I thought it would be interesting to start a topic on the roads that merged and those that just folded up. As an example take BNSF comprised of the Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Chicago Burlington & Quincy, Spokane Portland & Seattle, St. Louis- San Francisco (Frisco), Colorado & Southern, Ft. Worth & Denver City, and Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe. The above also included some sections of the Milwaukee Road after that road went bankrupt, It would also be interesting to name sections of track that were owned by one road that other railroads had trackage rights to operate upon.
This could also apply to the really old roads that formed roads like the GN and AT&SFin the early years etc.
We could also include RRs of Mexico and Canada and further extend the knowledge for all to gain.
Every single railroad would fit into the answer....often when a railroad disappears remnants from a switch to a whole division might end up on another road's deed whether from trackage rights or interchange or need to serve customers in a given location. Take a look at any railroad...the Erie is a good example....how many hundreds of roads were taken over by them either as purchases or mergers, etc. The former D&H line from Carbondale, PA to Jefferson Jct. near Lanesboro PA was an Erie railroad which the D&H purchased in the mid 50's. The D&H abandoned the line in the 80's and moved to the former DL&W line from Binghamton to Scranton after the merged Erie-Lackawanna disappeared into Conrail. Then the Erie main was picked apart with the Southern Tier LIne going to NS in the CR sale but the line is leased out to the Central NY Ry and operated as part of the NYS&W. This is all a very complicated web of tales and rails which could just be confusing enough to either be very interesting or leading in wrong directions. Good Luck.
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The Milwaukee Road was actually merged into the Soo Line in the early 1980's.
An interesting note is that trackage rights don't necessarily end because of a merger. Today, Canadian Pacific uses BNSF tracks between Minneapolis-St.Paul and Duluth-Superior. The agreement goes back to 1900, when the Northern Pacific purchased the St.Paul and Duluth RR. The Milwaukee initially tried to block the deal, but relented when they were granted trackage rights over the StP&D for freight trains.
NP became part of BN, then BNSF; the Milwaukee became part of the Soo Line and then Canadian Pacific, but the trackage rights continued...even though the old St.P&D / NP line was abandoned or sold off years ago, BNSF uses the old GN line so that's where the CP trains run too.
All present day railroads are the results of myriad of acquisitions and mergers of lines, line segments, corporate identities and bankruptcy sales that coalesced the thousands of chartered railroad companies that 'caught the fever' of the 19th & early 20th Centuries 'railroad boom' - which was total analogous to the recently past 'dot com boom'.
Came across a document a number of years ago that detailed at least 400 predecessor companies each that formed the Chessie System Railroads and the Seaboard System Lines.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Since there are so many merged lines lets say only those in the last fifty years instead of going all of the way back into the early 1900's or earlier. Or lets just make it from WW II .
This can also include the trucking and airline industry. Since this is railroading I'll stay on track. While many railfans morn the passing of their favorite railroad, be it a large line or even a shortline, more so is the impact that mergers and trackage rights have had on the communities they serve. Many towns have been left without reliable rail service due to mergers and trackage rights. They saved railroads the cost of maintenence on their route but much of this track served towns that also lost rail service when the railroad abandoned their line in favor of that of another road.
So the shippers were left without a rail outlet and forced to use the motor carriers with many railroads picking up on the infamous statement in the days of the robber barons including NYC's Vanderbilt with "The publc be damned" attitude. What made the matter worse was that the idiots who ran the ICC approved most with no regard to community or shipper alike! Florida is a prime example. Check the map at the time of the formation of the Seaboard Coast Line in 1967 to today's CSX.
Item: Southern Railway demanded entrance to Tampa as a condition to the approval of the merger talks between ACL and SAL that started in the early 60s. The ICC regected Southern's demand thus creating a virtual monoply in the state of Florida with the exception of the Flordia East Coast route along the Atlantic seaboard. Hundreds of towns in the Sunshine State have been left with no other form of transportation than the motor carriers and are forced to pay higher unfair freight rates since there is no competition thanks to the blunders of the federal governments mismanaged ICC of years past.
So with the famous Perry Cutoff that the ACL built in the 1920s to cut time off of freight from the mid-west and far west to Tampa Bay and Gulf coast destinations gone, trains must now travel a longer distance to reach this area which even resulted in some businesses, who were served by rail, to make the change to motor carrier despite a higher freight rate due to the increased time it took for them to receive or ship out their products. The "S" in CSX certainly doesn't stand for Service, not in Florida anyway!
Another case is when the Katy abandoned the BM&E in the Oklahoma panhandle in the mid-1970s. Tons of wheat laid on the ground and decayed because trucks couldn't provide the service that the railroad had. Instead of upgrading the line, Katy had neglected it to the point only outdated 40 ft. boxcars could run on the line instead of providing the wheat growers with modern jumbo hoppers by the dawn of the 70s.
The BM&E was a marginal branchline in the M-K-T camp and sadly predated Farmrail. It should still be considered a railroad to rise from the ashes to provide farmers with low coast dependable rail service at compeditive rates which they lost when Katy shut the line down. This has been witnessed all across the US and it's never too late, not even in the Sooner State, to bring back the railroad.
Don't forget too that the big mergers that created duplicate mainlines and branchlines often resulted in those lines being "spun off" to new small to medium sized railroads. After the BN merger, BN decided to go with the old GN mainline thru Montana, and sold off most of the NP mainline to the new Montana Rail Link. As NP veteran / historian Warren McGee pointed out, GN may have had the more direct mainline, but NP's line had many more on-line customers, so Montana Rail Link ended having many more carloadings within Montana than BN.
ALL:
I am familiar with the present trackage right agreements between the Twin Cities to Superior, Wisconsin. The BN, now BNSF granted trackage rights to the UP (X-CNW) and CP (former MILW) to operate with an overhead trackage rights agreement. The former CNW and SOO use the BNSF's Hinckley Subdivision from Coon Creek to Superior. This makes the BNSF a better maintained and utilized railroad because the UP and CP pay for part of the maintenance of that line. All of the Hinckley Subdivison, part of the Staples Subdivision, all of the St. Paul Subdivision, and all of the Midway Subdivison are "joint" trackage. All the timerolls for the MTCE of Way have "J" codes meaning that a percentage of the labor to maintain the various portions of the BNSF will be charged to the UP, CP, or other railroad depending on the territory that a section crew or signal maintainer is working on a particular day or part of a day.
I originated timerolls for the Track Department in the Twin Cities for five years and entered the time into the computer for about six months.
The term "overhead trackage rights" means that the CP or UP can operate their trains with their own crews but cannot pickup or drop off cars on the Hinckley Sub industries, but the may setout and pickup bad orders from their trains.
If anyone has questions, just call me between 10AM and 8PM central time.
Ed Burns
763-2334-9306
Retired NP-BN-BNSF and an ATCS host
BN Blunders: Selling off the NP line through Montana; Ripping up the SP&S out of Spokane: Selling off NP's Stampede Pass (only to buy it back). Abandoning the MILW Pacific Extention after purchasing it. Many towns have been left without dependable rail service and routing Amtrak over MILW would still have provided travellers with scenic beauty (with easy access to both Glacier and Yellowstone Park) and giving the GN line the highball to move freight without having to worry about passenger train scheduling.
Government Blunder, WWI: Choking the Colorado Midland with freight when new owner A.E. Carlton was busy rebuilding the railroad resulting in the USRA shutting the line completely down instead of routing only priority war material over the CM which interchanged with the Rock Island at Colorado Springs for fast freight forwarding to eastern ports. I still contend that rival D&RG "paid off" USRA to eliminate the Midland as a compediter. Carlton had plans to extend the CM to Salt Lake City.
Trinity:
You are correct about the BN of the 1980's, however a number of railroads sold off lines that they consider "excess" or single tracked double track segments only to regret it later.
The BN sold part of the Stampede Pass line to the Washington Central for $3 million, only to buy it back for $3 million. Rob Krebs was at Northtown one day and I asked him about and all he replied is that a previous administration sold the line. That was his way of saying that he did not do it. Rollie Roskilly was a Northtown Roadmaster in the late 1980's and was familiar with the former SPS from Spokane to Pasco. He said it was a better grade than the NP line, but it had too many bridges to maintain and that's why it was taken up.
The Montana Rail Link was a great blunder for the BN. Dennis Washington (of the MRL) has the best haulage agreement in the industry. When a BN/BNSF train hits the switch at Jones Junction they are on MRL property, Ditto for the Great Falls line. The MRL is guaranteed a payment from the BNSF even though they might not run trains.
From the safety of the 21st Century railroad boom times we can look back at the 70's & 80's and identify 'mistakes' that we now believe were mistakes - however, those line decisions were made in the reallity and percieved future of railroads at that point in time. At that point in time, railroads were percieved to be a industry that was in decline and had not possibility of forstalling the inevitable. Management of the period made their decisions to conserve what money they could by 'right sizing' their properties to lines that had business to support the investment in the line and return a level of operating profit to the carrier.
What we are looking at today, is not the world the rail leaders were looking at in the 70's & 80's.
TRBB, I was not familiar with Southern wanting to get rights over SCL to Tampa, but I agree it would have been nice to see competition in west Florida.
I am more familiar with Colorado, and am a fan of both CM and D&RGW. While it was sad to see the CM die young, it only speeded-up the inevitable. By the time of their demise, the Rio Grande was also in receivership, from which they did not emerge for several years. If the CM had not gone under, either they both would have gone under, or merged. There was just not enough business for both (or all three,if you include D&SL) in the 20th century.
At the time Southern was demanding a line into Tampa, Frisco made a bid for the Central of Georgia. ICC rejected both but Southern got the CG which shared a lot of territory with Southern. In retrospect, customers would have been better served probably had Southern gained the route to Tampa and Frisco's adding the CG to their camp. True, this is sheer speculation on my part, but I still feel that the ICC made some major blunders which hurt shippers more than the railroads.
Years after the CM was abandoned, A.E. Carlton was asked what he regretted most looking back on his life and he said scrapping the CM was a major mistake. The Rock Island built to Colorado Springs to gain the freight coming off the CM. Combined, they had a pretty good route to Kansas City and other points east. With both the D&SL and CM considering to build to Salt Lake, do you think they might had combined efforts and built Carlton's proposed Utah Midland together?
The ghost of the CM still "lives" in a few places where the Grande (now UP) still operate. Through Glenwood Canyon, the D&RGW having relaid track on the old CM right of way when I-80 was built through the area and of course from Newcastle to Grand Junction, the old jointly operated D&RG/CM Rio Grande Junction Ry.
In my mind's eye I like to contend that Carlton rebuilt the CM and even hung wire. Can't you see big black boxcab electrics in the Colorado Rockies a la Milwaukee Road moving tonnage at Hell Gate? A nice dream perhaps or great project for a model railroad. A real good read is Will Bagley's Always a Cowboy-Judge Wilson McCarthy and the Rescue of the Denver & Rio Grande Western. Utah State University Press 2008.
I understand that the SP&S route was much more susceptible to great problems in wet weather that the NP route was. How much did this matter actually add to the decision to abandon it? What became of the land after it was abandoned?
Johnny
The SP&S had very narrow cuts, which had a tendency to drop rocks on the tracks when it rained. Washington State purchased the ROW, and it is now sort of a trail, with the viaducts closed off.
I have a couple of questions concerning trackage rights between Duluth and the Twin Cities in the early 1980's. I believe that Soo Line abandoned its trackage from the Twin Cities to Duluth before it took over the Milwaukee in 1985. Did Soo Line operate on trackage rights on the BN's ex-GN line before it acquired the Milwaukee? The Milwaukee always used the trackage rights it had on the NP Skally Line even after the creation of BN in 1970's. Milwaukee Road trains were operated from Pig's Eye yard in St Paul and were the reason the Skally Line stayed open as long as it did. BN ran only locals on the Skally Line. Milwaukke Road would have had to run via Northtown to access the ex-GN. This is what CP does now.
ARICAT:
From my experience as Roadmaster's Clerk at Northtown for five years from 1986-1990, I have the following information:
Yes the MILW had trackage rights over the NP Skally line from St. Paul to Duluth. That changed to the former GN (Hinckley Sub) when parts of the Skally were removed in 1987. The SOO and CNW (Omaha) abandoned their tracks from St. Paul to Superior and signed an agreement with the BN to use the Hinckley Sub from St. Paul to Superior. Their respective crews had be qualified (that is become to familiar with the Hinckley Sub) before the BN would allow then to operate trains themselves.
As information, the SOO/CP has detour rights over the Staples Sub from the SOO/CP connection in Detroit Lakes, MN to Northtown. The BNSF would have to furnish a pilot for that type of a move. I don't know if this would be an engineer or conductor.
763-234-9306 10AM-8PM CT
1oldgoat:
A slight correction in that the GN and UP had trackage rights on the NP from Seattle to Vancouver, WA and on the SPS from Vancouver, WA to Portland.
The former NP between Northtown and St. Cloud was a "joint" railroad with the GN in an agreement from 1880 to 1970. The NP owned and served the industries off the westbound main track while the GN owned and served the industries off the eastbound main track. The agents at Anoka and Elk River were NP men and had two sets of books, one GN and one NP. They waybilled cars as to their outbound road. The NP dispatched and maintained both tracks.
Presently, the UP has trackage rights from St. Paul to Coon Creek (and Superior) and from Minneapolis to Lyndale Junction (on the Wayzata Sub). Their "MIR" (for Minneapolis Industrial Railroad) then operated about two miles from Lyndale Junctdion to MW Junction (Minnesota Western Railroad).
The TCW operates from Cedar Lake Junction (also on the Wayzata Sub) to the Minnesota Commercial Railroad.
The CP operates from St. Paul to Northtown (and Superior).
As further information the trackage from Division Street, St. Paul to St. Croix Tower is joint trackage, with the BNSF (former CBQ) and the CP (former MILW).
All the above are on ATCS screens.
If you have any questions, please call me at 763-234-9306 10AM to 8PM CT
Happily retired NP-BN-BNSF. Just think, I got paid to watch trains!
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