I heard some years ago that one of the reasons that Burlington Northern and Santa Fe merged was because they didn’t want Canadian National to take over either one of them. Any truth to this or just another rumour to be ignored?
It was my understanding years ago that ATSF figured they were peaked, business wise, and went looking for a partner so they could continue growth. They found that partner in BN.
That would be a rumour to be ignored. During the early 1990s CN was a government owned bloated whale heavily in dept. If you have the November 2002 Trains, Tom Murray’s article is worth reading.
There was a takeover battle for ATSF, where a Canadian company (Olympia & York?) played the White Knight, and ended up as ATSF’s largest shareholder for a time.
ATSF had been seeking a merger partner for several years. The feds wouldn’t allow the merger with SP citing lack of cometition in the southwest if approved. BN was the next best choice. CN had nothing to do with it. Unfortunately railroading as a hobby attracts a lot of dysfunctional people who know everything and nothing.
We might be dysfunctional, but generally we have a good time.
ed
Lest you forget - ATSF was fighting being leveraged under by Sam Zell & others following Shouldn’t Paint So Fast’s debacle. It was trying to buy its stock back to control its own fate. UP and BN were competitively trying to outbid each other to buy ATSF by majority stock ownership. BN outbid UP in the stockholder’s opinion in the end.