Which pairing of the 2 big East & 2 big West RR's play best together?
UP + CSX; UP + NS; BNSF + CSX; or BNSF + NS?
There are other possiblities too if you include CN and CP.
Depends upon traffic direction, origination, termination...each would dictate a different scenerio. Plus the commodity would be a deteminating factor.
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Eastern & Western carriers have been working together for the past decade to optimize routings between the carriers for the benefit of all parties concerned.
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Ulrich There are other possiblities too if you include CN and CP.
Neither CN or CP reaches the Atlantic coast through the US, although both reach the mid-Atlantic states via a longer route.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
While salt water does'nt actually lap at the rails of either road the sea breeze certainly reaches them along the US Atlantic Seaboard. CP gets to Allentown and Harrisburg, PA, Bronx and Long Island, NY, In effect with run through serivces NS carries CN trains into the same termnals. But as far as getting to New London and Portland anymore, no.
Still pretty circuitous, as both routes need to take a train through Ontario and then back into the US.
MarknLisa Which pairing of the 2 big East & 2 big West RR's play best together? UP + CSX; UP + NS; BNSF + CSX; or BNSF + NS?
While it doesn't exactly answer the original question, I will say that CN and NS seem to have a fairly good relationship. The "MidAmerican Corridor" initiative comes to mind and there are several trackage rights agreements with the NS operating over CN track along the old Illinois Central in addition to some other areas. Also I know they've teamed up with some initiatives for paper commodities and I think auto related traffic too. I've even seen a couple coil car with CN flatcars and NS covers!
And they're kind of similar railroads too. Up until recently when NS purchased some big AC power, NS and CN were the only Class 1 RR's left with entire rosters of strictly DC power.
I think a CN/NS merger is a possibility in the future. NS would fit nicely into the CN system, and according to my calculations, a combined NS/CN system would have a little over 23,500 miles of track owned in the U.S, compared to Union Pacific's current 28,300 plus owned and BNSF's 24,200 plus owned. Thats as much as I'll say for now...I don't want hijack this thread too bad...
Just some thoughts.
The rail routes that exist do so because there is sufficient traffic to keep them profitable...what appears circuitous may be the exact routing necessary for the traffic the route handles. Just because our thought processes prize East-West and North-South direct routings doesn't mean that what we perceive as a needed routing is in fact needed. Remember, to get to today's profitable routings, multiple competing routes have been abandoned, as the traffic levels could not keep all routes profitable...without profit, there is no need or real justification for the route.
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