRAINS reader and overall train nut [soapbox]
The Rock Island stopped being an operating railroad, but the corporation did not end with the abandonment of railroad service. About 1984, the company was reorganized as the Chicago Pacific Corporation. It left bankruptcy with, IIRC about $400 million in assets.
It became a holding company with some of the companies it acquired being in appliances. Maytag merged ChiPac in 1988/89 to get those companies, Hoover Vacuums probably being the most recognized.
I’ve seen the write up in Wikipedia about Chicago Pacific being first set up in 1969. I find that entire entry suspect. All the references I have seen show ChiPac being the reorganized company, first appearing when it was released from bankruptcy. The RI’s 1969 Annual Report doesn’t mention anything about a holding company being set up.
While most of the surviving main lines eventually wound up in the UP, most of those were through companies the UP acquired, CNW, SSW, MKT/OKKT. I’ve always found it ironic the main they wanted the most, Chicago-Council Bluffs, they don’t have (yet).
Jeff
P.S. The UP/RI merger was finally approved, but the RI had deteriorated too far. The UP withdrew from the merger after the RI’s March 17, 1975 filing for bankruptcy.
I’m enjoying the discussion about the merger family trees.
Dave Ingles put that series together for the magazine. I was a subscriber back then, and really appreciated how he connected all the dots. I still consult those guides for my own work on the magazine to this day.
Since that time, raillroading has changed even more, and we’ve published some maps that reflect those changes. Here are some of the ones we’ve published in the past five years.
January 2002: Conrail’s predecessors
February 2003: CSX’s predecessors
September 2003: BNSF’s predecessors
February 2004: Norfolk Southern’s predecessors
October 2004: Union Pacific’s predecessors
May 2005: Whatever happened to the Missouri Pacific?
February 2006: Whatever happened to the Pennsylvania Railroad
November 2006: Whatever happened to the Chicago & North Western / Omaha Road / Chicago Great Western / M&St.L
March 2007: Whatever happened to the New York Central?
August 2007: Whatever happened to the Milwaukee Road?
October 2007: Illinois Central’s predecessors
Hope you enjoy these maps! They’re a labor of love.
Matt Van Hattem
Senior editor
I definitely appreciate seeing maps like those, Matt!
Back to the RI and the IAIS: didn’t UP buy some substantial interest in the IAIS in the early 1990s? The way I remember it, it was sort of a defense against the unfriendly takeover attempt being made on CNW before Blackstone and the UP bought in.
Did UP ever get rid of that holding?
I agree!
Hopefully there will be one showing how much of the CRI&P is still being operated.
Carl, it was just an option that UP took out to purchase the IAIS, in May 1989. This followed Japonica Partners hostile takeover bid for CNW Corp. in March 1989, of $44 a share. I would guess that option had some kind of time limit installed.
There is about a half mile of Milwaukee Road right of way running through my property in northern Wisconsin. It and other bits and pieces of Milwaukee Road realestate are owned by a company that is probably several steps down the chain of ownership from the railroad and the Chicago-Milwaukee Corp.
The current owners have offered to sell me the piece running through my property. If I buy, can I get listed on the Family Tree?[:D]
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Here’s on for ya’
D&RGW had an affair with SP for years. After being spurned by it’s partner, it gave birth to to the WP. D&RGW relied heavily on this illegimate child for years for survivale until it was married into the UP, along with the MP (Hmm, did this happen in SLC?). D&RGW, despite now being mother in law to UP, decided to go back to its former lover, the SP, who was being courted by the AT&SF. The SP and AT&SF soon got hitched, whilst SP & D&RGW still were having thier new fling. AT&SF must have found out as this marriage was soon dissolved and D&RGW and SP finally got together properly, and took her new husbands name. In a strange twist accord to modern day marriages, SP got hitched to the UP.
So does this make D&RGW and WP not only mother and daughter, but sister’s in law? And SP, illigitamet father and brother in law?
Of course, KCS, after being spurned by D&RGW for SP, flabbergasted by the fact she would choose the partner that left them flat so many moons ago, decided to get a mail- order bride from Mexico. Not working out as expected, KCS turned it’s attention to little lassie living in trailer, known to her friends as MidSouth, and they’ve been VERY happy together.
AT&SF, ever upstanding, yet so distraught over the whole SP-D&RGW deal, felt vindicated at the strange, somewhat inbred nature of UP and finally found happiness in the arms of th BN, a much younger railroad, but having a strong and proud lineage.
…Like the sands of t