CP+NS merger: Where would the new headquarters be? Here’s our best guesses

When Canadian Pacific announced that it was interested in acquiring Norfolk Southern, I wondered where such a combined company would be located. It’s a good question to ask. The two outfits are on opposite sides of the continent, and they are in two different countries. But everybody has to be somewhere, so if this combination goes through, they’ll have to land here or there.

By tradition, the victor usually keeps its headquarters and shuts down the offices of the vanquished. That gives a plus to Calgary. Canada also offers a lower corporate tax rate (26 percent compared to 39 percent in the U.S., according to the Tax Foundation) so that might give it an advantage.

I’m assuming neither one would want to remain in their current locations. They’re just too many miles apart. NS is in downtown Norfolk, a city that is less important to the company today than it was in 1982 when Norfolk & Western and Southern merged. It’s the location of the big coal export facility at Lamberts Point, but coal is anything but steady any more. Calgary, where CP offices are located next to the yard there, is on the edge of the Rockies in a setting not unlike Denver, but I don’t get the sense that it is that important of a location either. Besides, a new spot is a real indication that the new firm is a brand new entity, no more beholden to one bunch or the other.

The most logical place, in the center of the country, is a place both railroads would just as soon avoid in an operational sense: Chicago. Still, it is tempting to site a headquarters there. It’s the transportation center of North America. Both CP and NS go there. Major suppliers are located there. Other Fortune 500 companies, such as Boeing, have moved there, and ConAgra recently announced it is moving there from Omaha. Of course, if CP+NS doesn’t want to be in Chicago, there are two other places where they connect: Buffalo, N.Y., and Kansas City, Mo.

I’ve never been to Buffalo, but Associate Editor Steve Sweeney used to live nearby, and he says that Buffalo would welcome a major corporate headquarters. “They’d offer them land and everything,” Steve said. “They would love to have a big company.”

No offense to Buffalo, but I don’t see it happening. Might as well stay in Calgary and freeze.

I’ve been to Kansas City, and it’s right in the middle of the country. Other than the occasional tornado, it’s a great city with nice amenities and plenty of good barbecue (Jack Stack BBQ in the Milwaukee Road freight house downtown is the best!). It’s the second biggest railroad hub in terms of tonnage, right behind Chicago. Besides, BBQ beats Buffalo chicken wings any day, right?

The two companies could also go somewhere else. I figure the Canadians could suggest Montreal, a livable city that I visited a couple of years ago that is not that far from the U.S. border. The Americans could suggest something like Atlanta or Charlotte, both livable southern cities that are airline hubs with direct flights to doggone near everywhere on the continent. NS already has most of its operating folks in Atlanta so why not bring the family together down south. And then there’s Washington, D.C., where the Surface Transportation Board is located, and presumably, the regulators that would approve or deny a combination.

So stand by and we’ll all speculate where it could land if it goes through.