Mergers Before the "Modern Era".

[oldline1]

Maybe the Virginian into the N&W.

 

[wjstix]

It seems like for the decades right before and right after WW2 is really the era of the failed merger - attempts were made, but ICC or whoever struck them down. GN-NP-CB&Q-SP&S tried to merge I think 4-5 times over about a 60 year period before the BN merger finally was OK'd.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

W&LE was leased by NKP in 1949.  It was originally planned as a corporate merger of the two roads but there were NKP shareholders who were opposed to the dilution of their interest in the surviving corporation so they forced the lease.

[Overmod]

I'd be willing to bet that it's related to advances (or regressions, if you will) in finance or financial law.  Most of the 'action' in the 19th Century was with leases, rather than mergers: those locked up the use of the property for up to 999 years, but didn't involve loss of control by the 'leasing' road.  When competing properties get too big, or too powerful, or too expensively financed to lease, then you get mergers rather than acquisitions.

See how corporations were formed in states that were friendly to them over the years.  At one time, at the turn of the 20th Century, the haven was New Jersey; then the mantle passed to Delaware; now it's offshore and out of country (think CN in railroads, and Tim Horton's in hamburgers).

[BigJim]

Think about all of the locomotive shops that merged into ALCO!

[rcdrye]

GM&N & M&O formed the GM&O in 1940.

[SD70Dude]

Shock Control

Careful how you use that word "modern!"

I agree, isn't this the Classic forum!?

Would CP formally merging the Kettle Valley Railway into itself during the 1930s count?

Or the long, drawn out saga (1915 to 1923) that saw Canadian National formed from the bankrupt ashes of Canadian Northern, Grand Trunk and so many others?

[Shock Control]

Careful how you use that word "modern!"

[Backshop]

Overmod

Growing up in the '60s, I never heard the Hocking Valley referred to as other than merged into C&O.

 

That's because it was merged in 1910.

[Erik_Mag]

Gulf. Mobile & Northern merged with the Mobile & Ohio somewhere around 1930 to form the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio. El Paso & Southwestern merged with the SP in 1924.

[Overmod]

Growing up in the '60s, I never heard the Hocking Valley referred to as other than merged into C&O.

[Backshop]

Many of those were "paper" or "semi-paper" subsidiaries.  I was more referencing independent, stand-alone roads.

[rcdrye]

daveklepper

Nashv i lle, Chattanooga & St. Louis into the Louisville and Nashville

Big Four and Michigan Cenrtral into the New York Central

 

By some, the NC&StL/L&N merger marks the beginning of the modern merger movement. 

The Big Four and MC were operationally controlled (and about 97% owned) by New York Central, which only merged the Boston & Albany in 1962. Corporate existence bot ended with the Penn Central merger, which cleaned up a bunch of smaller and larger NYC subsidiaries.

SP finally merged in the Central Pacific in 1957.  The T&NO (and some T&NO properties like the Houston & Texas Central) were merged in around 1963 after Texas repealed its law requiring railroads operating in Texas to have headquarters there. 

The 1960 merger of the Minneapolis St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie  with its leased (since 1909) partner Wisconsin Central and Canadian Pacific-owned cousin Duluth South Shore & Atlantic resulted in the Soo Line, now firmly part of CP.

[daveklepper]

Nashv i lle, Chattanooga & St. Louis into the Louisville and Nashville

Big Four and Michigan Cenrtral into the New York Central

[MidlandMike]

CNE and NY&NE into the New Haven.  West Shore into the NYC.  Central Pacific, NCO, C&C, and EP&SW into the SP.  T&P/MP. 

[Backshop]

Everyone is familiar with the mergers of the "modern era", which is usually acknowledged as when the Erie and DL&W merged in 1960. Most are also aware of the Pere Marquette and NC&STL, since they were also in the diesel era.  Yet, there are a few larger railroads that made it into the 1920s and beyond but much isn't written about them.  In this group are the Hocking Valley, Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh and the Wheeling and Lake Erie. Also included could be the Denver and Salt Lake. Are there any others that you can think of?