Apparently not. On June 28, Canadian Pacific and KCS are scheduled to file merger plans with the Surface Transportation Board (STB), projecting a railroad that will be the first to have significant operations in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. It’s expected the CP-KCS merger will successfully negotiate all the usual regulatory minefields and win approval. With that, the KCS as we’ve known it will disappear.
It would be easy to lament this development, but equally hard to deny the advantages, at least from a wide industry perspective. Meanwhile, the proposed merger offers a chance to look back on some interesting moments in KCS history. Over the past few decades, the route of “Streamlined Hospitality” has frequently made news disproportionate to its size. For example:
• A monster of a Texas type: Although relatively unheralded in the history books, KCS’s huge J-class 2-10-4 steam locomotives of 1937 were among the finest products ever to come out of Lima Locomotive Works. They were the first U.S. engines with staybolt-fastened boilers to push pressure to 310 psi (later reduced to 300), a reservoir of power necessary for assignments on the rugged 432-mile Northern Division between Kansas City and De Queen, Ark., where the big engines regularly lugged 1,800 tons up a 1.8 percent ruling grade. The 900-class machines had huge boilers (painted green!), delivering an extraordinary 93,300 lbs. of tractive force to 70-inch drivers.
KCS fielded only 10 of these beasts, but they made a strong impression on Trains Editor David P. Morgan, who concluded “these 900s explain much about the progress made in steam power design during the 1930s.” Interestingly, half the engines (900–904) burned oil, the other half (905–909) used coal. An attempt by KCS to keep both kinds of online customers happy?
Suddenly KCS’s blindingly white hood units symbolized relative prosperity. “Not even Government-funded Conrail, when it came along three years later, could equal in proportion what Kansas City Southern accomplished after 1973,” wrote Fred W. Frailey. Not quite Lazarus, perhaps, but close.
All this led President William Deramus III to loudly declare (in a memorable November 1967 Trains headline), “We have no intention of going out of the passenger business.” Yet it took only three more issues of the magazine for Deramus to reverse himself. In February 1968, in a short piece headlined “Sorry About That,” Trains reported that news that KCS had filed with the ICC to dump all its passenger trains after losing RPO contracts. It was a good ride while it lasted.
Sometime a few months from now, the STB is likely to bless Canadian Pacific’s embrace of KCS and another famous flag will fall. In 2007, historian George H. Drury wrote, “The Kansas City Southern had (and has) a streak of unconventionality.” So true, George. Maybe that’s what we’ll miss the most.
Login, or register today to interact in our online community, comment on articles, receive our newsletter, manage your account online and more!
Get the Classic Trains twice-monthly newsletter