Grand Trunk Western was still operating passengers trains when Amtrak was formed and acquired Amtrak Stocks as part of their buy-in.
Grand Trunk being a subsidiary of CN which in turn was a Canadian Crown Corporation until privatized in 1995…I guess you can say the Canadian Government was one of the an original owners of Amtrak Stock.
Interesting read…
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Short answer to original question is ‘yes’. A railroad operating in the US - at least before some of the changes (NAFTA etc.) in the 1990s - had to be majority owned by US citizens, and chartered as a US railroad. For example, the short section of the CN mainline running south of Lake of the Woods in Minnesota was incorporated as a separate US railroad (Minnesota & Manitoba…or was it the Manitoba & Minnesota?).
Now of course CN or CP could own 49.99% of a US railroad’s stock and have several percent of stock owned by the US railroad’s board of directors and other executives who basically voted the way their Canadian bosses wanted them to vote…but it still had to technically be majority American ownership.
There also were requirements that say a CN boxcar coming into America, or a CN engine pulling a through train on the DW&P to Duluth, could only stay in the US for so many hours (I think 24 or 36) before being sent back to Canada.
Any truth to a rail line serving a US military base, having to be US owned?
I always assumed it was a myth, but it was a regular claim some years ago at the Railroad.net forums when mergers or line acquisitions into the US by the two big Canadian roads were discussed (even though nobody could ever cite a statute to back it up).
Certainly have been some examples past and present that would seem to suggest that there’s no such mandate. But since these Canadian operations into the US tend to be officially operated by paper subsidiaries registered in the US, I’ve never been certain if my hunch is correct that there’s nothing to that claim.
Some such examples include the D&H that continued to serve Plattsburgh Air Force Base for several years after the CPR purchase before the base closure program shut it down. Or the still in the courts purchase by CNR of the CSX Massena line serving Fort Drum, which if it proceeds will on paper be owned and operated by their Bessemer & Lake Erie subsidiary (It’s not looking good, but they’re still hoping to get the STB mandate to allow potential interchange in the future with the Susie Q and Finger Lakes Railway lifted).
Canadian roads owned a lot of equipment that was designated as international service, identified by reporting marks like CNIS, CPAA, or BCIT. CN also identified international service cabooses by painting the cupolas yellow.
I’m not sure what had to be done to designate equipment for international service, but it probably involved tax or duty payments of some sort.
EDIT: Here’s another discussion on this topic:
Canadian Pacific owned 56% of Soo Line before axquiring full ownership about 1990.
Canadian Pacific merger family tree | Trains Magazine
Jeff
An “Articulated Malcontent”? I’ve never heard of that wheel arrangement. Is it like an Articulated Mastodon? UP had 25 of those
In any event it is better than ‘Articulated Incontent’.
Which in turn is far better than “Articulated Incontinent”…
Seriously though, you’ve added a “d”. I got called that in an argument with a retired railroad manager in the comments on one of Fred Frailey’s blogs a few years ago, and I liked the sound of it so I started using it.
The argument had something to do with whether Hunter Harrison and PSR were good or bad.
Technically / legally speaking, all railroads operating in the U.S. are U.S. railroads. Railroads that are generally thought of as being long gone (like the Soo Line) often still exist at least on paper, as the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian corporation.
MC will remember this far better than I, but ISTR that one of the principal reasons given for why the SPSF merger fell through was substantial foreign (Canadian, Reichmann) ownership of what would have been the merged entity.
As it was, it’s amazing what got looted out of those railroads before the roof caved in. Might have been interested to see how the late '80s and '90s might have played out had those two roads not been ‘done’.
If you have any specifics about ‘looted out’ I would appreciate that info.
I was active with Santa Fe as Manager Real Estate and Contracts between 1983 and 9-15-1990 when I took a buyout.
You’d know far more about it than I would.
The story as I heard it second-hand (while in business school) was that while the merger was pending, many of the ‘real’ assets of both ATSF and SP were transferred away from the ‘railroads’ and this left them both financially weakened as companies when the merger was not approved.
I’d be highly interested to know exactly what was done if that is hooey.
Alabama had the state headquarters requirement for awhile. That ended up having the Atlanta & West PointRR and Western RR of Alabama parts the West Point route of the Georgia group. Then you had SOU RRs Alabama Great Southern from Chattanooga - Biringham - to Mississippi border. Then SOU had New Orleans & NE for SOU in Mississippi, Then SOU had in Lousianna the New Orleans and lower coast. No sure about MS and LA.
How the L&N was set up in Alabama is unknown. ACL had the ABC ( Atlanta - Birmingham & Coast ) in Alabama and some of it in Georgia.