Mergers-Just for fun!!

[Anonymous]

Never gets eaten up by the UP? (izzn't that the ultimate fate of all North American RR's? =)..Yeah I think you are dreaming...but that's what this thread is all about...

I never realized what a cool RR CNW was until perusing the recent mentions of it in Trains magazine, having only seen their boxcars for years with the odd little canted logo.

But there is something compelling about the paintjobs they put on their motive power, can't quite put my finger on it, it's relatibely plain, yet has uncommon appeal..

The "mix" you mention sounds interesting, another might be the old Milwaukee combined with Erie-Lackawanna, call it the "throw away" transcon.

But, it seems like I read SOMEWHERE that the Milwaukee main to "points far west" was built on the excessive cheap (anyone with details to confirm or deny, feel free to pipe right in) and the roadbed was not all it should have been, ties laid right into the dirt, etc, that made the decision to pull up the rails less a regrettable one than it seems today, in retrospect.

That's the opinion I seem to have absorbed from some source anyway, could be entirely wrong, not sure.

(make an interesting theme for a "classic trains" huh? "Fallen right of whys-what are they NOW?"..=) ~and here we have a trailbike park in Montana, 8 feet wide X 374 miles long~ etc?

[mnwestern]

Taking my CNW/Milw. merger further, perhaps CNW would then never have taken over first M&StL and later Chicago Great Western. Maybe they would have merged, creating a strong Midwest granger railroad that perhaps would have been attractive to someone line the Soo Line as a way to K.C., Iowa, etc.
Then, taking the dominoes even further, what if a CNW/Milw. merger eliminated CNW's later sale of its Rapid City line to DM&E, or retention Milw.'s line to Rapid City and instead of DM&E proposing to build into the Powder River Basin coal fields, CNW/Milw. extended their Rapid City lines there instead, thus never having to partner with UP on coal movements. Maybe that merged railroad never gets eaten by UP and still today tries to provide a western alternative to UP/BNSF.
Wow, now we are really dreaming, right?

[mnwestern]

I wonder what a CNW/Milw. Rd. merger would have looked like if it had taken place in the late 1950s or into the 1960s before Milw. had cut off its Lines West. CNW would have gained its own route to the West Coast, and perhaps later it would have been able to run a line into the Wyoming coal fields from the north off of the West Coast line in western South Dakota or eastern Montana.
Many of the same redundant lines in the Midwest would have gotten axed anyway, but with the coal revenues and West Coast line for growing intermodal, more of those might have last long enough to have been spun off in the 1980s as short lines or regionals. Many of them got cut before that era started.

[Anonymous]

Had the ICC acted sooner on the UP/Rock Island merger, something along these lines might have occurred. By the time they approved the merger, with SP getting the Rock's southern lines, it was too late. Just think what we could've seen had the Staggers Act been adopted 20 years sooner.

[Anonymous]

I thought KCS being in the mix with CN and IC would have happened soon after the CN/IC merger. I had this notion that perhaps CN was looking to create an all rail route from Canada to Mexico of its own in order to compete with trucks.

[Anonymous]

A lot of great flags fell in the 90's sad really, I remember as a boy being enthralled reading all the obscure box cars

[Anonymous]

Illinois Central(pre CN) and KCS(Texas Mexican,TFM) would have been a logical merger even in the nineties.

[Anonymous]

>>Southern and MoPac.
I like it!!

[Anonymous]

I suppose that one would be OK, but I've never been a big PRR fan, although I realize that many get all starry eyed and swoon at the very mention of the Pennsey.

I just don't see much romance in being "biggest bad guy" (I'm not a big UP guy either).

Don't get me wrong...I respect your right to make a choice, and the choice you made would no doubt have survived longer than the ill fated merger of the penn and the central.

My cataloged view of mergers pretty much makes the Penn-Central catastrophe out to be the definitive example of merger failed. I would be reluctant to include either one in my "dream team" for that reason, but that is just me.

I'll grant you one thing, you are brave ;-)

[edbenton]

How about the ATSF and the PRR in the 50's 56 hours to LA from New York then they buy the N&W for fun talk about a dream merger

[Anonymous]

Southern and MoPac. Two very profitable lines in the 1970's. Would have been a compatable alliance, management styles were similar. Both properties were in excellent condition. Operating in the booming sunbelt and southwest areas, where traffic growth was steady. The resulting franchise would be a stockholder's dream. Could have been called Sunbelt Rail System.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I just saw while reading Plowden's latest release of "spans across america" That Gould finally made it to the east coast.

I had always thought that hope had been frustrated in the didding wars instigated by the Nickle Plate between he and Vanderbilt.

Guess it's difficult to keep a determined "hard head" down... for long anyway.

The NY, Chi, & StL / Lackawanna merger you mention sounds interesting, but of course White was a very behind the scenes wheeler dealer for the several interests he represented.

It's tough for me to envision how the old "Lackawanna" route would have keyed into the Nickle Plate, mostly because what familiarity I have with Lackawanna is "Erie-Lackawanna", and where those two distinguish, I have no clue....got a link to a map?..=)

[Anonymous]

Lackawanna + Nickel Plate. merger date: 1890-1958, preferably 1930-47. Superpower fast freight NY-Chi. Jay Gould's expansion of DL&W to Buffalo was superfluous in the long run without a merger partner, and NKP did attempt this in 1947, only to be rebuffed by DL&W over terms. Phoebe Snow should have surrendered under any terms. Drawback: would have ruined Lehigh Valley. Solution: break up LV _and_ RDG for good measure. PRR gets Harrisburg-Oak Island route. B&O retains RDG-CNJ access to NY harbor, NYC gets back door anthracite/Philadelphia access via Catwissa. In addition, let's give Lackawanna-NKP access to Philly by granting LV Wilkes-Barre to Philly line. Fantasy sweetener: State of New Jersey agrees to underwrite commuter service.

[Anonymous]

Well, that's understandable, how much character IS there in a paint job with the letters "CSX", or "BNSF"? It's just mindnumbingly dull.

Not all that many years ago, as a kid, I used to marvel at the decorum used by the many lines, as they whizzed by..the fallen flags have character.

I remember the great northern "Mountain Goat" and probably because of *that* one, could NEVER figure out what the devil was on C&0's logo, I thought it was a poorly done abstract of a pine tree, by a lake, with a mood rising around a hill crest...for years!! there were no C&O passenger trains in my region,...so the sleeping kitten...never entered my imagination...still, it seems out of place on a box car, but thats a separate issue...=)

[Anonymous]

Okay.....Virginian & Ohio/Alleghany Midland/Virginia Midland/Ohio Southern(the freelanced one)/South Ridge Lines/Missouri,Kansas & Quincy/Utah Belt
"You're going to need a bigger basement".

PS. note how many of the above are now scale model fallen flags!

[Anonymous]

They all sound rather good...

[Anonymous]

>>So some trackage rights agreements would have to be secured between Elkorn City, Ky and Cincinnati over the C&O.
OK, good point...or maybe build north to the Pennsy tracks running east out of Cinncinati?

[Anonymous]

Rick,
Thanks for the compliment, but there's one slight snag with inclusion of the Clinchfield. It connected with neither the Virginian or the NYC. I believe its northern connection was almost exclusively the C&O and maybe the Interstate RR. So some trackage rights agreements would have to be secured between Elkorn City, Ky and Cincinnati over the C&O.

Also with the Clinchfield, we probably should throw the Charleston and Western Carolina into the mix as well. The C&WC, like the Clinchfield, was a stepchild of the ACL and was the Clinchfield's primary southern connection. The C&WC would give direct connections to the SAL, ACL, G&F, GA RR and CofG for traffic moving between the midwest and the south.

[Anonymous]

Let's just demerge some things and start over. How about four transcontinantals based on "tiers". To the north we would have the Great Northern, part of the CBQ (along the Mississippi), and the NYC. In the middle we could have the Union Pacific, CNW, and the Pennsy. Just alittle further south, the Santa Fe, CBQ, and the Chessie System. And to the far south, Southern Pacific, and the Family Lines.

[Anonymous]

Those are two fine roads, but (just IMHO) *that* wouldn't open up any significantly new cash flows to offset Milw 's crushing debt...maybe if you kicked in "Cotton Belt", or found a creative way to link in G,M,& O, then I'd go for it. Give the midwestern grain two ports to shoot for, etc

[Anonymous]

OK, might be an interesting comb...specifically, what advantages did you have in mind for such a combo?

[Anonymous]

That's a good creative combo,... whynot throw Clinchfield in with it?

[CShaveRR]

Don't think they didn't try that...at least a couple of times. CNW thought they had it last time, but it was awarded to Soo instead. CNW had alpha codes for MILW origins/destinations all ready to go.
And right after the rejection is when former CNW CEO Wolfe decided that it was going to get out of northern Wisconsin.

[eolafan]

Milwaukee Road and CNW combined to form a true granger road!

[UPTRAIN]

Not Mergers I wish WOULD happen but SHOULD'NT happen. Such as UP/MP/ (Don't forget WP was in $$$ troble). MP had a nice paint scheme and it was my first employer you know what they say ''You NEVER forget your fist love''.Or BNSF/BN they both had nice paint shemes. But I guess nothing stays the same I still work for UP in Poplar Bluff, MO. Nice Discussion.

[Anonymous]

How about going back in time again for these cominations: MILW/NP, CB&Q plus GN, and CNW plus ICG? ? ?
Just some crazy ideas...

[Anonymous]

Well lets try a NP/Soo/GTW on for size?

[Anonymous]

How about New York Central+Virginian? This would've given NYC much more access to the West Virgina coalfields, putting it into an excellent position to compete with the N&W+NKP+Wabash and the C&O+B&O in coal shipments to the Midwest...and possibly negating the disasterous merger with the Pennsy. It also would've allowed the NYC direct access to such southeastern railroads as the ACL & SAL. For the Virginian, merger with NYC, would've likely created more overhead bridge traffic, allowing it to diversify its traffic base away from primarily coal. Lastly, it would've preserved the Mullens-Roanoke electricfication, allowing continuation of a cleaner and far more efficient form of motive power (but that's another topic!)

[Anonymous]

I don't suppose you have based any of this on presidential hopeful Lyndon Laroche's plan to restore economic vitality to the USA by building a "Land Bridge" from Key west to Portugal--THE LONG WAY via the aleutian islands???? =)

And just who would PAY for this mega project?

Why the robberbarron Republicans who have prospered so under the current econo-nazi administration....of course..=)